by Susan Butler
Edwin joined the family when he could, and then his favorite pursuit was to take Amelia and Muriel lake fishing for bass, pickerel, and sunfish. It was a seemingly happy time for Edwin, too, who kept writing letters as he traveled about the country. One letter to Muriel, dated August 1909 on “official” Rock Island Line stationery possibly written while in his private railroad car, certainly written when he was in an expansive frame of mind, survives. “Dear Madam: I have your claim for $5.00 for having been bitten by a mosquito on our train. Before we can pay the same, we would, at least, like to know how big a bite the mosquito took and we would like to see the mosquito.”
In 1908 Edwin was offered and accepted a job as a claims agent with the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Line (commonly known as the Rock Island), where Amy’s brother Carl also worked, but it was contingent on moving to Des Moines, Iowa. Moving would mean changes for all of them, particularly Amelia because for her it would be the end of living with her grandparents, the end of living in a town where she knew everybody and everybody knew her, the end of College Preparatory School, and separation from her friends.
It was difficult for Amelia Otis as well. She missed her “Millie” and began to fill in the lonely hours with visits from her other relations; Orpha Tonsing, particularly, noticed that after “Millie” Earhart left, invitations to dine with Millie Otis in the state dining room came with greater frequency.
That last Christmas at North Terrace with her grandparents was ringed with sweet nostalgia for Amelia. All the wonderful presents and the excitement and the sense of place that comes with being part of a close, loving circle of friends and relatives would all be gone within a few years. From a childhood spent with caring parents and grandparents, in comfort, surrounded by friends, all wants fulfilled, they would be plunged into the dismal ranks of broken homes and poverty. Des Moines marked the beginning of the end of Amelia’s childhood.
The first house they lived in, in Des Moines turned out to be just the first of many; Amy, steady mother that she was, blunted the blows, but the fact was that in the four years they were in Des Moines, they lived in four houses. They started out at 1443 Eighth Street in 1909, then moved down the street to 1530 Eighth Street in 1910, to 4201 University Avenue in 1911, and finally to fashionable Cottage Grove in 1912. Each was nicer than the last—they moved up as Edwin’s financial situation improved—but the constant movement was unsettling.
Edwin in those first years in Des Moines was still, when he was around, a wonderful father. On Saturday afternoons he would organize the neighborhood children into a game of cowboys and Indians, with himself as Chief Indian. Amelia loved those games and would never forget how once her father had become so excited that he had even bruised himself. “He bore on his nose the marks of one raid, after some chasee, during the heat of the battle, had tried to push shut the sliding door to the hayloft just as the Chief Indian had poked his head through the opening.”
Other times Edwin took his girls fishing, as he had in Worthington, only now they caught perch and catfish in the Des Moines River.
Within a year Edwin was in charge of the Rock Island claims department, and as a result there came “an end to the pinchpenny days of waiting for small legal fees to be paid.”
Because of the nature of Edwin’s work, traveling by railroad had always been a free perk for the Earhart family. As a result, as Amelia remembered fondly, she never paid for a train ticket until she was sixteen and looked forward to “the joyful interruptions” when Edwin “used to pack the family off when he made a trip of any consequence”—at least once taking them as far as California. For now that he was more important, Edwin rated the use of a private railway car equipped with its own kitchen, dining facilities, and Tokimo, a “superb” Japanese majordomo. It was truly a mark of privilege. “Bring the girls and Sadie [the maid] and meet me at ... ,” he would wire Amy. The Ozarks were one part of the country they saw in such luxury. Since Edwin was so genuinely fond of Amelia and Muriel and wanted them to be happy, on some trips, Amelia remembered, they were even allowed to invite friends to travel and dine with them.
Once the private car and Tokimo were put solely at the disposition of Amy, Amelia, and Muriel. They traveled in it to Atchison, picked up Katch and Lucy Challiss and Ginger and Ann Park, whisked them back up north to Des Moines for a visit of a few days, and then Amy and the three sets of sisters in the private car continued north all the way to Worthington, Minnesota. Each leg involved an overnight in berths made up by Tokimo and meals he cooked. It was a grand adventure for the girls.
After his years of snubs at the hands of the Otises, Edwin had the exquisite pleasure of showing off his new status by taking Amy and his girls to visit his in-laws in Atchison in the private car. During their stay he invited the Judge and Mrs. Otis to dine with them, and Tokimo cooked and served a sumptuous dinner that included lamb chops and charlotte russe. Muriel was so proud and so impressed, she never forgot it.
Edwin’s new affluence enabled Amy to hire a cook as well as a maid. In a move that matched his father-in-law, Edwin became a warden of his church. Their final move in Des Moines was into an impressively large classic American “foursquare” house—a style fashionable at the time—one block from Drake University, at 3002 Cottage Grove Avenue. It was a definite step up. The Cottage Grove area was “the” place to live. It was an enclave of stimulating people, active in their community, and successful in their professions, including bank presidents, judges, lawyers, doctors, newspaper editors, businessmen, and various educators associated with Drake University. The same year the Earharts moved to Cottage Grove, the governor of Iowa, Beryll Carroll, whose term had just ended, also moved into the neighborhood.
One of the house moves in Des Moines precipitated the first recorded instance of Amelia’s penchant for climbing. In the midst of a move Von Sol, Amelia’s moody gray-and-white cat, wandered off just as they were taking the last load; they departed without him. Later, under cover of darkness, Amelia, equipped with a gunny sack, and accompanied by Muriel, sneaked back to their old house. They found Von Sol, but when they tried to stuff him into the sack, he jumped up into a birch tree near the house. Amelia shinnied up the porch post, climbed onto the roof of the house, crawled to the edge and into the tree, finally got Von Sol into the sack, and hauled the cat home.
Both Edwin and Amelia had considerable musical talent, and at some point they had acquired a piano, which both enjoyed playing. Now the Earharts could afford season subscriptions to the concert series sponsored by the Drake Conservatory of Music, which regularly attracted such luminaries as Fritz Kreisler, Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink, and Alma Gluck. The concerts, held in the evening, were a big family event. Amelia and Muriel in the wintertime went dressed up in high-necked silk party dresses and gaiters, and in summertime in white dotted Swiss with pink or blue sashes and shoes that had to be buttoned with a button hook. Amy wore formal silk dresses with a “sweep” of skirt, long white kid gloves that were buttoned with a silver glove hook, a sealskin coat, and her grandmother Maria Harres’s round fur muff. Edwin too got all dressed up for the concerts; he wore a white shirt with a stiff white collar, Prince Albert coat, and gray pants. Amelia had developed quite sophisticated tastes in music—she liked the German composers, particularly Wagner, and “certain” of the Italian operas (although sometimes she was put off because the words were “so silly”). Now, after the concerts, she and Edwin would sit at the piano, playing by ear what they had heard.
It was a time of pleasant social contacts, and living so near Drake, many of their new friends were associated with the university. The Earharts were included in a group of seven neighborhood families that pooled magazine subscriptions, so their horizons broadened as they kept up with the world and their neighbors reading Scribner’s, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Century. Amy took Amelia and Muriel to art exhibits at the college. With it all, Amelia kept up with happenings in Atchison through her correspendence with Virginia Park and Lucy and Katch, all
of whom came for visits.
And then suddenly the wonderful, protected world of childhood that had enwrapped Amelia and Muriel like a cocoon was gone. Edwin changed—and the change broke their world apart.
Edwin had never had the discipline to see the world as it was, only as he wanted it to be. Now, so close to real success, he still could not. His spendthrift carelessness had simply moved to a higher level. He had the tastelessness to give Amy an expensive set of Kipling’s works, upon which he had paid only the first installment—expecting her, as she found out only later, to pay for the subsequent installments, which were considerable. Amy tried to make light of it to Amelia and Muriel, who inevitably found out. Eventually Amy forgave Edwin, as she always forgave him no matter what he did.
But in 1911, their last summer at the lake, things started to go seriously wrong between Edwin and Amy. Undoubtedly for Edwin it had been building for a long time, but because he spent so much time traveling, the extent of his unhappy relationship with Amy didn’t show. What was becoming evident was that he was drinking heavily. He decided the time had come to leave Amy. He gathered his belongings and left for good.
Muriel, eleven, never even realized what had happened. Amy could easily explain his absence as another long business trip—a not-unusual occurrence, in fact the norm for Edwin. Amelia undoubtedly knew—being fourteen at the time, it would have been exceedingly hard for Amy to have fooled her, particularly since Amelia was such an aware child and Amy was so devastated. She “wrote him the most hysterical appeals to return,” according to her brother Mark, to whom Edwin sent one of her letters, probably because he was worried about Amy and wanted Mark to make sure she was all right. Totally distraught, Amy told her parents.
Finally Edwin changed his mind and returned—undoubtedly under duress—but when he did, he was still drinking heavily. It unnerved Amy, and inevitably, she again confided in her parents.
Now the Otises’ worst nightmares had come true—they were faced with a son-in-law who, they were sure, did not love their daughter, who drank. In their eyes a reconciliation was to be avoided at all costs. They went so far as to dangle financial incentives in front of Amy if she would agree to a separation, according to Mark, but “although Mother offered to make suitable provision for her and the children, she would have none of it.”
Amy could have divorced Edwin. Under Iowa law at the time, women had unusually strong rights: a married woman controlled her property as if she were single; neither husband nor wife were liable for what were clearly the debts of the other—and even more to the point, habitual drunkenness was considered sufficient grounds to terminate a marriage. She could easily have fulfilled the residence requirement, which was just one year, and she would have had no problem proving Edwin’s drunkenness.
But from Amy’s point of view, divorce was not an option; she wanted above all to keep the family together, and the mores of the time reinforced her. Divorce was so seriously frowned upon in the genteel Atchison society where Amy had grown up that, as Atchison Globe publisher Ed Howe succinctly put it, “It is a great deal more satisfactory and respectable to bury a husband than to get a divorce from one.” Her parents, on the other hand, were beyond caring about such niceties—they were more concerned with what would happen to Amy after they died. Their apprehensions took an obvious turn—they changed their wills.
When they had first made their wills years before, Amelia and Alfred Otis had divided everything equally among their children, although they had put Theodore’s share in trust. Now, on October 14, 1911, with their servants Charlie Parks and Mary Brashay as witnesses, Amelia Otis, seventy-four years old, having heart spells from which she would die in a few months, and Alfred, eighty-four, each in identical language, added a codicil that demoted Amy to the status of her retarded brother Theodore—Theodore, whom Mary Brashay cared for—Theodore, who sat all day in Atchison next to his derelict old horse and spring wagon that had “Lightning Express” painted on the side. Mark and Margaret would receive their inheritance outright, but Theodore’s share, and now Amy’s, were put in trust for fifteen years. For those fifteen years, the wills gave the designated trustee absolute control, and the trustee was Mark. If Mark failed to qualify as trustee, Margaret was designated to take his place.
It is doubtful that Mark or Amy or Margaret had any idea of what was in store for them.
As 1911 drew to a close, Amelia Otis lay dying; Amy and Margaret were in attendance. On December 23, too weak to write, she dictated a letter to Alfred’s younger brother Charles telling him how she had treasured his help following Alfred’s breakdown. “What you have been to me all these years all of the sad years especially no one will ever know—both friend and brother. And I want you to know before I go away just how much I think of you. Ever since you came into my life when you were only a boy. We have been together but little in person, but in heart, I am sure we have been much with each other. May you and yours always be blessed as you deserve is the prayer of Your loving sister Millie.”
Shortly after Amelia Otis’s death, the terms of her will became known to the family, and because she was such an illustrious citizen of Atchison, on February 24, the same day the will was filed, it became common knowledge all over town—The Atchison Globe printed the terms in great detail on the front page, so everyone got to read that “the deceased bequeathed to her children share and share alike her interest in the Otis Real Estate Co. The children are Mark E. Otis, Margaret Balis, Amy 0. Earhart and Theodore H. Otis. The shares of the last two named children shall be held in trust for them for fifteen years after the death of Amelia Otis and Mark Otis was named as trustee.”
The account wasn’t totally accurate, but it was close enough: Amelia left half to her children—she left the other half to Alfred. The estate consisted of real estate in Atchison, Kansas City, Kansas, and Philadelphia valued at $65,730; stocks and bonds totaling $55,880; and over $50,000 in mortgage loans. It was a great deal of money in those days, and in the form she left it, most of it actually consisted of shares of the Otis Real Estate Company.
Mark, a year younger than Amy, had worked most of his life for his father as secretary-treasurer of the Dayton-Otis Grain Company, then as secretary-treasurer of the Chicago office of the Otis Real Estate Company; Alfred was always president. Alfred had finally put Mark in control, but only because he had to—William was dead, Carl was dead, Mark was the last one left. Certainly if Alfred had trusted Mark’s judgment, he would have turned over the reins of his businesses to him years before, but he avoided it until, at eighty-four, he had no other choice.
Amy liked Mark, although as she would later make plain, she didn’t respect his business sense any more than Alfred did, and she certainly didn’t think he was competent to be trustee of her money. Treading carefully, she enlisted Margaret on her side (who, shocked, had refused to qualify as her sister’s trustee) and, with her uncle Ephraim Otis advising her, within thirty days forced Mark’s resignation as trustee in favor of the Northern Trust Company, a well-known, well-respected Chicago investment firm that specialized in trust estates. Ephraim even agreed to witness the legal document drawn up between his nephew and niece that effected the change.
In spite of the furor the codicil caused, life went on much as before. Amy and Margaret and Mark weighed possible alternatives for their increasingly infirm father and finally decided that he should remain exactly where he was, in familiar surroundings, cared for by the faithful Charlie Parks and Mary Brashay, who had been caring for him for years. Alfred’s nephew James Challiss and his wife Rilla, who lived next door, could also keep an eye on him there.
Alfred at eighty-four was still alert, but his will to live had weakened. There was no shattering decline. One day at the beginning of May, he felt well enough to go into town, accompanied by Charlie Parks, to have a shave at the barber shop and then to inspect a portion of riverbank the town was fixing up. On the first Sunday in May, he attended services at Trinity Church, walking the six blocks to and
fro. On Monday evening, according to the Globe, “he sat on the porch of his home and talked to Mrs. J.M. [Rilla] Challiss.” The next morning he was found dead in his bed.
The Globe estimated his fortune at more than $200,000 and noted the buildings he owned on the main town thoroughfare, Commercial Street.
The funeral, at Trinity Episcopal Church, was notable for the family members who attended and for those who did not. Alfred’s brother Charles came from St. Paul; Mark, with his wife Isabel, came from Chicago ; Carl’s widow Anna arrived from Kansas City; Amy arrived from Des Moines. Margaret, delayed by a sick child, came from Philadelphia. But not surprisingly, Edwin stayed away.
On May 11, Alfred’s will was filed for probate. In spite of the bitter protestations Amy must have made to her father regarding the codicil in Amelia’s will, in spite of the fact that Alfred knew Mark had been replaced as trustee because he also had signed the document appointing the Northern Trust Company trustee in Mark’s place, the identical wording that his wife had put in her will was also in his will. Alfred had taken his feelings about Edwin with him to the grave.
Again the public read all about the humiliating blow, for again The Atchison Globe published the terms for everyone to read and ponder: “The entire estate was bequeathed to the four children, share and share alike. The children are Mark E. Otis, Amy O. Earhart, Theodore H. Otis, and Margaret Balis. The will provides that Mark E. Otis act as executor of the estate, also as trustee of the shares bequeathed to Amy O. Earhart and Theodore Otis for a period of fifteen years after the death of Judge Otis.”
Amy wasted no time. That same day a lengthy document was filed on her behalf in the Atchison County courthouse, in which Margaret and Mark again declined to act as Amy’s trustee and again the Northern Trust Company was designated in their place. By the end of June, the Northern Trust Company was trustee of this inheritance also. But there was a price that Amy had to pay—she had to agree to make Mark no further trouble “And the said Amy O. Earhart agrees that she will make no objection contest or controversy whatsoever over the provisions of said will or the execution thereof.”