by Carol Baxter
The timing, though, was dreadful. The Chautauqua organisers were largely religious fundamentalists, horrified at even the mention of divorce. She hated to think what their reaction would be if her adultery also hit the newspaper headlines.
One pressman continued digging. He discovered that she hadn’t lived with her husband since she and Bill had made the Red Rose flight. He tracked Bill down and found him alone at her Roosevelt Hotel apartment in New York.
Bill usually lived at New York’s Army and Navy Club. He and Chubbie had always maintained the fiction that they were business associates and close—but not too close—friends. Any moments of intimacy were snatched between business meetings. So it was only by chance that Bill was apartment-sitting when the eagle-eyed reporter caught up with him.
Bill admitted that they had expected Keith to lodge divorce papers sooner or later.
‘Do you plan to marry her after the legal obstacles have been removed?’ the nosy pressman asked bluntly.
‘I couldn’t very well answer that right now,’ Bill hedged.
As the days passed and the newspapers remained free of any scandalous headlines, Chubbie was able to laugh off her separation as a ‘divorce of convenience’ granted by a kind husband to allow her to continue her aviation career.
Other hiccups occurred during the Chautauqua tour. A pleasurable summer swim left her with an ear infection and an abscess that needed to be lanced in hospital under a general anaesthetic. Determined to fulfil her speaking commitments, she discharged herself the following morning, despite the pain and jaw stiffness, and made it to the next town for that afternoon’s talk. A couple of towns later, her hotel burnt down.
The eighty or so guests of Fort Plain’s Hotel Grant could only be thankful that the fire started near the room of a person with quick reflexes and an almost sixth sense for danger. It was around 3.30 am when Chubbie’s sensitive nose smelled smoke. Spotting flames coming from an adjacent storeroom, she raced along the corridors of the four-storey hotel triggering fire alarms, banging on doors and yelling for everyone to flee. The billowing smoke trapped residents on the fourth-floor until firemen shot out the glass with rifle fire and carried them down ladders. Everyone escaped the fire although the hotel itself was destroyed and nearby shops damaged.
Chubbie’s modest declarations that her efforts were minimal were ignored by the townsfolk and press. They considered her a heroine, whose quick wit and bravery had averted a tragedy. She was an even greater attraction in the final month of the Chautauqua tour.
Meanwhile, few were attempting to rescue those suffering the ill effects of the worsening economic depression, including Herbert Hoover himself and his ‘hear nothing, see nothing, do nothing government’. As the year dragged on and winter’s chill approached, unemployment doubled to one in six and continued worsening in a country with no unemployment insurance and minimal public relief.
Banks failed by the thousands. Families abandoned homes when they could no longer pay the rent and moved into shantytowns, which appeared all over the country. These ramshackle communities—built of tents, packing crates and flattened tin cans—became known as Hoovervilles, while the newspapers wrapped around the inhabitants’ thin shivering bodies became known as Hoover blankets. Herbert Hoover himself would be swept out in a tsunami of public disgust at the 1932 elections.
In September 1931, as the Dow slumped to below thirty per cent of its 1929 peak, Chubbie announced plans to try to beat Ruth Nichols’ transcontinental record, flying in the company of a Hollywood actress. A few weeks later, appendix surgery in Los Angeles and the need for a long period of recuperation forced her to abandon her flight plans.
By the end of 1931, the Dow had dropped to below twenty per cent of its high of 381 points. As the New Year dawned, it continued falling towards the ten per cent mark.
While market seers, economists, business leaders and government officials tried to convince themselves that it couldn’t get much worse, ever present was a frightening thought: what would happen if the Dow continued plummeting all the way to zero?
Chapter Thirty-Two
No jobs. No goals. No future prospects.
As the Christmas of 1931 approached, Chubbie and Bill’s hopeful refrain that ‘Things will surely get better soon’ had transformed into ‘What if it doesn’t?’ And if it didn’t, how were they to support themselves? They couldn’t just give up their flying aspirations and accept any old job. There were few available.
Hearing that air races were to be held in Miami from 7 January 1932, Bill approached his friend Gentry Shelton Junior, the charming black sheep of a wealthy St Louis family. They had previously talked about establishing an aviation business together, using Gentry’s currently leased-out plane. Lured by the $10,000 prize pot, they decided that Gentry would repossess his plane and fly it to Miami for Bill and Chubbie to race and that he would attempt to obtain a second plane from his father for the same purpose. After the races, they would explore the possibility of establishing an air service based in Miami.
Chubbie and Bill drove Bill’s Lincoln from Los Angeles to Miami, arriving shortly before Christmas. There, surrounded by blue skies and balmy air, with the rhythmic thump of waves on the shore and the heady scent of night-blooming jasmine, they decided to settle.
Early in the new year, they moved into a two-storey stucco house at 2321 South-West Twenty-First Terrace, about five miles south-west of downtown Miami, which they rented in Chubbie’s name. Chubbie chose the large upstairs bedroom, which contained two single beds and an ensuite bathroom. Bill took one of the beds on the top-floor sleeping porch, which had once been an open balcony on the eastern side of the house but was now closed off and glassed in. They hoped that Gentry would move in as well, so they could split the expenses. But Gentry didn’t appear—and nor did his plane. It had crashed, while still under lease, killing the two pilots. He was unable to obtain another.
They attended the air races as frustrated spectators, and partied at night with their fly-in, fly-out aviation friends. Afterwards, reality struck them. Dwindling bank accounts. A landlady who was pestering them for the remaining advance rental. And no jobs in aviation, or even a plane to find contract work with.
Desperation was setting in when Gentry phoned to say he had obtained a plane, but couldn’t yet make his way to Miami. They decided that Bill would travel to New York to collect it.
The Curtiss Robin wasn’t new, nor in the best condition, but it was better than nothing. Bill had almost completed his flight preparations when he returned to his New York hotel on 3 February to find two telegrams from Chubbie asking that he telephone her. It was important, she said. But when he tried to reach her, she didn’t answer.
‘Am in a cold sweat,’ he scrawled in his diary between attempts to phone her. ‘What can it be? This urgent request to telephone Chubbie has knocked me flat.’
Over the previous few months, he had grown increasingly concerned about her wellbeing. She seemed so despondent, so distant. Her happiness at acquiring the Miami house had been pleasing. She had also been her vibrant bubbly self during the races, standing around in her coveralls and high heels with a cigarette dangling from her fingers as she chatted in her delightful Australian accent to her devoted followers.
But her despair—their despair—had crept back as January slid by with no word from Gentry. The most obvious sign of her unhappiness was her drinking. Tipsy while ferrying a friend back to his Miami hotel, she had bumped the Lincoln into a Buick. Bill, sober in the back seat, had claimed he was the driver to save her from embarrassment. He was arrested for drunken driving and spent an hour in gaol, then was fined $50 and given a suspended sentence.
He continued phoning her from his hotel, hoping that her drinking hadn’t caused further problems. ‘God, if anything has happened to her, I will suffer as I have never suffered in my whole life.’ Then he tried to reassure himself: ‘It cannot be bad otherwise she would not be out until one.’
At long last, he reached her. She had good
news, it turned out. A group called Latin American Airways had approached her about a possible business partnership so she suggested that he return to Miami straight away. ‘The man says money is no object,’ she added as a clincher.
‘Well, if the man says money is no object, ask him to send me $100,’ he replied flippantly.
Captain Mark G. Tancrel and J.F. Russell greeted Bill when he landed at Miami airport on 7 February. They launched into a discussion about their aviation plans, saying that they hoped to leave for Mexico straight away to begin operations. Among other activities, their airline would run cash belonging to Chinese men in Mexico.
When Bill expressed concern about border crossings because of his British passport, they assured him that all of his flights would be within Mexico.
Caught up in the excitement and enthusiasm of a new venture—and the prospect of money in their pockets and food on their table—he and Chubbie went the next day to the office of attorney Ernest M. Huston and signed the documents making them partners in Latin American Airways.
Immediately afterwards, Bill felt a niggling concern about his new partners’ intentions. Had he and Chubbie unwittingly signed up for a smuggling operation? That night, he jotted in his diary, ‘Doubtful of Tancrel, a terrible story teller (all lies).’ He asked a Washington friend to verify Tancrel’s naval career, recognising that if Tancrel was lying about that, he was probably lying about the airline’s objectives as well.
As he waited for an answer, the airline’s plans neared completion. Russell headed to Mexico to complete the necessary paperwork and to build up the business. Bill and Tancrel—and Gentry Shelton, when he arrived in Miami ten days after the signing—met or telephoned daily to continue their own preparations. When Tancrel learnt that Bill and Chubbie were almost destitute, that they were resorting to stealing chickens to eat, he lent Bill another $50 to tide him over, then a further $50. Each payment was like a golden rope that bound Bill ever more tightly to the suspect operation.
Chubbie had her doubts about the airline as well; however, she was too busy with a potential money-making venture of her own to spend time worrying about it.
At a Miami party, she had met a university lecturer named Mrs Ida Clyde Clarke, a one-time journalist who had written books and articles about women’s suffrage. When Mrs Clarke heard about Chubbie’s adventures, she suggested that Chubbie write an autobiography. Chubbie mentioned that she had sold some of her accounts to newspapers but had failed to sell any recent articles and was unsure if she was capable of crafting an entire book. Mrs Clarke said that her son Haden was a journalist and could perhaps assist as a ghostwriter. She organised a meeting between them.
Haden proved to be a good-looking man, tall, with a full head of dark wavy slicked-down hair and sultry blue eyes. He said that he was thirty-one and had a degree from Columbia University. He had worked as an associate editor for Good Housekeeping magazine and recently for a New Orleans newspaper. He was articulate, erudite, personable and charming—and she didn’t like him at all. But she liked his mother and she knew that she needed a professional writer’s help if she was to maximise her chances of attracting a publisher.
Once the airline contract was signed, she invited Haden to the house to meet Bill and to discuss terms. They agreed to a fifty–fifty royalty split between her and Haden. They also agreed that the unemployed writer would move in with them while crafting her story.
Charles Haden Clarke joined the household three days later, on 12 February 1932.
Most friendships develop slowly, but the occasional connection between kindred spirits can propel a relationship to the next level. The rare dynamic in the Miami household in February 1932 was like a relationship rocket-booster. The outcome would prove both spectacular and catastrophic.
Bill welcomed Haden to his sleeping porch and directed him to the spare bed, which lay only three-and-a-half feet from his own. When they retired each night they found that night-time’s gloom, combined with their need for openness, generated an instant intimacy. Within days they were best mates and were spending most of their time together.
Meanwhile, Bill remained concerned about the airline operation, especially after he learned that Tancrel’s name was not on Washington’s list of naval officers. When he challenged Tancrel, the ‘captain’ pulled out government correspondence referring to him as a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve and claimed that the fire at Washington’s bureau of records had destroyed his paperwork. Unable to prove that Tancrel was a liar and lacking the funds to repay the loaned money, Bill realised that he had little choice but to meet his contractual obligations and fly with Tancrel to Mexico.
The night before he left Miami, he had a long talk with Haden, revealing for the first time that he and Chubbie had been intimate for nearly five years and hoped one day to marry. He also expressed concern about Chubbie’s drinking, saying that she sometimes drank so much she behaved rashly. Haden promised to take care of her and to protect her from herself.
On 6 March 1932, with Gentry and Tancrel accompanying him, Bill began his journey to Arizona, leaving Chubbie and Haden alone together in the Miami house.
Chubbie was glad to see Bill fly away. She was annoyed with him. Over the past couple of years, she had struggled with their relationship. Income-wise, nothing he did seemed to work out. The Miami air races had been a classic example. They had travelled 3000 miles on his mate’s promise to send planes, but the planes hadn’t materialised and they had been left stranded.
She had long realised that little came to fruition unless she was the driving force. And when she did activate a plan, he could still undermine her hard work. She had engaged Haden to write her life story and yet, instead of letting him do so, Bill had monopolised the fellow, taking him on long rambling walks and to business meetings and social gatherings. And Haden had followed him around like a devoted puppy.
Not only was she unable to get on with her book, the pair had left her to do all the housework, as if her only responsibility was to cook and clean and care for them. She had snapped at Bill, ‘He’s living here at my expense to write my book and you clear out together for the day. What’s the idea? This is not a free-for-all place. I’m paying all the rent and keeping it going.’ Yet still they pottered off together.
Frustration and disenchantment had cooled her feelings for Bill. He sometimes complained that his darling Chubbie seemed different, distant. He was right. She was sick of struggling to survive. She wanted to get married again. She wanted someone to look after her. Having obtained her own divorce, she was free to marry; but Bill wasn’t—and wasn’t ever likely to be. Kiki had made that clear. So they could never settle down together as a normal married couple. She would never be free of the fear that their adulterous relationship would be publicly exposed—which would have little effect on Bill’s reputation or career but would destroy her own. She still loved him as a friend and business partner, but she was no longer in love with him. She couldn’t tell him, though—not yet, anyway. Times were too tough and their lives too closely entwined.
Other men had shown an interest in her over the years. Some had even proposed marriage. But Bill was always hovering and he shooed them away. He was still passionately devoted to her, a devotion that seemed increasingly like a smothering pillow.
Now he was gone, she hoped that Haden would settle down to write her story, although she had her doubts about him as well. When she had been able to catch his attention and provide information for the story, he took no notes and seemed to do nothing with it. She had been forced to have it out with him. ‘Look, when is this book going to get started? You have been here three weeks and I haven’t seen a page yet.’
‘Everything will be alright,’ he soothed. ‘It will come to me. I’m just waiting for the inspiration.’
He often talked about how he would spend his earnings, failing to grasp that there wouldn’t be any royalty payments unless he composed a good book. When he at last proffered some pages,
she realised with dismay that they were inadequate. She tried to write them herself, but her construction was too disjointed.
Haden made a second attempt but never seemed to get going. She would hear his typewriter clacking but the noise soon died away. On one occasion, she headed upstairs to the sleeping porch and found the typewriter sitting idle on a table at the end of Haden’s bed as he smoked and gazed out the window. When she asked how much he had done, he said, ‘I can’t write to order. I’ve got to get the inspiration to get the thing going. I know how it ought to go but it hasn’t come to me yet.’
She felt let down by the men in her life and by the world in general.
Bill had estimated that it would take him three or four days to fly from Miami to Nogales, Arizona, one of the many southern towns that straddled the Mexican border. He was wrong. Gale-force winds, flooded landing fields, engine trouble, bent propeller blades, snow and numerous forced landings delayed them for weeks.
He heard little from Chubbie during this frustrating period, which was itself a source of disappointment and concern. Each day he penned her a letter containing detailed descriptions of his day’s activities, and sometimes he telephoned or telegraphed as well. In each letter he expressed his affection. On 18 March he wrote: ‘I miss and long for you, my sweetheart. I lay in my bed at night and pray you are not suffering too great hardship. I want to have you in my arms again, Chub.’ In his diary that night, he expressed his anguish at her long silences and unaffectionate responses: ‘Tonight I am more than just worried. I am plumb crazy, all because of no news of Chubbie.’ Ten days later he added, ‘Letter from Haden Clarke and Chubbie. Very disappointing. Looks as though Chub just dashed off a note as a sort of duty. Haden a little more enlightening. Hope he is keeping his promise to me, feel sure he is. But Chubbie—Hell.’
To add to his problems, his business partners had revealed their true intentions. They wanted him to smuggle Chinese men and drugs from Mexico into America. He had promised Chubbie he wouldn’t participate in a smuggling operation; however, he was worried about their finances so he decided to sound out Haden on the quiet.