by Susan Hertog
Twelve days later, the Lindberghs began their arduous trip with a ceremonial stop in Washington, D.C. It was a gracious nod to the State Department and to the press. Two hundred people lined the banks of the Potomac to witness their take-off, and scores of cars came to a halt on the highways. On the same day, the baby and Betty Gow took the train to Bar Harbor. Anne’s parting instructions to Betty were that she keep a diary and photograph him once a month. She asked Betty to refrain from kissing and hugging him, fearing that he might become spoiled.38 Hoping they would not be followed by the press, Anne prayed for their safe arrival. But unknown to Anne, reporters had spotted Betty and Charlie at the train station. Within days, the nation knew that the Lindbergh baby and his nurse were in North Haven.
The first official stop was to be Ottawa in Canada, but Anne and Charles detoured to Maine to say good-bye. All the Morrows were gathered for the occasion—Aunt Agnes, Aunt Alice, Aunt Hilda, Aunt Hattie, and Uncles Edwin and Jay. Their friends and neighbors throughout North Haven thronged to the pier to watch them land. While the Morrows motored in their yacht to greet Anne and Charles, numerous motorboats, rowboats, and sailboats angled around the bay to embrace them.
After a quiet family evening at the Morrow home, riddled with anxiety as well as good spirits, Anne and Charles lifted off early the next morning. Their black-bodied ship with its scarlet wings and silver pontoons rose above the blue bay in a spray of foam. As their plane rose, higher, Anne and Charles shot their hands out of the cockpit to wave at the shrieking crowd. In a gesture of humility, almost a curtsey, Charles circled the harbor, dipped his wings, and disappeared into the sky above the Camden Hills.39
For Anne, this was a breathtaking moment, uniting the past and the future, stopping time, and holding life in a perfect family tableau.
10
Black October
Dwight Morrow in Lindbergh’s plane, waving to the crowd on his senatorial campaign tour, May 1930.
(Amherst College)
Nothing in human affairs deserves anxiety, and grief stands in the way to hinder the self-succour that our duty immediately requires of us.
—PLATO, The Republic
AUTUMN 1931, ENGLEWOOD, NEW JERSEY
Shortly before midnight on Sunday, October 4, 1931, Dwight Morrow leaned on the arm of his waiting valet and walked slowly up the stairs of his darkened house. Morrow usually wasn’t one to lean, but he had never felt so tired. He and Banks climbed up the winding, lantern-lit stairway to the second floor and turned toward the double wooden doors of the master suite. As Morrow wished Banks a “good night,” Banks noted that Morrow looked uncommonly pale.1
Since his return from Maine at summer’s end, Morrow’s campaign for the senatorial seat had quickened its pace. With the election now only weeks away, even his weekends were consumed by political events. On the previous afternoon, Dwight and Betty had been hosts to six thousand Bergen County Republicans at their home, in honor of Dwight’s colleague, Senator Baird, who was seeking reelection.2 Morrow’s hands were pained and blistered from greeting his guests. Earlier that Sunday evening, he had addressed several hundred people at a black-tie dinner of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Praising the work of an entire generation of Jews who organized and sustained ninety-one charities with the “blood and sacrifice” it required for their “dream,” he admonished them that they “dare not fail,” not only for their own sake but for the thousands of philanthropic societies of all faiths throughout America who were seeking inspiration from their deeds. It is “tragic,” he said, when a new generation, falling on hard times, renounces the dreams and accomplishments of their fathers.3 Again, he had courted the crowd until his blisters oozed, but a friend noted that he didn’t look tired at all; he had spoken with the “force and fire” of a young man.
The tiredness had come on gradually during the long limousine ride home through the deserted city streets, across the Hudson by ferry, and down the hills of the Palisades. By the time he met Banks waiting at the door, the fatigue had overtaken him.
In his dressing room, he carefully placed his tuxedo, shoes, and shirt in appropriate parts of the wooden niches designed by his wife to curb his untamed sense of order; then he slipped into bed beside her. As usual, he had told Betty not to wait up. An early riser, she was planning a morning round of golf before the official luncheon they were to host the next afternoon. Dwight must have fallen swiftly to sleep, for Betty was not disturbed by his movement.
The next morning Betty rose quietly, dressed quickly, and walked softly down the stairs to have breakfast with Elisabeth. Around eleven, Morrow’s secretary, Arthur Springer, began to worry. He had planned to meet Morrow before the official business of the day, and it was unlike Morrow to be late. He spoke to Banks, who remembered the look of fatigue on his employer’s face the night before, and together they hurried up the stairs and knocked at his door. On receiving no answer, they opened the door and found Morrow unconscious on his bed, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. Banks called an ambulance and paged Betty at the club. Two and a half hours later, Dwight Morrow died at Englewood Hospital without having regained consciousness. Betty, still in her golf shoes and trousers, was dry-eyed and silent. She summoned the chauffeur to take her home, in the company of Elisabeth, Dwight’s sister Agnes Scandrett, and Agnes’s daughter, Lucien Greathouse.
In spite of her grief, Betty was in control, and her first priority was to tell the other children. She cabled Anne and Charles aboard the British aircraft carrier Hermes, en route to Shanghai. They had made their way through the tundra of northern Canada, through the endless nights of the Arctic Ocean, down through the Bering Strait and the enveloping fog of the Japanese islands, to Tokyo and Osaka. But on landing in Nanking, China, they learned that millions of people were homeless and starving because of the Grand Canal and Yangtze River flood. Only their state-of-the-art amphibian plane had the range and equipment to do the survey essential to making decisions on flood relief. Anne and Charles flew rescue missions to stranded villagers in need of medicine and supplies. Then, just as they prepared to leave Hangkow for one last rescue flight, their plane capsized, and they were forced to travel by boat to Shanghai to await its repair.4
Betty telegraphed Con, on her way to visit Charlie in Maine, and she telephoned Dwight Jr., now back at Amherst. Most Americans learned of Morrow’s death against the loud cheering of baseball spectators. The third game of the World Series was being played at Shibe Park in Philadelphia when the news was sent from the offices of NBC to the announcers at the field. As the fans roared, radio listeners heard the news: Dwight Morrow, distinguished lawyer, financier, and statesman, was dead at fifty-eight.5
For twenty-four hours, his body lay in a simple coffin in the library of his home, beside his favorite chair, among the books he loved. Only his intimate friends and family members were admitted to the house. On October 7, at two o’clock, the coffin was draped in a blanket of lilies that had been sent by President Hoover, who could not attend, and was carried into the hearse waiting in the courtyard. Neighbors and friends lined the three-mile stretch between the Morrow home and the church, where four thousand people waited outside. The service started promptly at three—the thousand seats of the church were filled with family and friends as well as delegations from the House and the Senate, cabinet officials, Vice President Curtis, and former President Coolidge. The Reverend Carl Hopkins Elmore, minister of the Presbyterian Church and a long-time friend of the Morrow family, officiated. Dressed in black, Elisabeth, Dwight, and Con escorted Betty to her pew. Reporters noted that Charles Lindbergh, Jr., had not been brought back from Maine for his grandfather’s funeral.6
That afternoon, Morrow was buried with a private graveside ceremony, almost within sight of the Morrow estate. In an odd departure from the usual Presbyterian service, a prayer of Socrates that Plato had written in The Phaedrus was read. It was one Morrow had quoted often:
Give me beauty in the inwar
d soul, and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and carry.7
It was this struggle—to reconcile the irreconcilable—that had undermined Morrow’s health during his last years. Even as he rose to unanticipated heights of accomplishment, wealth, and public office, he had longed for the life he had known as a child in Pittsburgh. Scholar turned politician, humanist turned partisan, pauper turned millionaire, he could never match his simple tastes to the money and esteem he garnered. The statesman’s life was more than he had bargained for; at times he wondered whether it had been worth the price. After only three months of his Senate term, Morrow had become thoroughly demoralized. Forced to make decisions without time to study the issues, he found the work difficult and puzzling.8 The hurry and chaos of Senate procedure violated his intellectual integrity. Morrow saw himself as a man of ideas, as a Philosopher King who had left academia to serve the public. Somewhere, he had made a turn that weakened his control. Perhaps Betty understood and found it more than she could bear. As the coffin was lowered into the grave, she picked up a handful of earth and let it slide through her fingers onto the lily-covered coffin. Her grief found no words.
Words of sympathy and praise, in the hundreds of letters from friends, colleagues, and associates, poured into the Morrow household.9 Now that he was dead, there was no praise sufficient for the senator from New Jersey. Republicans and Democrats, dries and wets alike, lauded his skill as a negotiator founded on his erudition and honesty. The editors of Outlook stated it well: “It was his habit to stand aside and study a question and then, entering the discussion himself, make it seem as if it had never been discussed before.” Through the prism of Morrow’s mind the problem took on a new shape.
But Morrow’s strength was also his frailty. The logic that cut to the heart of an issue sapped him of vigor. By denying anything that smacked of the irrational, he locked up his feelings until he burst with pain. He treated his body as if it were a disposable machine, an instrument designed solely for performance. Still under his father’s influence, he deified “reason” until it overshadowed his spirit. This, too, was Morrow’s legacy—the mask of reason and virtue which destroyed him.
For months after his death, Anne could not reconcile the loss of her father. She could not imagine life without his playful smile, his fierce idealism, and his agile mind. She wondered how her mother could bear the pain. He had been the center of her life.
If Betty felt that her “center” had dropped, Anne felt her own center had been restored. The truth was, her father’s death was bringing her home—home to the baby and a life of her own. Her grief couldn’t quell her feelings of joy, which brought on moments of guilt and despair. On October 8, she and Charles had left their plane in Shanghai for repairs, and crossed the Japanese islands by rail. After sailing to Seattle, they borrowed a plane and they arrived home in Englewood on the nineteenth.
Anne kept her father’s death at a distance, wishing like a child that he could be there to comfort her. But even as she felt robbed of his strength, her spirits were buoyed by the vitality of her son. Finally, she was home with her baby, and what a beautiful boy he was.
In her letters to Evangeline, she began to refer to Charlie as “the boy,” much as Charles’s father had referred to him. To Anne, it confirmed his proper place. He was categorically male—confident, bold, and independent.
The praise for Charlie’s strength belonged to Betty Gow. She had been alone with him for more than two months. Betty Morrow, busy with her husband’s campaign, rarely came to North Haven. She relied on news of the baby’s health and progress from the diaries Betty Gow sent to her in Englewood. The only other servant in the house, Emily, the cook, apparently ignored the baby. The days passed slowly, and the nights were long, and much as she enjoyed the beauty of the house and the island, Betty felt abandoned by the Lindberghs and the Morrows.10
She began to spend her evenings with Henrik Finn (Red) Johnson, who had been introduced to her at a dance by Alfred Burke, the Morrows’ chauffeur. Johnson was a seaman with restless energy and little ambition who had “jumped ship” in March 1927, when he was twenty-two. He flitted from job to job, using his paychecks to fund vacations and living off his brother and the kindness of relatives. A year before he met Betty, in April 1930, he had secured a job on Thomas Lamont’s yacht in Brooklyn Harbor and was aboard when Lamont sailed the following August to North Haven. He and Betty went to several village dances and, in the company of other Morrow and Lamont servants, to night parties at the local beaches. Soon, Red was visiting Betty alone in the evenings at the Morrow estate. She was taken with his fun-loving manner, his dimpled cheeks, and his shock of red hair. Well built and dapper, he had an easy and mischievous smile that spread through the corners of his eyes. While he wasn’t the marrying kind, Betty was pleased with the attention he paid her. They talked about the baby and the “little different things he did,” and Red quickly became her confidant and friend.
Red stayed in North Haven until the second week of September, when he sailed back to New Jersey with the Lamonts. After the boat was docked in Brooklyn at the beginning of October, Red was once again out of a job. Hoping to maintain their friendship, Red and Betty corresponded while she remained in North Haven with Charlie. When she returned with the baby to Englewood shortly after Morrow’s death, Red took a room in town in order to be “near to her” again.
Anne, arriving on October 19, found the baby healthy, sturdy, and strong. Betty had seen to it that Charlie looked his best. Since he had outgrown his nightclothes and his shoes, she spent part of her wages to buy him new clothes. The family had not given her money for expenses, but she feared that she would look neglectful if Charlie was not well dressed.
Anne was grateful to Betty for her care of the baby; Charlie had the warmth of a child who had been loved and protected. Although he did not recognize his parents on their return, neither was he afraid of them. Best of all, Charles adored “the boy.” To her surprise, he spoiled him with treats.11
Anne hoped to move into their new house in Hopewell, New Jersey, shortly before Thanksgiving and was determined to be Charlie’s full-time mother. For the moment, Charles consented. She allowed Betty Gow to take a three-month holiday, and, for the first time since their marriage, Charles traveled alone. Anne relished the time in her mother’s company, falling into a domestic routine, bound to the rhythms of her child and the slow-moving pace beyond the boom and rush of the city.12
Her quiet life prompted rumors in the press that she was pregnant again. When she did not accompany Charles on the survey routes, Walter Winchell blasted the news over the radio, as if challenging Anne to respond. She and Charles denied the report—but it was true; they were expecting their second child.
Terribly nauseated again, Anne welcomed the help of the Morrow servants, as well as Elisabeth’s invitation to have Charlie attend her school. In mid-November, at the age of seventeen months, Charlie, nearly half a year younger than any of the other children, started at the Little School. On his first day, all the children gathered around him and made a fuss, but the boy previously the youngest became jealous and punched Charlie in the back.13
“Charlie sat down and cried.” No one had intentionally hurt him before. With the objectivity of a Watsonian mother, Anne stood by as the other boy hit him five times for five different reasons before anyone intervened. The faculty, she wrote, tongue-in-cheek, called a conference with the psychologist. He suggested that Charlie play alone for a while to become “accustomed to his environment” before he tried to “make social adjustments.”
There were adjustments in the Morrow home, too. Now the sole man of the house, Charles played a familiar role. Morrow was dead, and Charles felt both the responsibility and the license to fill the void. For the first time, he gave public voice to his political views; they echoed the Populist philosophy of his father and struck a consonant chord w
ith the public, which, in 1931, was devastated by poverty and unemployment.
By the end of the year, banks in more than thirty states had closed, and millions of people, homeless and out of work, roamed the land. State and city governments were swamped with welfare cases, and families wandered from place to place in search of hospitable communities. The vagrants were largely agricultural workers and young men who had finished school only to find there were no jobs. The following summer they congregated in Washington, surrounded the White House, and made their squalor a form of protest. President Hoover, unmoved, locked himself in his quarters.14
Just one month after Morrow died, Lindbergh was urging a “readjustment” of the nation’s industrial structure.
We must strike a balance where the abundance of labor and material which now exists can be properly distributed. When this is accomplished, we will be in an even better position than during the past period of prosperity. Until it is done the system we have established is under test. Whether we progress to new standards or fall back to the old depends upon our individual ability to assist and cooperate in the emergency we now face.15
The notion of redistribution, which would have been abhorrent to Morrow, appealed to Charles and many of his contemporaries in America and in Europe; it was an answer to what they perceived as the failure of capitalism.
Anne, meanwhile, noticed little beyond her white picket fence. She had planned to settle in Hopewell by the holidays, but the house still needed painting inside, and she was reluctant to stay there alone with the baby. They were not planning much for Christmas, just enough to entertain Charlie. Her father’s death had dampened everyone’s spirits.16