by Susan Hertog
In January 1991, Anne suffered a stroke. She is no longer able to live alone or to travel long distances from her Connecticut home, so her children built a replica of her Vevey chalet in the foothills of northern Vermont. There she lives part-time with her daughter Reeve. Anne Jr. died in 1993 at the age of fifty-three from melanoma, but she is visited by Jon, Land, and Scott, and by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She seems to move in and out of consciousness, sometimes lucid and sometimes removed. At first she was overtaken by anger—involuntary surges of rage. Ironically, her stroke had set her free from a life lived in homage to self-control.
Now she sits alone and quiet, content with her thoughts and her solitude, as if “pushing herself into the mind of an angel.”3 While she remembers little of the past, and the present moves in a diaphanous blur, sometimes, as if for no reason, she recites Rilke’s poems. Perhaps Anne confirms what she has always known:
… The living are wrong to believe
in the too-sharp distinctions which they themselves have created.
Angels (they say) don’t know whether it is the living
they are moving among or the dead. The eternal torrent
whirls all ages along in it, through both realms,
forever, and their voices are drowned in its thunderous roar.
—RAINER MARIA RILKE,
Duino Elegies
FAMILY TREE
Notes
ABBREVIATIONS:
AML: Anne Morrow Lindbergh
CAL: Charles A. Lindbergh
DWM: Dwight W. Morrow
ECM: Elizabeth C. Morrow
ERM: Elisabeth R. Morrow
CCM: Constance C. Morrow
ELLL: Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh
BMAU: AML, Bring Me a Unicorn, Diaries and Letters, 1922–1928, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971.
HGHL: AML, Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, Diaries and Letters, 1929–1932, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1973.
LROD: AML, Locked Rooms and Open Doors, Diaries and Letters, 1933–1935, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.
F&N: AML, The Flower and the Nettle, Diaries and Letters, 1936–1939, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.
WW&W: AML, War Within and Without, Diaries and Letters, 1939–1944, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.
NYT: New York Times
NJSPM: New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives All interviews not otherwise attributed were conducted by the author.
1. A NEW BEGINNING
1 Details of Lindbergh’s landing in Mexico are from excerpts of Elizabeth Cutter Morrow’s diaries in the Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives; The Literary Digest, 12/27/27 “Lindbergh’s ‘Embassy of Good-Will’ to Mexico.”
2 Description and biographical information of Morrow throughout this chapter are based on newsreels; interviews by Edwin G. Lowry, the biographer of Morrow initially commissioned by Betty Morrow; on Harold Nicolson, Dwight Morrow, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935; on Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990, pp. 287–301; and on the Dwight Morrow Papers in the Amherst College Archives.
3 Drawn from Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, New York: Vintage Books, 1980; and Ron Chernow, op. cit.
4 The Campbellite Church, founded to bring unity and fundamentalist integrity to the Presbyterian Church, had become a sect that championed conservative adherence to New Testament values and straight-laced Christian virtue.
5 Dwight Morrow, “Two New Years,” Amherst Literary Monthly, 1892–93, Amherst College Archives.
6 See correspondence of Dwight W. Morrow and Charles T. Burnett, 1895–1903, Charles T. Burnett Papers, Bowdoin College Archives.
7 Charles Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1976.
8 The roof of the White House was being repaired. The temporary residence of the President was 15 Dupont Circle; from The Saturday Evening Post, “The Queen and Lindy,” by Irwin H. Hoover, edited by Wesley Stout, 8/11/34, vol. 207, pp. 10–11.
9 Reflecting the movement away from identifying oneself in the context of patrimonial lineage, Ola Månsson’s sons had changed their surname to Lindbergh, a contraction of the Swedish words for linden tree and mountain. Månsson adopted that name.
10 Details of the Månsson-Lindbergh ancestry and C.A.’s childhood and career are from the Lindbergh Family Papers, including a notebook by Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh that constitutes a memoir of family life until the time of CAL’s flight, marked “For Charles A. Lindbergh Jr.,” and the Lynn and Dora B. Haines papers and Dr. Grace Lee Nute’s correspondence with Charles Lindbergh, all among the holdings of the Minnesota Historical Society. Additional information from Kenneth S. Davis, The Hero: Charles A. Lindbergh and the American Dream, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1959; Lynn and Dora B. Haines, The Lindberghs, New York: Vanguard Press, 1931; Ruth L. Larson, The Lindberghs of Minnesota: A Political Biography, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971; and Brendan Gill, Lindbergh Alone, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.
11 Haines and Nute papers, Minnesota Historical Society.
12 Paul Tillich, The History of Christian Thought, New York: Simon and Schuster,1967, pp.242–275.
13 Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh, Notebook “For Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.,” Minnesota Historical Society.
14 Information about Evangeline Lindbergh’s mental state is from interviews recorded by Alden Whitman, NYT, and Charles Stone of the Lindbergh Museum in Little Falls, Minn. See Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness, New York: Doubleday, 1972; Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830–1980, New York, Penguin, 1985; V. Skultans, Madness and Morals: Ideas on Sanity in the Nineteenth Century, London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1975; and Theodore Lidz and Stephen Fleck, Schizophrenia in the Family, New York: International Universities Press, 1985.
15 In defense of her sanity, it must be noted that Evangeline earned a master’s degree in education from Columbia University Teacher’s College after her separation from C.A. and went on to teach high school chemistry for 35 years, in both Wisconsin and Detroit, until she retired shortly before her death, in 1954.
16 Lynn and Dora B. Haines, op. cit.
17 Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh, Notebook “For Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.;” Charles A. Lindbergh, Boyhood on the Upper Mississippi, St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1972; interview with AML.
18 At the turn of the century, divorce was becoming a frequent option for American women. Until then, it had been considered a byproduct of “moral turpitude and depravity.” As more women gained employment, they became less dependent on their husbands, and marriage as a financial arrangement became less attractive. Moreover, between 1869 and 1887, thirty-three states and the District of Columbia gave women control over their property and earnings. This brought about higher expectations and a lower tolerance for unacceptable behavior and conditions. Through the judicial system, these attitudes changed the interpretation of “physical cruelty,” the grounds for divorce. American marriages began failing at an unprecedented rate. Between 1867 and 1929, the population of the United States grew by 300 percent, the number of marriages increased by 400 percent, and the divorce rate rose by 2000 percent. The United States had the highest divorce rate in the world. From Elaine Tyler May, Great Expectations: Marriage and Divorce in Post-Victorian America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 2.
19 L. Laszlow Schwartz, D.D.S., “The Life of Charles Henry Land (1847–1922)” Journal of the American College of Dentists, March 1955, vol. 24, issue 1, pp. 33–51.
20 CAL, The Spirit of St. Louis, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953.
21 Interview with AML.
22 CAL, The Spirit of St. Louis.
23 Ibid.
24 Details of CAL’s aviation career are from The Spirit of St. Louis; Perry Luckett, Charles Lindbergh: A Bio-Bibliography, Westport, Connecti
cut: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1986; and Kenneth Davis, The Hero, New York: Doubleday, 1959.
25 Irwin H. Hoover, “The Queen and Lindy,” ed. by Wesley Stout, The Saturday Evening Post, 8/11/34, vol. 207, pp. 10–11.
26 Dwight W. Morrow to Charles A. Lindbergh, 10/4/27, Dwight W. Morrow Papers (Series 1, box 31, Folder 47), Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library.
27 Biographical information about Betty Morrow is based on Elizabeth Cutter Morrow Diaries, Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives; Morrow Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Library; Constance Morrow Morgan, A Distant Moment: The Youth, Education and Courtship of Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, Northampton, Massachusetts: Smith College, 1977; BMAU; and interview with Constance Morrow Morgan.
28 Interview with neighbors of the Morrows in Englewood, Joan Johnson and her mother, Mrs. David Van Alstyne, and Janet Johnson and Sue Graham, two friends of Elisabeth’s in Englewood who would become teachers at the Elisabeth Morrow School.
29 Interview with Eleanor Rodale, a friend of Anne’s at Smith College.
30 Interview with Constance Morrow Morgan and correspondence between Dwight Morrow, Sr., and Dwight Morrow, Jr., Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives.
31 Interview with Reeve Lindbergh Tripp.
32 This section is based in part on Kenneth Davis, The Hero; CAL, The Spirit of St. Louis; and Lindbergh Papers at the National Archives, Washington, D.C.; excerpts from Elizabeth Cutter Morrow Diaries, Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives; and newsreels from the National Archives Motion Picture, Sound and Video library.
33 CAL, The Spirit of St. Louis.
34 CAL, Autobiography of Values.
35 Ibid.
36 Elizabeth Cutter Morrow Diaries, Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives.
37 Constance Morrow’s letter to Anne Morrow, Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives.
38 Interview with AML and interview with Constance Morrow Morgan.
39 BMAU, AML letter to ECM, 10/18/27, p. 74.
40 BMAU, AML diary, 12/19/27, p. 79.
41 Ibid., pp. 78–79; Interview with AML and interview with Constance Morrow Morgan.
42 Dwight Morrow correspondence with Elisabeth Morrow, Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives.
43 BMAU, AML diary, 8/23/26, p. 38.
44 Ibid., 12/21/27, p. 80.
45 Ibid., p. 81.
46 Ibid.
47 BMAU, AML letter to ECM, 3/5/27, p. 62.
48 BMAU, AML diary, 12/21/27, p. 81.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
2. COMING HOME
1 BMAU, AML diary, “Christmas Eve Day,” pp. 87–88.
2 Ron Robin, Enclaves of America: The Rhetoric of American Political Architecture Abroad, 1900–1965, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 34–35, 67–69; and “New Embassy Building at Mexico City,” The American Foreign Service Journal, October 1925, pp. 336–337.
3 Excelsior (newspaper), Mexico City, 12/15/27 through 12/28/27.
4 Many descriptive details in this chapter are derived from period newsreels and documentary films on file at the National Archives Motion Picture Sound and Video Library.
5 BMAU, AML diary, 12/21/27, p. 84.
6 The dialogue that follows is from BMAU, AML diary, 12/21/27, p. 82.
7 Ibid., p. 83.
8 Ibid., “Mexico City,” p. 80.
9 Ibid., “Sunday, Christmas Day,” p. 91.
10 Interview with AML.
11 Elisabeth Reeve Morrow letters to Constance Chilton, 1925–1934.
12 Ibid.; interview with Constance Chilton.
13 BMAU, AML diary, 12/21/27, p. 86.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., “Sunday, Christmas Day,” pp. 90–91.
16 Details about Evangeline Lindbergh at the time of her visit to Mexico City are from the following sources: Alden Whitman’s interview with Eva Lindbergh Christie Spaeth; ELLL Notebook “For Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.,” Interviews with AML; Excelsior, Mexico City, 12/15/27 through 12/28/27; Elaine Showalter, op. cit.
17 BMAU, AML diary, 12/21/27, p. 87.
18 Ibid., “Sunday, Christmas Day,” p. 96.
19 Details of Anne Morrow’s first flight with Charles Lindbergh are from BMAU, pp. 95–99.
20 Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology, as quoted in Anne’s diary Bring Me a Unicorn.
3. THE EARLY YEARS
1 AML, The Unicorn and Other Poems, New York: Vintage Books, 1972, p. 79.
2 Morrow Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Library; Alfred E. Stearns, From an Amherst Boyhood, Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press, 1946; Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’s Colleges from their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930’s, New York: A. A. Knopf, 1984; L. Clark Seelye, The Early History of Smith College, 1871–1910, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1923; Constance Morrow Morgan, op. cit. Harold Nicolson, Dwight Morrow, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1936.
3 Constance Morrow Morgan, A Distant Moment, pp. 141–143.
4 Ronald G. Mullins, A Little About a Few Cutters, 1637–1980, copyright 1980; William E. Foster, Charles Ammi Cutter: A Memorial Sketch, Public Library, Providence, Rhode Island, reprinted from the Library Journal, 1903.
5 Constance Morrow Morgan, op. cit., p. 19.
6 Barbara Miller Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985, pp. 62–65.
7 Constance Morrow Morgan, op. cit., pp. 85, 139, 142.
8 Ibid., p. 143.
9 Harold Nicolson, op. cit.
10 Constance Morrow Morgan, op. cit., p. 170.
11 Ibid., p. 172.
12 Ibid., pp. 177–179.
13 The City of Englewood, A Profile, Englewood Chamber of Commerce, Englewood, New Jersey; Jewish Community Center, number 7; the Community Chest; and interviews with Mrs. David Van Alstyne and Janet Johnson, friends of the Morrows in Englewood.
14 Harold Nicolson, op. cit., p. 81.
15 Morrow Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Library.
16 Interview with AML.
17 Information about the town of Quogue is from an interview with Quogue historian Pat Shuttleworth; Richard H. Post, Notes on Quogue 1659–1959, published by the Quogue Tercentenary Committee, 1959; Scrapbook, “Old Long Island Towns, May 6, 1895,” Suffolk County Historical Society; One Hundred Years Ago in Quogue, pamphlet, Quogue Public Library.
18 Morrow Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Library.
19 The Wheel, Chapin School.
20 Morrow Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Library.
21 Harold Nicolson, op. cit., p. 110.
22 Ron Chernow, op. cit.
23 Harold Nicolson, op. cit., pp. 128–131.
24 Karen J. Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined, 1868–1914, New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979.
25 Interview with Constance Morrow Morgan.
26 The following material is from essays, stories, and poems by AML published in The Wheel, Chapin School Archives.
27 Interview with AML.
28 Richard Harris and Lynn Seldon, Hidden Bahamas, Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 1997, pp. 41–43.
29 Interview with AML.
30 The Wheel, Chapin School.
31 Harold Nicolson Diaries, Harold Nicolson Papers, Indiana University Archives.
32 Morrow Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Library.
33 The Wheel, Chapin School.
34 Interview with Eleanor Rodale.
35 The Wheel, Chapin School.
36 Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Special People, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977, p. 127.
37 Interview with Eleanor Rodale.
38 Barbara Miller Solomon, op. cit.
39 BMAU, AML letter to ERM, late September, 1922, pp. 5–7.
40 Catalogue of Smith College: Fiftieth Year, 1924–25, (Smith College: Northampton, MA), 1924
–1928; Annual Report of the President of Smith College: Presented to the Board of Trustees, October 16, 1925; October 16, 1926; October 21, 1927; October 19, 1928, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928.