Kid Carolina

by Heidi Schnakenberg

  Muriel was angry. Nissen noticed the tension. Now in a terrible mood, Muriel saw a grocery bill that Captain Rosing had brought back to them, and she flew into a rage when she saw that he’d purchased eggs for a dollar a dozen. “I just saw eggs in town for seventy-five cents!” Muriel screamed. Dick retorted, “If you don’t like it, you do the shopping.” So Muriel called Hamburg and ordered a Mercedes 300 with a chauffeur to come 125 miles to Kiel to take her two miles into town.

  While she was gone, a German reporter came onboard to interview Dick about his yachting activities in the area. She brought with her a sixteen-year-old American exchange student to translate, and Dick invited them to stay awhile. They were there all afternoon and into the night while Muriel was away. When photos of Dick and the teenager showed up in the newspaper, Muriel accused him of sleeping with her. Dick never said one way or the other, but Muriel started to worry that Dick was having affairs.

  From Kiel, they sailed to the port of Travemünde, where Muriel developed an abscessed tooth. Dick was so anxious to keep sailing, he asked her if she could get it removed locally. So as not to disappoint Dick, Muriel found a dentist, who removed her tooth using very little anesthesia. In the process, the dentist damaged her root, and she had to get a root canal on top of it.

  A couple of hours later, Nissen met her at the dentist and took her back to the yacht. Dick greeted her with disdain. “You’re late. I’ve been waiting to sail for the last hour.” Muriel couldn’t believe his reaction—after all the times she had nursed him to health, this was all he had to say to her after her ordeal.

  By now it was August, and they sailed from Travemünde to Copenhagen. They had acquired an English engineer and a Danish boatswain, whom Muriel liked a lot—finally some hired help Muriel could get along with. Nissen’s wife, Eureka, had also joined them at Dick’s invitation.

  They got off the boat and traveled to Helsinger because Dick wanted to see the castles. They went to a fine restaurant, and Dick and Muriel began arguing and shouting in front of the patrons. Afterward, they went to Kronborg Castle, still fighting. Dick had met up with a Navy friend who was in charge of a shipping museum there, and Muriel purposely made derogatory comments about Danish shipping in front of him. Dick said, “Muriel, shut up, don’t be an idiot. They can hear us.” But she wouldn’t stop.

  By dinnertime that night, they were still arguing and bickering—about what, no one could remember. Dick enjoyed arguing with Muriel most of the time. He just didn’t like it when she won. He and Blitz had the same dynamic in their marriage, but Muriel could quickly turn mean. At one point, Dick turned to Eureka for support and said, “Am I not right?” to which Muriel replied, “Oh, she is dumb, she doesn’t speak any English anyway.” Eureka said she had a headache and excused herself. Dick screamed at Muriel, “Get off the boat! I don’t want to see you anymore.” Muriel said, “Fine, I will.”

  It was August 15, and Muriel sauntered off the boat without any of her belongings, not realizing that Dick was serious.

  When Dick pulled up anchor and sailed off without her, she panicked. She immediately called the Royal Bank of Canada and asked for a transfer of $550,000 from Dick’s account at the RBC to their joint bank account.

  Meanwhile, Dick sailed back to Travemünde and into the Elbe River at Cuxhaven. He intended to go to Stockholm but didn’t make it because the boat needed repairs. As he sailed back to the shipyard at Bremen, he found out about the money transfer and he became enraged. He was so angry he called up his lawyers to talk to them for the first time about divorcing Muriel.

  Muriel, meanwhile, had ended up in Paris, and she called Irma and Nissen to bring her belongings. Nissen jumped on a train in Bremen and took them to her personally in Paris and stayed with her for two days, but he refused to tell her where Dick was. Then Muriel dropped a bomb. “I’m pregnant,” she said. Nissen’s jaw dropped. Muriel went on to explain that because of her hormones, she was having a hard time controlling her temper. She apologized for transferring the money and begged Nissen to convince Dick to forgive her.

  Once Dick heard the news he immediately went down to Paris to meet Muriel. In spite of an apparent lack of interest in parenting, he was desperate to have a baby with Muriel and was very excited. He got over the money transfer pretty quickly, sending a jovial note to the Royal Bank of Canada and asking them to stop the transfer. It had just been a result of a “domestic spat” that was long since forgiven, according to Dick.

  While Muriel rested at the hotel, Dick went out to Fred Payne’s bar for the night to let off steam. Marianne O’Brien happened to be in town and strolled into the same establishment. Dick hadn’t seen Marianne since the divorce and he thought it would be fun to catch up. He invited her to sit and talk with him and they chatted amicably for some time. Marianne realized how much she’d missed Dick. She was still lonely after their divorce and was looking for love. She mistook Dick’s drunken friendliness for renewed interest in her. When Dick made an insulting remark about her looks to the bartender, Marianne flew into a rage, screaming at Dick all the things she had wanted to say to him during the divorce. Then she got physical. Marianne not only struck Dick in the head with a shoe, she threw glasses and bottles all over the bar, causing 40,000 francs in damage. Marianne’s tendency to resort to violence had not changed—at least when it came to Dick. She was ordered to leave the premises in shame.

  Meanwhile, Dick picked up another “human collectible”—a French girl named Gabrielle—and had the nerve to bring her back to Muriel’s hotel at dawn. Muriel was humiliated and hurt, especially in light of her recent news. Of course, once Dick sobered up, he begged her forgiveness, and all was forgiven.

  In October 1954, Dick and Muriel flew back to York, England, to attend the wedding of Richard Greenough to his third wife, which was being held at Claxton Hall. Richard, who had met Dick only a few times with Muriel, surprisingly asked Dick to be his best man. Christian Nissen brought the rest of Dick’s formal clothing from the yacht so he would have something to wear at the wedding. Muriel thanked Nissen for all he did and rewarded him with money she had won gambling in Travemünde. She even bought the Nissens a new car and a new apartment in Hamburg.

  Richard Greenough and his new wife, and Muriel and Dick continued to be good friends throughout the years. Dick even suggested Muriel sell her old Seventy-ninth Street apartment in New York to Richard so they could live nearby.

  Before they departed England, Dick and Muriel consulted with a doctor who confirmed Muriel’s pregnancy. Dick was elated by the news. She had been trying to get pregnant since the first day of their marriage.

  Dick was due to return to the Aries and sail to Tangiers to test the yacht, so he instructed Muriel to go to New York, get some rest, and wait for him. The Rosings had fallen ill during sailing, and Dick replaced them with a new crew. He invited John Walter Gates to be the new master of the Aries and also hired a young German man named Guenther Lehman to be his personal secretary. They sailed to Tangiers first, and then made their way back across the Atlantic toward St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.

  When Muriel returned to New York, it was November 1954. One night when she was out at the movies with a friend, she was attacked and mugged on the street. She was in such a state of shock and nervousness that she went home and called a doctor to examine her. The doctor confirmed that she was fine and healthy, but that she seemed exhausted and should relax as much as possible. That was hard for Muriel to do—Dick wasn’t around and she was deeply shaken by the ordeal. Three days later in her hotel room, she suffered a miscarriage in the bathtub. She had been three months along.

  Dick was in the Caribbean when Muriel told him what happened. He gently assured her they would keep trying, and at least now they knew it was possible. Dick asked Muriel to fly to Palm Beach and meet him there, where they could be reunited for Christmas. Christian Nissen would join them for the holiday, along with Karl Weiss and Martin Hall from Sapelo.

  Once they were reunited, it didn
’t take long for Dick and Muriel’s reconciliation to turn sour. They spent the holiday arguing and Muriel was back to complaining about the servants once again.

  The marriage was strained more and more as time went on. Dick’s drinking continued to be extreme—every morning he had brandy, crème de cacao, and milk for breakfast, and the drinking increased throughout the day. Each time he recovered, Muriel followed the usual routine—nursing him back to health and calling hosts of doctors wherever in the world they happened to be. But Muriel never complained about the work she had to do to help him through it, and she never asked any of Dick’s family for help.

  In spite of spending almost a million dollars a year, Dick couldn’t help making money hand over fist. He managed to earn big capital gains on his investments each year and was still one of the richest men in America. Dick and Muriel continued to spend that cash and be dizzyingly extravagant and adventurous, no matter how often Dick was bedridden. He never slowed down for long before he caught his second wind. In addition to Sapelo, they kept homes in Palm Beach, in New York on East Sixty-sixth Street, in Monte Carlo, and in Tahiti, and they traveled between them often. They spent four months out of the year on the Aries, which had a crew of seven permanent employees, as well as a new yacht, the Scarlett O’Hara, with a permanent crew of two. They also kept a twin-engine Beechcraft airplane and numerous island boats at Sapelo.

  Dick and Muriel’s wild adventures continued to draw national attention. In 1955, they were sailing off the coast of Miami when their fastest boat, the Scarlett O’Hara, caught fire. They jumped into a dinghy and rowed to shore, where they tried to catch a taxi. Looking haggard and disheveled, they tried to convince a driver that they’d abandoned a burning ship and needed to be taken to a hotel. The driver didn’t believe them but finally agreed to take them where they needed to go. The incident made headlines.

  In 1956, Dick and Muriel went back to Winston-Salem to attend the dedication ceremony for Wake Forest’s new campus. Dick was credited for being the “motivating force” behind the college’s relocation to Winston-Salem. That same year, Dick invited all the North Carolinians who were in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention to come and celebrate with him and Muriel after the convention was over. Hundreds of people streamed to Sapelo on chartered planes at Dick’s expense.

  Around the same time, Dick worked on developing Sapelo. He had visions of Sapelo being a great resort island, much like Sea Island. Dick had almost finished migrating all of Sapelo Island’s residents into an enclave called Hog Hammock. Previously, the residents had been scattered throughout several coastal hamlets around the island, and Dick and his farm managers bought them all up for a fraction of what their land was worth. In exchange, Dick paid for their new homes in the central hammock on the island. This angered some of the island’s residents, but they felt powerless. Unbeknownst to Dick, Frank Durant even threatened some, telling them they would lose their jobs if they didn’t take the offer. To make matters worse, Dick never did finish developing the coast as he’d intended. The movement of all those residents for a half-hearted project that was never completed caused a lot of grief that continues to this day.

  In August 1956, Dick and Muriel spent their anniversary in Bremen working on the Aries, which again had to be repaired. They met Christian Nissen in Kiev and they all traveled to Berlin for a week’s vacation. Dick, Muriel, and Nissen went out to a club on their own one night, and there was a beautiful singer with whom Dick became infatuated. He kept throwing hundred-dollar bills at her so she would keep singing, even as the club closed. Muriel, still feeling insecure about the Gabrielle incident a couple of years prior, turned to Nissen. “What do you think about giving Dick this?” Muriel said as she stuck $200 worth of bills in Nissen’s hand. “Get the singer to go to bed with him tonight.”

  Nissen refused, saying, “Muriel, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to do such a thing.” Muriel shrugged her shoulders and put the money back in her purse. It was clear that being married to Dick had desensitized Muriel to such scandalous behavior.

  By the fall of 1957, Muriel was seasoned at summoning doctors for Dick whenever he drank too much. During one examination, Dick was informed that he had a low, nearly inactive sperm count, and their hopes for a child were gone.

  On another occasion while they were in New York, Dick turned unusually gray and pale after a drinking binge, and Muriel called Dr. Mark O’Vickie, who rushed to their apartment. O’Vickie determined that Dick had “a touch of dropsy” and ordered him to stop drinking if he wanted to save his life. Dick asked to be sent to Winston-Salem to see his old family friend Dr. Henry Valk, and Muriel drove him down in October of 1957. Valk reiterated what O’Vickie had said in New York. Dick was on the verge of destroying himself, and if he intended to live a minute longer he had to stop drinking at once. Afterward, they flew to Palm Beach so Dick could recuperate.

  Around the same time, Dick’s third son, Zach, became engaged to a nice Winston-Salem girl, Linda Lee Tise. Dick had spent so little time with Zach throughout his life that Zach admitted that he deliberately hid from his father when he came to Winston-Salem because he didn’t know what to say to him. Linda, whom Dick loved, provided an opportunity for them to reconnect. Zach and Linda were soon spending more time with Dick and Muriel in Palm Beach and Sapelo. After one visit in Florida, Linda was in a bad car accident on her way to meet friends. She had nearly severed her leg and was fighting for her life, but because she was underage, she couldn’t receive surgery without her parents’ permission, and they were out of state. Dick rushed to the hospital and immediately took responsibility for her. She said she never saw a medical bill and that Dick was instrumental in saving her life, and she was forever grateful to him. When she later married Zach, Dick was overjoyed.

  Zach and Linda weren’t Dick’s only regular guests in Palm Beach and Sapelo. Dick and Muriel, and sometimes only Dick, spent a lot of time with Muriel’s brother, Tony Marston, and his family. Dick loved skeet shooting with Tony and eating his wife’s cooking. Dick also took a liking to his son Clay, whom he treated more like a son than his own boys. Dick delighted Clay with bowling games at Sapelo and generous toys and gifts during the holidays. Sometimes the Marstons spent months at a time with Dick, whether or not Muriel was around. Dick had a rapport with the Marstons that he did not have with his own family, and their impression of Dick was very different. They perceived Dick as one of the kindest, most generous, and cheerful individuals they had ever met. They never saw his outbursts of anger or the dark side of his drinking. All they saw was a man who appreciated each new day and lived for the moment. They saw a man who always had a smile on his face and would do anything for them.

  This was in stark contrast to the man Dick’s sons saw. Dick complained that the boys were too spoiled and undisciplined, and that their behavior was increasingly out of control. He felt they weren’t being raised right by their mother, but he did little to take responsibility for them himself. While Dick bought gifts for nonfamily members, it was usually left to Muriel to shop for Dick’s sons. It seemed that Dick couldn’t bring himself to give his attention and his unconditional generosity to his family the way he did for everyone else. Only his worsening health would temporarily break this pattern.

  By the time Dick and Muriel attended the Georgetown Regatta in the spring of 1958, Dick drank again, and disrupted his health once again. He would go through several more bouts of sickness, but for him it was better than going through alcohol withdrawal.

  In April 1958, Dick and Muriel went back to Winston-Salem for the Founders’ Day Celebration at Wake Forest, and Muriel was on hand with a $14,000 bust of Dick she had made for the university. Dick wasn’t at the ceremony because he was sick in bed.

  Dick’s Rapid Decline

  In May of 1958, Dick and Muriel were at their Palm Beach house having lunch when Dick became very ill again. He had the same gray look he had in New York the year before. Muriel knew this was bad. She chartered a plane for hi
m to fly to Winston-Salem’s Baptist Hospital, where he recuperated again under Dr. Valk’s care. Valk again said that if he didn’t stop drinking, he would probably have only five more years to live. At the same time, Dick was diagnosed with pulmonary emphysema, which was believed to be caused by a genetic disorder, and which was exacerbated by Dick’s hard living. For the first time in his life, Dick took his health seriously. He was going to quit drinking for good.

  Following Dick’s hospital stay, he and Muriel went up to Fancy Gap, Virginia, for a holiday and to spend more time with the family. Dick bought Zach a mountain lodge there, which Muriel fully furnished for him. Nancy’s children also visited for days at a time.

  At that time, Dick made the decision to sell his RJR stock. The price had soared to almost twice its value and everyone in town was selling. Dick made over $2 million on the stock that he had originally purchased in 1929 during the Great Depression. It was Muriel’s idea after she noticed they had changed the label on the Camel brand. As a gesture of gratitude, Dick wished to set up a new trust for Muriel with the proceeds.

  Money had been on his mind because of his health problems, and the trust would be a good place to stuff all this new cash. While still sojourning at Fancy Gap, Dick arranged for a trust worth $6,113,000, which he felt “should become my wife’s share of my estate,” and made Muriel the beneficiary. Dick also sent $50,000 to each of his sons as a “just because” gift. He had his sons on his mind too.

  Twenty-five-year-old Josh had become somewhat unstable and had a nervous breakdown before he was hospitalized in Detroit. Dick let him stay in their apartment in New York, and Josh lived with Dick and Muriel on and off for a year. He became very close to Muriel especially, and she coached him through his low periods.