The Lois Wilson Story

by William G Borchert

  World War I and the free-wheeling Roaring Twenties that followed began to change things just a bit, but the “sexual revolution,” as we know it today, was nowhere in sight when Lois became a young lady.

  Even so, by the time she was twenty-one, the charming and alluring Miss Burnham was having difficulty herself with some of these social conventions. She had graduated from Packer Collegiate Institute and was studying drawing and painting at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art—and working with live models. There were several young men in her life now to whom she felt physically attracted, and despite her strict moral upbringing, Lois’s interests were admittedly neither “platonic” nor “old-maidenish,” nor did she fit into any of those other similar categories. As she herself shared later in her memoirs, “Sometimes it was hard for me to keep to all those strict rules. I knew other girls who didn’t and in some cases saw how much trouble they brought upon themselves. I didn’t want that to happen to me. Still, when I sat with a young man all evening in our front parlor at Clinton Street, I was often tempted when he wanted to spoon. Both of us frequently found it difficult to create enough interesting conversation to distract us from what we may have had in mind. But I did my best to hold faithfully to our conventions. Fortunately, just when it would become the most difficult to do so, mother would call down from the top of the stairs that it was time for the young gentleman to go home.”1

  There was one other thing that made Lois’s physical desires a little bit easier to contain. She hadn’t fallen in love yet.

  It was around the middle of May 1914, early on a Saturday morning, Lois recalled, when she heard someone yanking incessantly on the bell chain outside the front door of the Burnham cottage on Emerald Lake. She was making a cup of tea for herself at the time. Annie the cook was busy feeding the younger children in the kitchen, her father was reading some papers in his study, and her mother was in her bedroom still recuperating from a virus she had picked up only a few days before the family left the city for Vermont.

  There was a momentary pause, then the bells rang again . . . and again. By the time Lois reached the front door she was quite peeved. She glanced through the sunroom window to see a tall, lanky young man standing outside with a half dozen or so kerosene lamps tied to a pole that was slung across his broad shoulder. When Lois shoved open the outer door, she hit the young peddler on his leg, almost knocking him and his wares off the small front porch.

  After regaining his balance and spotting the rather unfriendly look on Lois’s face, his own countenance turned beet red. He stared at the ground and uttered:

  “Need any kerosene lamps, ma’am?”

  Lois now recognized the young man as one of her brother Rogers’s summer friends, and she slowly pulled in her horns. While she had never actually met him before, she had seen him a number of times over the years and knew him as one of the “natives,” the term the elite summer crowd applied to the local folks of East Dorset and its environs, some of whom worked in the small shops and restaurants and handled all sorts of handyman chores for a fee.

  With an apologetic tone in her voice, Lois replied: “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you with the door like that.”

  The young man forced a shy smile on his handsome face as he wiggled uncomfortably back and forth, making his kerosene lamps clang together.

  “You’re Rogers’s friend. But I . . . I don’t recall your name.”

  “It’s Bill, ma’am. Bill Wilson.”

  “How much are the lamps?”

  “Seventy-five cents.”

  “Seventy-five cents? But they’re only fifty cents at the store.”

  “Not with delivery, ma’am.”

  “But . . . twenty-five cents more!”

  Now the young man was getting peeved. Suddenly Dr. Burnham was at the door.

  “We could use two of those. And if you could bring some extra kerosene by, I would appreciate it.”

  Lois recalled feeling slightly embarrassed by her father’s quick dismissal of her attempt to negotiate a lower price.2 However, later he would tell her how he was impressed by young Wilson’s ambition and grit. Rogers said he was working two jobs plus peddling lamps on weekends to pay for his expenses at Norwich University, a military college in Northfield, Vermont, just outside Montpelier, the state capital. She could tell from her father’s expression that Bill reminded him of himself at that age.

  Still, Lois wasn’t all that impressed. At least that’s what she told herself. This Bill Wilson fellow wasn’t even that good-looking in spite of those bright, expressive eyes and that thick sandy-colored hair. And he seemed clumsy and slow and not at all personable. But most of all, her father said Bill was almost nineteen. She was already twenty-two, and that made him much too young for her. What would people think?

  Then why did his brief visit to her front door remain on her mind all that day, that night, and even the following few days?

  Bill Wilson, on the other hand, was very impressed. First, he appreciated Dr. Burnham’s friendly, businesslike manner and his payment up front in cold hard cash. Second, Lois’s challenging, almost intimidating attitude impressed him to the point where he swore he’d get even before the summer was over. One thing he couldn’t stand was a patronizing attitude. He’d get even, all right, and the opportunity would present itself sooner than he anticipated.

  Here was a determined, generally amiable, sometimes confused and distant young man whose roots ran deep into the Vermont soil. Bill Wilson came from a lineage of tall, raw-boned quarrymen who loved to spin great yarns in the local taverns while matching their peers drink for drink. And his father, Gilman Wilson—known as “Gilly” to his drinking buddies—was one of the best at both storytelling and drinking.

  Gilly was born in the town of East Dorset in 1870, in the very same year and in the very same township as Emily Griffith, the first daughter of Gardener Fayette Griffith, a serious man who tilled the soil and loved it and his country deeply. His eldest daughter inherited his serious side: she grew into a tall, handsome woman with fixed notions that no one could alter no matter how hard or how long they tried. She was an avid reader, and when she discovered on a page an idea or provocative thought that she agreed with, it would become an unshakable part of her worldview. And she remained that way her entire life.3

  Although Gilly was completely different—a man who could make up his mind one minute and change it the next—there was something about him that attracted Emily from the first day they met. Perhaps it was his ruggedly handsome looks, his thick, wavy hair, or the easy way he laughed. They both attended the same school, attended the same church, played in the same park, and went to the same parties. Before long they fell in love and were married. Many townsfolk whispered they were a completely unmatched pair, Emily a college graduate and Gilly a humble quarry worker. But Emily seemed happy at first, and Gilly—well, he always seemed happy.

  Gilly’s father, William C. Wilson, a Civil War veteran, had worked in the quarries himself until he met and married Helen Barrows, who had inherited the largest house in East Dorset. It was a great rambling structure that for some years now had been a local inn called the Barrows House. Willie Wilson decided he’d enjoy running an inn more than running a quarry gang, so he renamed the place the Wilson House and settled down to wine and dine a constant stream of guests.

  When his son decided to marry Emily Griffith, Willie not only threw a big wedding banquet but also set the young couple up in their first apartment—two rooms in the rear of the Wilson House. And it was there about a year later, almost as an omen of things to come, that their first child, William G. Wilson, was born on November 26, 1895—in one of those small rooms right behind the bar.

  No one could conceive what great things William G. Wilson would accomplish, nor could anyone conceive the great difficulties, disappointments, and tragedies that would buffet him along the way. I
t was only when he shared all of this with Lois in his sober years that she would finally come to understand just how powerless she had been to help him all along. Yet she would have to endure all his pain and degradation with him before achieving such awareness.

  Young Billy was only nine when the first tragedy struck. His father and mother separated and eventually divorced. The townsfolk weren’t surprised. Bill once shared with Lois that he should have seen it coming but closed his eyes and pretended when he opened them again things would be different. But they weren’t. The bickering, the quarreling, the outright screaming matches were still there and had been ever since his sister Dorothy was born. His mother kept saying she felt “stuck in a rut” and needed to find her way out.

  Gilly was now managing a large granite quarry in the nearby Taconic Mountains and they had moved into a home of their own, a small but attractive green-shingled cottage a few blocks from the inn. But Emily wanted more and Gilly knew he couldn’t get it for her, not on a quarry manager’s paycheck. His drinking increased along with Emily’s aloofness. Billy loved his father, and the night he left was a night he never forgot. In a way, he blamed himself even though his father swore it had nothing to do with him. But Billy just couldn’t accept what his father said, especially when his insides kept telling him he had done something wrong—that his father no longer loved him.

  Gilly headed for western Canada to manage another quarry. Emily sat down to plot her future. She was thirty-five now and had a son and a daughter to look after. She also had her own life to live, a life up until now of unfulfilled dreams. Conjuring up one particular dream, Emily soon developed another “fixed notion,” one that not even her kind and loving father could dissuade her from and one that led to Billy’s second deep disappointment and still deeper self-recrimination.

  It was 1905. Emily would file for divorce, leave the children with her father and mother, head for Boston, enroll in medical school, and become an osteopath. The children would see her only occasionally for some years after that.

  And so it happened. And while Billy loved his grandparents, he had great difficulty ignoring those confusing emotions deep inside that made him feel unlovable, that he must surely be to blame for his mother leaving. He never discussed any of this with his mother or anyone. He just kept it all inside.

  Growing up in the rolling green pastures and rugged mountains of Vermont with a loving grandfather who shared his patriotism for America and taught him how to make and fly a boomerang, how to repair and play an old violin, how to fish, hunt, and read Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer took much of Billy’s pain and sadness away, but not all of it.

  He and his sister Dorothy attended the two-room schoolhouse in East Dorset, and their teachers were both dedicated and strict. And their grandparents made sure every bit of their homework was done before bedtime. Outside of class, the young boy’s agility and strength made him an excellent athlete. He eagerly looked forward to entering the local high school and playing organized sports with his friends. But Emily had a different idea—another “fixed notion.” Although living and studying in Boston, she stayed in touch with her father and kept track of her children’s progress, especially their education. She was determined they would make something of themselves. She’d die before her son ever wound up in the quarries like her husband.

  By the time Bill was ready for high school, Emily was now part of an osteopathic medical group in Boston and could afford to send him and his sister to a private school. Without consulting anyone, including her son, she had her father enroll him in Burr and Burton Academy, a well-respected coeducational boarding school in nearby Manchester, Vermont. The young man was devastated when he received the news. But there was nothing he could do about it, so again he just buried his feelings inside.

  Late that summer, before he left for school, his longtime friend Mark Whalon, a man eight years Bill’s senior, whom he looked upon as a “kind and caring uncle,” decided to throw his young sidekick a going-away party.4 Mark was a rather heavy-drinking local handyman who loved to share his great dreams and aspirations with Bill who, in turn, often wondered why Mark wasn’t trying to achieve them. He gathered some of Bill’s companions together one evening on the shore of Emerald Lake—strangely enough, only a stone’s throw from the Burnham cottage—and pulled out a jug of home brew for everyone to have a swig from. When Bill’s turn came, he passed. Perhaps it was those memories of his father and how drinking affected him. While his friends laughed and ribbed him, Mark Whalon didn’t. He already knew how the damn stuff could grow on you and was happy about his young friend’s decision.

  Those first few days and weeks at Burr and Burton were black and lonely. Competing in sports against local farm boys was one thing. Competing here against skilled young men from throughout the country was something else. At first Bill felt dumb and awkward. Some of the boys laughed at him at tryouts. Others called him “the Stilt” because of his leanness and lankiness. But the determination his grandfather had planted deep in his belly when trying to make and fly that boomerang was still there. So he didn’t give up.

  Bill Wilson made the football team that first year but spent most of the time on the bench. By his sophomore year he was the starting fullback and recognized as the best punter on the team. He also pitched baseball, and by his junior year he was captain of the varsity baseball team. While he gained the respect and admiration of his classmates, that gap was still inside him, the feeling that he didn’t quite measure up. One day he would come to know why that feeling of low self-esteem was there and, as with most alcoholics, always would be.

  Perhaps that’s why girls played little or no part in his life up until now. He still considered himself not very good-looking: his ears were too big; he was clumsy and much too skinny. At least that’s how he felt until the spring of his junior year—until that day when he was leaving the baseball field and accidentally stumbled into Bertha Banford, the prettiest, the brightest, and surely the most alluring girl in school. She had been in the stands watching the team practice. Unbeknownst to Bill, she had actually come to watch him. She had been doing so for the past few months, ever since this charming young lady, whose father was a minister in New York City, had developed a crush on the team captain.

  But now as they both stood there on the path leading back to the gymnasium, Bill couldn’t believe that Bertha Banford, the girl every guy in school wanted to date, was actually smiling up at him with a loving look in those sensuous brown eyes. He fell in love instantly. He fell in love deeply. And when he learned that Bertha loved him too, he discovered something that turned his life completely around. He found that for a man like him, when someone else thinks you’re handsome, you’re handsome. When someone else thinks you’re bright and intelligent, you’re bright and intelligent. And when someone like Bertha Banford says she loves you, that makes you lovable once again.

  He saw her in chapel every morning, glanced across his book at her in class as she did the same. They walked together around the campus almost every evening, watching the sun set and the moon rise. It was difficult to part that summer, but they knew they’d be together again in the fall.

  Bill met Bertha’s parents that September, the start of his senior year. He was invited to spend the Thanksgiving holidays with them in the city. A few weeks before, Bertha told him she had to leave school for some medical tests. She didn’t appear concerned, so neither was he, although he knew she hadn’t been feeling well since returning to school. She promised to write and keep him informed. But no letters came. He phoned her once in the city, but there was no answer.

  Bill Wilson was in chapel that chilly November morning four days before Thanksgiving. They had just finished singing a hymn when the headmaster entered, whispered something to the chaplain, and then moved slowly to the pulpit. Everyone could see he was quite nervous and upset. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a telegram. He began, “I received this tele
gram only an hour ago. It informs me that someone very near and dear to our hearts, Bertha Banford, died last night following surgery at the First Avenue Hospital in New York City.” Then he asked everyone to kneel and say a prayer for this special young lady.5

  Bill remained standing while everyone else in the chapel fell to their knees, murmuring sadly to each other. His legs wouldn’t bend. His mind wouldn’t function. All he felt was his heart thumping madly in his chest as if trying to burst through his ribs and reach out to the girl he loved so dearly . . . the girl he knew he couldn’t live without. Tragedy had struck once again in the life of young Bill Wilson, only this time he had no idea how to face it, how to handle it, how to survive it even if he wanted to. The only thing he remembered thinking before he left chapel that morning was, “If there is a God, He can go to hell!”6

  A week later there was a memorial service for Bertha in that same chapel at Burr and Burton Academy. It was packed with students and teachers and many of her friends and relatives. The Reverend and Mrs. Banford also attended. Bill’s classmates understood as they watched him weep in Mrs. Banford’s arms. Before Bertha’s mother left, she took Bill’s hand and pressed into it her favorite picture of her daughter. Perhaps she knew that this young man would need something more than just a memory to hang on to.

  The rest of the school year was almost a total blackout. Bill remembered attending classes and spending most of the time staring out the window. He barely squeaked by. He tried to go on with his activities in the glee club and school orchestra, where he now played the violin. But he walked around in a fog, as he had once seen Mark Whalon stumble around town. But unlike Mark, Bill had nothing to support him, nothing inside to dull the pain. He fell into a depression. It would plague him on and off over the next several years. Even when he managed to pass the entrance exam for his first choice, Norwich University, which his grandfather battled with his mother so that he could attend, the painful memories were still there. And they would stay until that day two years hence when, in the middle of Emerald Lake, he tried to get even with Lois Burnham—and something magical happened instead.