The Lois Wilson Story

by William G Borchert

  A half hour later, Lois was in an ambulance on her way to Skene Sanitarium, a women’s hospital in Brooklyn where Dr. Burnham was on the staff. The specialist he brought in quickly discovered that a second ectopic pregnancy had burst a fallopian tube. Lois was rushed into surgery. The surgical team also found an ovarian cyst and was forced to remove her ovaries and both fallopian tubes. While they left her uterus intact to help maintain Lois’s normal sexual feelings and desires, her worst fears of never having children were now a reality.3

  Bill staggered into their apartment well past midnight. He was confused when he discovered Lois wasn’t home. Perhaps she had gone to see her mother, was the first thought that entered his clouded mind. But she’d never stay out so late, not in her condition. He put on some coffee and waited. He finally concluded something must be wrong. Despite the late hour, he called Clinton Street. Katherine gave him the news.

  Dr. Burnham was still at Skene Sanitarium when his somewhat- disheveled son-in-law arrived, still slightly inebriated even after several cups of black coffee. Being a direct man, and now a very weary and worried one, Clark Burnham tore into Bill with all the anger and frustration a caring father can generate under such circumstances. He told him his wife could have bled to death waiting for the likes of him to come home from one of his damn speakeasies. He castigated him for his carousing and his total irresponsibility with regard to Lois, who deserved far better than she was getting.

  Finally, when the good doctor gained control of himself, he explained frankly and fully the medical procedures that were required and then stormed out of the hospital leaving Bill to contemplate what to do next.

  As he watched his father-in-law exit the dim, quiet lobby, the trembling young Wall Street want-to-be was shocked by the very next thought that jumped into his head. While he knew this was certainly neither the time nor the place, what he wanted right now more than anything was another drink. He fought off the insane impulse and went looking instead for a nurse.4

  Upstairs, Lois was beginning to wake and was about to face her cruel reality. When asked later in life how she felt while lying in that hospital bed trying to accept such tragic news, Lois sadly replied, “When I was told about the surgery and that I could never have a baby, I cried for a long, long time. I didn’t want to see Bill at first. Naturally he thought I was angry because he wasn’t there when I needed him. But it wasn’t that at all. My feelings were all mixed up and I didn’t know what to say to him. I knew how disappointed he would be.”5

  Bill sat in the waiting room for hours, smoking and drinking glasses of cold water. Sometimes he paced up and down, filled with guilt over what he had done. But mostly he was torn by his love and concern for his beloved Lois, who didn’t deserve all this pain and anguish. When he shared these feelings with her later, it helped lift her spirits. But now all Bill wanted to know was when he could see his wife. He was told she was still recovering from the ether; perhaps he should go home and come back later. He refused. He would wait. He would be here when she was able to see him.

  It was around dawn when the nurse on duty, a motherly woman in her fifties, entered Lois’s room, saw she was awake, and asked if she needed anything. Lois needed to talk.

  “This kind and lovely nurse helped me to realize what I already knew in my heart,” Lois recalled. “I had done nothing wrong to prevent our having children. She said I had to accept this burden as God’s will even if I couldn’t understand it or agree with it, and that none of this was my fault. Still, somehow I could not help feeling guilty. I came to realize later this was one reason why I didn’t blame Bill so much when he continued to drink more and more.”6 Shortly afterward, Bill walked nervously into her room, his head down, tears welling in his eyes. They didn’t speak about what had happened right away. He just sat there at her bedside holding her hand. After all, what words could adequately express what they both felt at that moment? A moment that seemed like the end of something for Lois and posed a bleak, bewildering fog for Bill. How could they pick up the pieces, find a new direction, and move on?

  It was several months before Lois regained her strength. It was really her emotional lassitude, which she later described as “self-pity,” that prevented her from recovering more quickly. Bill took two weeks off from work and they traveled to Vermont hoping, perhaps, to find something there that would rekindle their life, spark the kind of hope and joy they always found in the mountains and at the lake. Grandpa Griffith passed away while they were in East Dorset, which only added to their sadness.

  The next six or seven months dragged by. Lois went back to work at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital, and Bill continued his sporadic drinking, somehow managing to hold on to his job at the bank. The evening he took his final exams at Brooklyn Law School he was so intoxicated he couldn’t read most of the questions. He justified his failure by telling himself he never wanted to be a lawyer anyway.

  One night in early March of 1925, Bill came home so drunk he fell asleep on the parlor couch with all his clothes on. Lois couldn’t get him up and into bed so she simply threw a blanket over him and put a water bucket next to the couch just in case. Once too often he had thrown up on the floor and the furniture before he could reach the bathroom.

  As Lois got up at about seven the next morning, she heard Bill in the kitchen making coffee. When she entered, he was at the window, smoking a cigarette and staring out into the street. He looked terrible—red-eyed, pale, and hungover. As she later recalled, he reached out his hand to her and, almost pleading, whispered in a hoarse voice, “Lo, let’s get out of this. I’ve been thinking. This idea I have . . . it can change everything, I know it can. Nobody’s ready to back me yet because they don’t understand. They can’t see it. But . . . would you take the chance with me, Lo? I finally realized . . . I just can’t go on like this anymore.”7

  They sat at the kitchen table and, over coffee, Bill outlined his plan. He wanted to travel the country with her. He would visit companies, get on the inside, find out what was really going on, and write reports for Wall Street investors who could then put their money into sure winners, not crapshoots.

  He felt certain that once some Wall Street big shots saw he could deliver cold, hard facts about a company’s growth and earnings potential, they’d pay handsomely for such information. Even Frank Shaw would then understand what Bill had been trying to tell him all along.

  First, Bill would buy a few shares of stock in the companies he wanted to investigate, just enough to give him an entrée as a stockholder. This way he would have access to top management. He would also go in the back door and talk to the workers who knew all about the quality of the things they were producing. Then he’d check on the firm’s reputation in the community and within its industry. By the time he was finished, his investigative skills would have gleaned all the in-depth knowledge any investor would need to make an intelligent investment decision.

  As he talked on and on, the pallor left his face. His enthusiasm and excitement became infectious. Lois could feel her insides coming back to life, her hope for the future rising, her belief in her man being restored. There was no doubt that Bill absolutely believed everything he was saying. What intrigued Lois the most, and what finally wiped away any hesitation, was that this wild excursion would take them out of the city and away from the speakeasies. They would be together in the country once more where the fresh air and exercise could work its magic, as it had before, and Bill wouldn’t find it necessary to drink. Lois went to work late that morning and gave the hospital her two-week notice.

  Next, the soon-to-be cross-country explorers sat down and added up their assets. They had a little less than a thousand dollars. That would get them started and, if need be, they could pick up odd jobs along the way to supplement the kitty. But first they would require transportation, something reliable but inexpensive.

  That weekend found Lois and Bill at the army surplus depot in Fort Hamil
ton, Brooklyn. They spotted a used but sturdy Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a large sidecar attached. Bill laughed and guessed that by the size of the sidecar it probably served a general or at least a bird colonel. Anyway, he was sure he could whip the motorcycle into shape in no time. They also purchased two canteens, a kerosene stove, and a passel of army blankets. The tents were all too small or in disrepair, so that important piece of equipment was left up to Lois’s ingenuity, as were many other things. Their preparations for the trip and her eagerness for the outdoor life were things she loved to talk about later on in life.

  Lois purchased a tent from Sears Roebuck. It had a canvas floor and a net over the entrance to keep out mosquitoes, and it stood seven feet high and seven feet wide. She stitched in a window with netting for ventilation.

  For sleeping, Lois’s mother helped her sew together seven army blankets, which gave the couple a variety of “warmth” layers for whenever the weather turned cold or hot. They rolled the blankets together with a light kapok mattress into a small bundle for easy storage on the Harley.

  When it came to packing food, toiletries, pajamas, towels, and other miscellaneous items, Lois’s ingenuity paid off again. She made storage containers out of black oilcloth and lined them with rubber and tape to make them waterproof. She even made watertight coveralls for her and Bill and oil-silk liners to protect everything they took with them.

  Then Lois added with a sparkle in her eye, “We felt well-prepared for anything. Crazy or not, it was fun to anticipate the open road and unknown adventures ahead.”8

  Bill managed to squeeze in four huge Moody’s manuals on industrial companies. They contained general information about the firms he planned to investigate. For starters, he selected the General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York, and Giant Portland Cement in Egypt, Pennsylvania. He bought several shares in each company before leaving.

  A week prior to their departure, Bill drove the motorcycle out to Prospect Park, Brooklyn, where there was still a great deal of open space. His partner was in the bumpy sidecar next to him. Did Lois remember that this was the neighborhood where a young doctor named Clark Burnham began his medical career some forty-one years earlier? She never said. The goal this day was to teach her how to handle the Harley-Davidson since traveling so many miles with only one experienced driver would be quite a chore. Lois had already driven an automobile, but the thought of sitting directly on top of the hot, noisy engine of a motorcycle gave her pause. But not for long.

  Bill coaxed her into the driver’s seat and, snuggling behind her, he carefully explained all the controls—the gas, the brake, the gear shift, and the speedometer. Then he revved it up and drove very slowly in wide circles, gradually letting her take control of the steering. When it was her turn to solo, those old Clark Burnham genes took over. Once Lois felt certain the engine below wouldn’t burn her pants off, she was off and running. Her husband watched with pride and, of course, with that silly grin on his face, as Lois drove in wider and wider circles and at faster and faster speeds.9

  On April 16, 1925, Lois and Bill Wilson headed for America’s heartland, bound and determined to put all the pieces back together, find the joy and contentment they had lost, and finally realize the great dreams Lois always knew her Bill was capable of achieving. And as they left that day, Lois Wilson was in the driver’s seat.

  Roaring away from the crowded streets of Brooklyn into the open country before them, these bold “pioneers” could feel deep in their souls the great and exciting adventure that lay ahead.

  It was the era of Bonnie and Clyde and Rudolph Valentino, a period that would see talking motion pictures and the phonograph record. They would find a vibrant land exploding with new energy and new industry, one that would produce vast cement highways and awesome power-producing dams.

  Lois and Bill Wilson were entering a new world, part of a new generation. They could smell it in the air and sense its grand potential throughout every tingling nerve in their bodies.

  That momentous day as Lois climbed into the driver’s seat, pulled down her goggles, and revved up the engine, she felt the world belonged to her and Bill alone and that whatever lay ahead could only be magnificent.10

  Riding a motorcycle without a windshield in early April in upstate New York can be very invigorating, if not bone-chilling. Perhaps that’s why, when the trunk rack came loose less than fifty miles from home, neither of these “explorers” was too unhappy about stopping to fix it. They were somewhere outside of Poughkeepsie at the time, so they decided to camp for the night. Bill set up the tent, then belted the trunk rack to a post under the front seat. Meanwhile, Lois cooked them a nice supper. After a cup of coffee, they crawled under the army blankets and made love for the first time in months. They both had a very sound sleep.

  Since Bill’s first target was the General Electric Company, they headed straight for Schenectady the next day, arriving early in the afternoon. A dairy farmer by the name of Jake Morowski gave them permission to camp in his pasture. While Bill pitched the tent under a large oak tree, Lois found some old boards next to the barn and asked Morowski if she could have them. No problem, he said. She and Bill used them to build a small table and bench to cook and eat on. Lois said later she could have spent a lifetime living in that beautiful open field under that gorgeous oak tree. But soon Bill was about his business.

  The very next day he put on his best suit (actually the only one he brought along), reviewed Moody’s comments about GE, and then headed due east for the plant. His primary interest in the company, one of the early producers of electric generation equipment, was the new line of “futuristic” products rumored to be under development.

  Identifying himself as a “significant investor,” he was cordially received by a staffer in the personnel department. However, when Bill asked for a tour of the production facilities and research laboratory, he was given a company brochure and a stiff good-bye handshake.

  Bill arrived back at the Morowski farm quite discouraged. Lois could tell. She tried to cheer him up with the fresh apple pie she helped Mrs. Morowski bake that day. She told him about all the fun she had watching the cows being milked and chasing some strays away from their tent—beautiful little calves she’d love to take home as pets. Her husband sensed she might enjoy the life of a dairy farmer but he knew instinctively this type of rugged existence was not for him. Lois continued her chatter over dinner, telling Bill about her meeting that afternoon with a Mr. Goldfoot who owned the dairy farm right next to the Morowskis. It just so happened that Mr. Goldfoot’s two sons worked for General Electric since, with wives and families, they were not able to sustain them all with the farm. The detail about “working for General Electric” raised Bill’s eyebrows.

  The next morning, the young investigator paid a call on Mr. Goldfoot. It was about a week later when he was invited to join the farmer and his boys at Dawson’s Cafe, which happened to be one of the two speakeasies in Schenectady. Bill told Lois they’d be having a bite to eat so she needn’t bother cooking him supper. He didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily—about the speakeasy, that is.

  That night turned into the kind of colossal event Bill Wilson would never forget. First he bought a few rounds of beers, having one himself, naturally. Then, after convincing the Goldfoots he once worked for Thomas Edison, he said he still was not permitted to reveal the fantastic inventions on the old man’s drawing board. Feeling challenged, the farm boys drove Bill out to the GE research laboratory where they worked and showed him the “fantastic things” they were involved in.

  Bill couldn’t believe his eyes. There, stretched out before him was a display of equipment and prototype devices only hinted at in science magazines—experiments in sound motion pictures, console sets, electric phonographs, magnets, and all sorts of shortwave communications. In less than an hour, he had the inside track on what General Electric was soon to become.

  It
was after one in the morning when Bill returned to the campsite. His Harley backfired as he approached, startling Lois, who was still awake and very tense from hearing strange noises all night. Her husband was so excited that he accidentally stumbled into the tent. He could hardly begin to tell Lois all he had just seen. As he came close, she smelled the beer on his breath. She remembered shouting:

  “You’re drunk! After all your promises, you’re drunk again!”

  Bill was taken aback. He knew he wasn’t. He tried hard to convince her that all he had was a few beers—that he wasn’t staggering or slurring his words. He was just excited, that’s all.

  “Honest, Lo,” he kept saying. “It was just to prime the pump. Just business. I bought the Goldfoots some drinks so they would take me into the plant. Sure I had a few myself but I know now that if it’s just for business, I can handle it. Look at me.”11

  As she calmed down, she could see he really wasn’t intoxicated by the booze, only by the excitement of what he had just discovered. After a few moments, she became excited along with him. Maybe he’s right, she thought to herself. If he can control his drinking like this, then maybe everything will be okay. She had met other men on Wall Street who drank with business associates and then went home to their families. Her own father drank occasionally on weekends. Perhaps Bill had finally found a way to control it himself. Yet those nagging butterflies still remained in the pit of her stomach, spurred on by a few more “slips” he would have along the way.

  The following day Bill sent a brief note to Frank Shaw about his look inside GE’s research laboratory. Lois helped him with the letter. He requested a meeting to present a detailed report. Then he broke the news to Lois that they would be moving on, the next stop being Egypt, Pennsylvania, just outside Allentown. She was a bit disappointed. But they said their farewells to the Morowskis and Goldfoots, packed up, and went noisily on their way with Lois again at the wheel and Bill attempting to study his Moody’s manual in the bumpy sidecar.