The Lois Wilson Story

by William G Borchert

  They were about twenty miles from Egypt when ominous black clouds began building in the skies ahead. They decided to stop and camp in a nearby field next to a running stream. Late that evening, the thunderstorms crashed and crackled overhead. It rained those proverbial cats and dogs for the next three days. Lois described the “Noah’s Ark” event in her memoirs.

  This was the first real test of their new tent, especially its guaranteed canvas floor, and it was a dandy test. When camping in Vermont, they had always dug a ditch around their army pup tent for drainage, but naively they imagined this to be unnecessary with their miraculous new one—that they could even pitch it in a puddle and remain dry. They soon learned the truth, however.

  Feeling the dampness seeping through the floor, Lois awakened Bill. Donning their waterproof zippered coveralls, they bravely launched forth into the pouring rain and discovered that the tent was standing in a small lake, three inches deep, in a claylike hollow. But the canvas floor hadn’t done too badly after all . . . that is, if they didn’t mind sleeping in a little water.

  Sponging up the puddles and pushing a mass of ferns underneath to raise the floor off the ground, they then dug a drainage ditch around the outside despite all that muddy clay and deep water. Inside finally, a bunch of old newspapers kept them fairly dry the rest of the night and the ensuing nights.

  In spite of all the problems, Lois was delighted that the homemade window she had cut and sewn into the tent had not leaked one single drop during the entire storm.12

  With the country’s economy starting to boom and the automobile industry pouring out affordable cars, Bill knew what a great demand there would be for concrete roads, bridges, and other such infrastructure. He had studied every cement manufacturer listed in his manuals before finally zeroing in on Giant Portland Cement Company, which was listed on the small Philadelphia Stock Exchange. He felt its shares were exceedingly cheap when compared to its growth potential.

  By now, Lois and Bill’s assets were running low with all the initial expenses for the Harley-Davidson, the camping equipment, the special clothing, and the shares Bill had purchased in his targeted companies. They needed to replenish their kitty.

  This fit right in with Bill’s latest scheme. What better way to get inside information than by actually being on the inside? So they pitched their tent less than a mile from the cement company—this time on top of a lovely hill where the rain wasn’t likely to gather—and Bill rode over to the plant and was hired on the spot.

  “From our campsite,” Lois recalled, “we could see in all four directions. This part of Pennsylvania has fascinating steep hills like green chocolate drops and little toy villages hidden in narrow valleys where pretty brooks run all the way down into green pastures. I must admit, however, that I did have a little difficulty with some of those long Dutch names painted on the signboards in town.”13 While Bill snooped around the plant during his work breaks, Lois found a job with a couple named Baer who had a large vegetable farm nearby. Mostly Lois cared for Mrs. Baer’s three little girls, which she enjoyed immensely.

  Working at Giant Portland, the undercover investigator was gathering a great deal of vital information: how much coal they were burning to produce a barrel of cement, what quantities they were shipping each day, and how the installation of some brand-new expensive equipment was about to greatly increase production, reducing the cost to less than a dollar per barrel. This would give the company a tremendous competitive edge.

  Then one day, Bill Wilson showed up at the front entrance to Giant Portland as a “significant investor” dressed in his best and only suit instead of driving up as usual to the employees’ gate in his coveralls and cap. He confronted a stunned management trio with the facts he had uncovered and, before he was ushered out, he could tell by their faces and their off-the-cuff comments that his findings were absolutely correct. After visiting a few more companies in Pennsylvania, he and Lois headed back to New York.

  A month later, Bill was at J.K. Rice & Company, standing in the boardroom before Frank Shaw and the firm’s major partners. He made a brilliant presentation. Lois had helped him polish it. He talked about what he had discovered at General Electric and at Giant Portland. On the basis of his reports, the firm purchased five thousand shares each of GE and Portland for starters, and bought thousands more after that. They also purchased several hundred shares for Bill, put him on the payroll, and authorized him to draw additional funds to buy more shares as they rose in value.

  Bill left the Rice & Company boardroom that afternoon with Frank Shaw’s arm around his shoulder. He was suddenly a rising star on Wall Street. And before the year was over, the Giant Portland stock that had been purchased for $20 per share had risen to over $75 per share. General Electric did equally as well.

  There were other companies the firm now wanted Bill to investigate—American Cyanamid and the Aluminum Company of America, for instance, as well as certain steel and coal mining interests. But first Lois and Bill had some important family matters to attend to, along with getting the shakes and rattles out of their mile-weary Harley-Davidson by putting on a new set of tires and getting it completely overhauled for the next leg of their excursion.

  Lois’s mother Matilda hadn’t been feeling very well, and Matilda didn’t want to write her for fear of cutting their journey short. Her daughter spent almost a month with her at Emerald Lake that summer, and by the time she left, Matilda convinced her she was feeling much better. If Dr. Burnham seemed pleased when he heard all about Bill’s success, it was mainly because Lois convinced him that his son-in-law wasn’t drinking nearly as much. In fact, Bill was still managing to control his alcohol intake at that time.

  Dorothy Strong, Bill’s sister, also hadn’t been well since the birth of her last child. While Lois was at the lake, Bill spent ten days with his sister and his brother-in-law, Leonard, at their home in Tarrytown. He and Dr. Strong had formed a close friendship, one that would be a great help to Bill during his heavy drinking days.

  Also, Bill’s mother’s husband, Dr. John Strobel, had called and asked for his assistance with a pending legal matter in New York, where he had once worked at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hospital. Bill was quite flattered by the request. Even though he never graduated from Brooklyn Law School, the knowledge he gained there was enough to help settle Dr. Strobel’s legal troubles and please his mother greatly.

  By now it was late September of 1925, Lois’s favorite time of year, the fall. Bill’s career was apparently set so they decided to combine their next business junket with a long overdue vacation. With Frank Shaw’s blessing, they planned a slow “investigative tour” of the southern states to check out their “business investment potential.” Besides, Bill’s next prime target was American Cyanamid in Brewster, Florida, so they could plan to arrive there during Lois’s least favorite time of year—the dead of winter.

  The warm autumn air scented with wildflowers and southern pines stirred the sexual juices of these motorcycle companions as they crossed the Mason-Dixon line. They frolicked in mountain streams, bathed and swam naked at sunset in tree-shrouded lakes, and made love under the stars as they listened to the crackling of their campfire and the hooting of owls in the forest’s giant oaks. It was beyond Lois’s fondest wishes, this fulfillment of her intense love for her husband and his love for her. She prayed it would never end, but those butterflies kept telling her one day it would.

  Bill, with his long, lanky legs dangling out over the sidecar, often directed her to stop at small, unheard-of companies along the way. While he spent time chatting with the owners, she visited the town square to absorb the history of the place and its people, and also to replenish their food supply. After a few days, sometimes staying at a small hotel or country inn, they’d be off again, although never in a hurry.

  Just before Christmas, they found themselves caught high in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina while
investigating several sizable logging companies near a small town called Pelham. Ensconced in their tent covered by a heavy snowfall from the night before, the young explorers were prepared to spend Christmas alone, warmed only by old newspapers, heated stones, and their faithful hot water bottle. Suddenly they heard a hoot and a holler outside. It was the voice of old Ed Brown, a logger Bill had met very briefly. He lived in a log cabin nearby with his wife and his son, daughter-in-law, and their six children. He was inviting Lois and Bill to spend Christmas with his family.

  “Such generosity. Such warm hospitality,” Lois wrote years after the trip. “In spite of being terribly hard up, there was not an ounce of self-pity in any of them. For Christmas dinner, we had salt pork, turnip greens, corn pone, sweet potato custard and for dessert, sweet potato pie.”14 After dinner, Bill happened to notice there were no presents around the sparsely decorated Christmas tree. He grabbed each of the children, sat the younger ones on his knee, and gave them all several dollars, saying Santa Claus had left the money for them in his tent. Mr. Brown and his son seemed embarrassed and tried to dissuade him but Bill would have none of it.

  Lois recalled that Christmas night in Pelham, North Carolina, with mixed emotions.

  “I must admit some of that old guilt came back as I watched Bill playing so happily with those children,” she said. “But then some of the old fears came back too when Mr. Brown brought out a jug of white lightning—I think that’s what he called it—and Bill got terribly drunk. We had to sleep on the cabin floor that night because we couldn’t get Bill back to our campsite.”15

  The very next day they packed up and made a mad dash for the warm, sunny clime of Brewster, Florida, and Bill’s primary target, American Cyanamid. They never once talked about that drinking incident.

  Just before they reached Jacksonville, the front tire blew out. Lois almost swerved off the road. Bill patched the inner tube in fifteen minutes and they were on their way. But after a few more miles, the tire blew again. Lois was tired and now a bit nervous, so she let Bill take over the driving. Another patch, a few more miles, and it happened for a third time.

  Bill had been relatively calm for most of the trip, but now he really lost his temper, cursing and kicking the side of the Harley. That’s when he noticed that a broken spoke had been piercing the tube and causing the flats. He ate humble pie, patched the tire one more time, and drove slowly and carefully into Jacksonville, where they had the wheel repaired.

  Back then the American Cyanamid Company owned and ran the town of Brewster in the north central part of Florida. Lois and Bill expected to find a ramshackle mining village. Instead, with a population of two thousand, it was laid out like a subdivision with vine-covered cottages for married couples, a central park, a golf course, tennis courts, a swimming pool, and separate dormitory housing for bachelor men and women.

  For his report to Frank Shaw, Bill was mainly interested in the productivity of the company’s phosphate mines and screening plant. He noted in his comments to Shaw, however, that the powerhouse that generated all the electricity for the mine, the plant, and the whole town contained nothing but General Electric equipment. He thought Frank would be pleased at that.

  Lois recalled that they spent about a week there. She said that the town manager, a Mr. Curry, told her the area was once an anthropologist’s paradise. There were still bone fragments scattered everywhere, mostly dug up by the mining excavations. Mr. Curry said the bones of the extinct three-toed horse and three-toed rhinoceros had been found there some years before.16

  They traveled across the Florida Panhandle and then up into Montgomery, Alabama, where Bill checked out the Tennessee Coal and Iron Works owned by the United States Steel Company. This plant’s major product was steel rails and, with the nation’s railroads needing to upgrade to meet increased freight transportation, its growth potential appeared significant to Bill.

  Lois was intrigued when they stopped outside of Birmingham, Alabama, so that Bill could investigate a large coal mine that supplied coke to the surrounding steel mills.

  Camping that evening not far from the mine, Lois watched with great interest as the miners exited the pit wearing flickering lights on their helmets. Even though she found it a bit eerie, she had the urge to go down into the mine herself and explore the underground shafts. Bill and the foreman, however, put a quick end to her urge.17

  By now Lois and Bill had received word that Lois’s youngest sister, Katherine, had finalized her wedding date. It was scheduled for the middle of June. It was now nearing the end of April, 1926. They had been on the road for close to a year. They decided to head for home in order to have plenty of time to prepare for the grand occasion.

  Lois said she could hardly wait to get there. Perhaps that’s why she was a little careless driving through Tennessee. She said her head was back in Brooklyn, thinking about what she would wear, who she would see, and what a wonderful time she would have bragging about all of Bill’s marvelous accomplishments.18

  It happened as they were leaving the outskirts of Dayton, Tennessee, the town famous for the Scopes Evolution Trial the year before. Lois was driving the Harley over a sandy road that appeared to run straight ahead when suddenly, hidden by a large barn, a curve to the right appeared. The sand on the road ahead was quite deep. When Lois tried to jerk the wheel around the tight curve, the motorcycle spun out of control. Bill went flying out of the sidecar, breaking his collarbone as he landed. Lois cut her face and twisted her knee while their equipment scattered in every direction. Fortunately, a Good Samaritan happened along and took them to a doctor in town. Since there was no hospital, the doctor put them into a hotel room conveniently located above his office.19

  They rested for a week. The man who rescued them collected their belongings from the road and brought them to the hotel. Not a single article was missing, which testified to the honesty of the people of Dayton and to the country in general back then. He also stored the damaged Harley in his barn.

  Before they were ready to leave, Lois and Bill made arrangements to have the motorcycle and most of the gear shipped back to Brooklyn. As soon as the doctor said they could travel, they took the train home.

  “Although we were in plenty of time for the wedding,” Lois recounted later, “I made a sorry looking matron of honor when, with red gashes on my face, I limped up the aisle.”20

  She couldn’t help but notice at the reception afterward how many people seem to treat a now spiffily dressed Bill Wilson differently than they had at their own wedding some seven years earlier. What a little money and a little prestige can do, she thought.

  There was one person at the reception, however, who felt exactly the same way about Bill as he did seven years ago. That was Clark Burnham, as he watched his son-in-law once again guzzle down a full glass of his finest Scotch.

  6

  Social Drinking—Unsocial Behavior

  LOIS WAS BOTH HAPPY AND PROUD THAT PARTICULAR MONDAY morning, although strangely nervous as she straightened her husband’s tie, patted down the lapels on his handsome dark gray suit, then sent him off to embark on his career as a Wall Street denizen. This was to be Bill’s first official day in the offices of J.K. Rice & Company.

  Soon these onetime eager “pioneers” would really be in the chips, making enough to greatly enlarge and handsomely redecorate their apartment in the heart of the most elite section of Brooklyn Heights.

  Soon Lois would be out shopping with Elise Shaw and those other wealthy Wall Street wives, ogling the kind of furnishings only an interior decorator with a contempt for budgets can talk you into.

  Lois felt suddenly overwhelmed. Before she could let all this happen, she thought to herself, she needed some time to slow down, if only for a few hours, preferably at least a few days. If it were possible, for a few weeks.

  Yes, they had been on the road for almost a year—an excursion into the
nation’s heartland whose routes she would love to travel over and over again—but still, this success seemed to be coming much too fast. Heck, what did she really know about this Wall Street stuff anyway, people making so much money so easily and so quickly simply by buying and trading pieces of paper with impressive-looking pictures and stamps on them—like those stock certificates in the bottom of Bill’s dresser drawer.

  Lois was smart and sophisticated in many ways and about many things. She could draw, she could paint, she could design, and she could play the piano. She was well read, cultured, and knew a great deal about religion, medicine, and the history of this land and many other lands as well. And she was good at budgeting and conceptual planning, as she showed in her preparations for their research venture. But when it came to the stock market, she admittedly knew little about how it actually worked. She wanted to know more. She needed to know more, if only to hold an intelligent conversation on the subject with Bill’s new associates.

  Yes, she certainly knew a great deal about Bill’s investigative work. She was right there with him when he explored America’s industrial might. But what did investors actually do with the information? How did the mechanics of the financial marketplace really work? She went into the hall closet where Bill had stashed his Moody’s manuals, dusted one off, and began to read. After digesting several pages, she decided to call the company to ask some simple questions. Identifying herself as Mr. Wilson’s “research assistant,” Lois found a gentleman who loved talking about the business he was in, particularly to such a charming voice on the other end of the line. Lois not only managed to get the thumbnail sketch she wanted but a historical overview as well.1