The Lois Wilson Story

by William G Borchert

  It was only a few weeks after they returned to Brooklyn Heights that Elise Shaw showed up unexpectedly at Lois’s apartment. It was a hot August afternoon. She apologized for not calling ahead but explained somewhat falteringly that she had to work up some courage to come. Lois didn’t understand at first.

  Politely refusing a cup of tea, Elise sat uncomfortably on the couch in the living room and began by telling her dear friend that Frank was under a great deal of pressure from his partners at Tobey & Kirk to fire Bill. This didn’t come as any great surprise to Lois. In fact, she had considerable admiration for Frank Shaw for putting up with her husband’s antics this long. She had often thought that losing his job might be just the jolt Bill needed to straighten out.

  While these thoughts raced through her head, she vaguely heard Elise recite a series of incidents Frank had told her about—Bill’s getting drunk on business trips, embarrassing some important clients, having nasty arguments with several executives at the firm. Lois heard nothing really new in her friend’s litany except that Frank had given her husband his final warning.

  Elise stopped for a moment and stared intently at this tender and kind lady she had known most of her life. Why was it so impossible to reach her, to get her to understand? She then said very simply that regardless of Lois’s continued denial of the seriousness of her husband’s problem, she should at least seek some professional help for him—for the sake of Bill’s health and for the sake of their marriage.

  Lois recognized the deep sincerity in her friend’s eyes and trembling voice. She clumsily expressed her gratitude for Elise’s concern, finally admitting she was absolutely right in everything she said. That the problem had grown much worse, although it was not completely hopeless.

  Then suddenly Lois began talking at length about all she was still trying to do to help her husband, the pledges he was making in her Bible, the good times they had in Vermont, that he still wanted to stop so badly perhaps God would soon intervene.

  Elise had all she could take. She rose from the couch and glared at Lois. “For God’s sake,” she said in a voice her childhood friend had never heard before, “you’re dealing with something you have no control over. Why do you think I told the adoption agency all about Bill’s drinking problem? Why?”

  Then Elise Shaw burst into tears.

  “I’m sorry, Lois . . . but . . . I had to do it. And . . . you still don’t understand.”

  Then Lois Wilson’s oldest and dearest companion turned and walked out of the apartment. Lois stood there in the middle of her well-furnished living room staring after her with those shocking and painful words still ringing in her ears: “I told the adoption agency all about Bill’s drinking problem.”11

  That night when Randolph the doorman half-carried her husband through the front door and put him to bed, Lois was still seated in the darkened parlor staring out the window, her eyes red and glassy. Randolph simply whispered good night and left her there undisturbed. For the next several days, she walked around in a trance. She wouldn’t answer the telephone or go out. She walked into another room whenever Bill wanted to talk. He knew something terrible had happened and as usual believed he had caused it. Since his wife refused to speak with him, he let her be and went to work with every intention of heeding Frank Shaw’s final warning.

  The emotional fog eventually lifted, and Lois came to terms with what happened between her and Elise. While it would take quite some time for their painful rift to heal, it did help her begin to understand the sheer hopelessness of the problem she faced. But for the moment and for some time to come, Lois put it all completely out of her mind. As she would share about it later on, “While it was all so terribly painful, it did eventually help me realize that Bill just couldn’t stop with only my help. Neither of us knew at the time that he had a physical, mental, and spiritual illness. The traditional theory that drunkenness was a moral weakness kept us both from thinking clearly on the subject.

  “I always considered my husband a morally strong person despite his alcoholism. His sense of right and wrong was vivid, and he also respected the rights of other people. When he was sober, for example, he would never walk across another person’s lawn although I would at times. He had plenty of willpower but neither of us knew that willpower just wouldn’t work against alcohol.”12

  Now in a deep quandary about why his wife wasn’t speaking to him, Bill found himself quite eager to comply with her very next request—that he have a complete physical examination and talk with someone knowledgeable about his inability to stop drinking on his own. When Bill suggested he seek the advice of his brother-in-law, Dr. Leonard Strong, Lois had no qualms. She had come to deeply respect Leonard and knew he was already concerned about her husband. So was her sister-in-law Dorothy, whom she had grown very fond of even though they rarely talked about personal matters.

  Bill was actually surprised that Dr. Strong, a man he had come to greatly respect and admire, knew so much about the progressive nature of his problem—that he might stay on the wagon for several weeks but once he picked up another drink, the compulsion would set in and he would want more and more—that he drank to fortify himself for important occasions—that he drank to relax his nerves after a busy day on Wall Street—that he often lied, especially to Lois, about how many drinks he had actually had.

  It seems more than coincidental that Leonard had learned much of this from his good friend and colleague Dr. William Duncan Silkworth, who ran Towns Hospital in New York City, an institution that specialized in the treatment of alcoholics—coincidental because Dr. Silkworth would play a prominent role in Bill’s eventual sobriety and building the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

  Dr. Strong, however, was not yet convinced Bill was bad enough to be admitted to Towns, so he decided to send him to another colleague in Manhattan first for a complete physical examination. That would tell him what he needed to know medically.

  Much to everyone’s surprise, including Lois, the young New York internist found Leonard’s patient to be in good physical health with only slightly elevated blood pressure, which—he agreed with Bill’s assessment—could be due to the stress of a career in the stock market. Bill was only thirty-five at the time, so apparently his youth and stamina were still warding off any serious physical effects of alcoholism, although they were right around the corner. But on this particular day, he was told by this particular doctor there was no reason why with a little “willpower” he couldn’t drink in “moderation.”

  Bill left that Manhattan medical office with little regard for the young physician except he now had the words “willpower” and “moderation” implanted firmly in his alcoholic brain. And when Dr. Strong received the results of his brother-in-law’s physical examination, he had no reason to believe he needed to see a specialist such as Dr. Silkworth—at least not yet. But he kept the thought in the back of his mind.

  As fall approached, the stock market began to gyrate a bit more than usual. Lois began reading predictions in the newspapers that the bubble was about to burst, that investors should take their profits and run. On those weekends when Bill was “drying out,” she would ask him about these dire forecasts. He told her the best minds in the business said the market and their stocks in particular still had a long way to go, especially Penick & Ford.

  Penick & Ford was a small molasses business that had merged with a large corn products company. After one of his inside inspections, Bill felt it was an “undiscovered jewel” and began buying it on margin. It was now the largest holding in his portfolio. He even persuaded Leonard and several close friends and associates to take positions in the stock although, like Leonard, most of them never bought anything on margin. They felt it was too risky, especially in such a speculative bull market.

  But not Bill. He had started buying Penick & Ford on margin in the spring of 1929 at around $35 a share. By early October, it was close to $60. Even
on October 23, when the market dropped significantly in the last hour of trading, and the next day, when over thirteen million shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Bill hung on. And he was right—for two days, anyway. Penick & Ford dropped to $42 a share but had quickly risen back over $50. He sat in his favorite speakeasy and congratulated himself for being so smart and gutsy.

  Like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Twin Towers tragedy in New York City on September 11, 2001, almost everyone remembered where they were on October 29, 1929, when the stock market crashed.

  Lois had spent the morning with her mother at the hospital. Matilda was undergoing a series of tests for severe pains in her abdomen. Her daughter kissed her good-bye and returned home early that afternoon. It was some time around two o’clock, just an hour before the stock market closed. She turned on the radio and heard the news announcer shouting into his microphone, “The stock market is falling like an avalanche, like a plane crashing to earth. Even the wisest sages on Wall Street can’t explain such a catastrophe or just where the bottom might be. There’s not only complete pandemonium in the financial markets, it’s sheer panic.”13

  Lois stood staring at the radio on the living-room table. Everything she feared could happen was happening. But it wasn’t until the first report of someone leaping from a building in the Wall Street area that the impact of it all suddenly hit her. She ran to the telephone and called Bill. He wasn’t in his office. Her suspicions were correct. He was in a Wall Street speakeasy with his drunken cronies trying to figure out what happened so quickly, so unexplainably, so disastrously.14 Not only had the bubble burst, but the sudden and severe disruption in the financial markets would soon lead to America’s Great Depression, which lasted through most of the 1930s.

  This severe economic dislocation was caused not just by the stock market crash of 1929, but also by the failure of the nation’s banks to meet the withdrawal demands of frightened depositors. Many had to close their doors due to the lack of liquidity. The Federal Reserve Board and the Securities and Exchange Commission were created a few years later to prevent just such financial catastrophes from occurring in the future.

  That Monday morning when Bill Wilson walked into Tobey & Kirk, his prize investment, Penick & Ford, had risen to $55 a share. He was a happy man. But by noon, it was $45. By one o’clock, the company shares had made a sickening dive to $32. By the time the stock ticker stopped ticking, they were in the low $20s. He was on margin and he couldn’t cover. The tremendous tumble in the market had also wiped out whatever equity he had in his other stocks. By three o’clock on October 29, 1929, Lois and Bill Wilson were broke.

  Bill didn’t come home that night. Lois paced the rooms of their apartment until she was so exhausted she sat on the couch and dozed. Every little noise awakened her with a start. By eight in the morning, she decided to phone the police. There was no William G. Wilson listed in the “accident reports.” She waited until after ten before calling his office. When told he wasn’t there, she nervously asked to speak with Frank Shaw.

  Lois waited several minutes before Frank came to the phone. He was polite and discreet. He had no idea where her husband might be although his voice hinted she might scour the city’s speakeasies. Before hanging up, the husband of her once dearest friend dealt her one more blow. It wasn’t his intention to hurt her. He simply had to be honest. Frank said the partners at Tobey & Kirk had forced his hand. He had no other choice but to let Bill go.

  She turned on the radio, then quickly shut it off as news announcers continued their gruesome reports of the many now-broke wealthy investors who had plummeted to their death from tall buildings.15

  It was early that evening when Randolph dragged her husband into their apartment. His jacket and pants were torn, there was a cut on his face, and he was in the worst condition she had ever witnessed. Randolph suggested Lois watch him closely and if he began to sweat and shake very badly, she might want to call a doctor. She sat next to her husband on the bed all night, bathing his face with cold towels, wiping off the saliva drooling from his mouth, calming him each time he shuddered and shouted in his delirium. It was almost dawn before he fell into a deep sleep. Lois lay down next to him, and when her mind finally grew too weary to think anymore, she herself drifted off.16

  Late that afternoon, Bill came quietly into the living room where Lois was again staring out the window. Trying to hide his trembling hands, Bill assured his wife he would pull himself together and start all over again. He forced himself as best he could to sound confident and determined. He said he wouldn’t make any more empty promises about his drinking, but he wanted her to know this absolute disaster had finally taught him the lesson he needed to learn—that booze had ruined his life. He no longer had any doubts about that. Even one drink at this point was one drink too many. This time he’d climb on that water wagon and stay there.

  All Lois could do was hug him and try to believe in him one more time. After all, she still loved her husband deeply, and in the face of such a calamity, wouldn’t any reasonable, rational, intelligent person—and Bill was certainly all of these—finally make the same decision he just did? Maybe in the face of doom, there was finally a little ray of hope.17

  Bill began dropping by various Wall Street firms hoping to find a spot, but even former associates he had made a lot of money for in the past wouldn’t give him the time of day. Not only were most of these companies quickly retrenching following the crash, but Bill’s reputation always preceded him. Although he was known for his experienced analytical skills and ability to make money, no one was willing to take a chance on a “booze hound”—at least not in those trying times.

  Over dinner one night, Lois said she had come across some letters from old friends they had met in Canada on their trip there a few years before. She wondered if things were as bad in Canada as they were here in the United States.

  It was as if she had suddenly turned on a bright light. Bill’s face lit up. Why hadn’t he thought of that himself? No, things were still going great in Canada, especially in Toronto and Montreal and, as Lois said, he still had some good friends there. He gave his wife a big hug and kiss, then hurried into the den to shoot off a note to one of those good friends—Dick Johnson, who ran Greenshields and Company, a medium-sized brokerage firm in Montreal. He and Dick had done business in the past and several deals had proved quite lucrative for all concerned.

  By the middle of November, he had received a wire from Dick Johnson telling him Greenshields would love to have him on board and to come to Montreal as soon as it was feasible. It appeared to be a golden opportunity, and Lois was overjoyed that she had played a small role in making it happen. So they sublet their apartment, put their furniture into storage, and set off for Canada where Bill was going to prove that he had weathered the storm and was on his way again. Lois’s hopes began to soar and she simply refused this time to listen to those nagging butterflies in her stomach.

  The day after they arrived in Montreal, Lois found a small but comfortable furnished apartment on Gerard Street. Bill immediately began networking with a number of old contacts he had around the city and its environs—brokers, analysts, corporate financial and investment officers. It started to pay dividends even sooner than he could have possibly imagined.

  He met a charming young English playboy named Harry Bates whose family had substantial mining interests in Canada. He and Bill hit it right off. Before long, Harry became a significant client and introduced Bill to a number of his wealthy friends. Dick Johnson and Greenshields were more than pleased to see the newest member of the firm fast becoming one of its biggest producers.

  By the late spring of 1930, Lois and Bill had moved into an expensive apartment in Glen Eagle, high on a bluff overlooking the city of Montreal, and had their furniture shipped in from New York. They had also joined Harry Bates’s elegant country club, where Bi
ll fell in love with the game of golf.

  “It was simply wonderful,” Lois recalled, “but it was all happening much too fast like it did once before in our lives. The truth was, I wasn’t overly concerned because Bill was staying sober. He seemed absolutely committed and determined to make a success out of this new God-given opportunity.”18

  But the disease of alcoholism is cunning, baffling, and powerful. It can lie dormant for a while and then suddenly erupt for no real reason and when least expected.

  This time it began one lovely evening in June at their country club. Lois and Bill were having dinner with Harry Bates and his latest flame. The waiter handed the English playboy the wine list. He asked Lois if she had any particular preference. She smiled and said she always deferred to connoisseurs like himself. He enjoyed the flattery. When the expensive bottle of French wine Harry selected arrived at their table, he refused to accept Bill’s flimsy excuse for not having at least one glass. Bill glanced at Lois. He was sure she would understand he couldn’t possibly take the chance of offending his most important client. And after all, this time it really was only for business.

  But Lois’s worst fears were not realized that night. In fact, the couples consumed two bottles of wine, had an excellent dinner, danced until almost midnight, and then went home. As they entered their apartment, Lois kissed her husband and told him how proud she was of his determination to change the course of his life and finally achieve the kind of success they had always dreamed about.

  Before the end of the week, the French wine had convinced Bill he could once again be a social drinker, so he began nipping on his way to work. Then he began buying bottles of whiskey to stash in his desk at the office. Soon he had one hidden behind the bookcase in their apartment. When Lois discovered what was happening again, she became so hurt and overwrought she simply did not know what to do.