East to the Dawn (13 page)

But Amy made what turned out to be a mistake of incredible consequence : she had Edwin deliver the letter personally to Charles in St. Paul. Apparently Edwin fortified himself with drink for the encounter and threatened Charles with the specter of a lawsuit, for in her next letter Amy had to apologize for her husband, writing that she would never go into court, “preferring rather to lose every penny than to bring such dishonor upon the family. Mr. Earhart conveyed a very wrong impression if he gave you think otherwise.” Again she requested that he simply have someone go over the books with Mark for her.

This letter seems to have done the trick as far as restoring Amy to her uncle's good graces. He unbent to the extent of inviting her to visit and to meet his children, Maribel and Jim, and by March the inventory was done. Amy wrote him a long letter, full of appreciation and love:

“Plain, modest, and self assuming” were contemporary descriptions of Charles. It was also written of him, “His pure and innate integrity dominates his conduct, both in public and private life.” Charles had at various
times been a member of the St. Paul common council, the school board, and the city library board, as well as district judge and president of the Minnesota Bar Association. He was widely respected for his work as special master in chancery in the Minnesota Railroad Rate cases in 1910. When he returned to private practice, he had taken in his son James as his partner. He was a careful man, and his word was law. He was undoubtedly gratified when the inventory revealed that all Mark's accounts were in order. Amy accepted the result unquestioningly, and she wrote that she was happy that Mark was proving to be equal to the trust placed in him.

But following the law of unintended consequences, the immediate result of Amy's request for an inventory was that Mark became closer to his uncle—for after the inventory Mark was vetted, so to speak, and for the foreseeable future, Charles would rely on his nephew for information and family news and accept as fact whatever Mark told him.

In March 1913, life in the Earhart household went on as before. Amy could still complain about “the combination of a sick maid and company” that made her life difficult. But Edwin hadn't worked since the previous fall—her money was starting to run out. Again she began casting around for help.

Mark, in a preemptive strike, went on the attack to discredit her with Charles. He explained that Amy shouldn't be having money problems, that she had received $3,000 from the sale of her house, that she was receiving the interest on $14,750 “in addition to her first of dividend of $500 which was paid her direct” (the interest on the $14,750 was paid by the Northern Trust Company), and further, that he was about to declare a dividend that would give her more. But given Mark's propensity to lie about financial affairs, it is doubtful that Amy was getting even half the amount he said. Certainly it wasn't true that she had sold the house on Ann Street; it remained hers at least through 1916, as is evident in the papers she filed in the Kansas court that year. The fact was that by summertime Amy was absolutely broke, but Charles, viewing her situation through the lens provided by Mark, saw what appeared to be merely a silly, improvident woman.

Mark couldn't afford to have Charles think ill of him—he needed to shore up his business reputation with his illustrious uncle. He sent Charles a glowing letter from his “good” sister, Margaret. “I have just received and answered the enclosed letter from Margaret,” he wrote Charles. “While the same is on the order of an ‘unsolicited testimonial' as we refer to it in the fountain business, still I want you to see it as it shows her attitude regarding the Otis Realty Company and my management of it.” Mark couldn't bear the fact that as a result of Amy's demand for an inventory—combined
with the fact that the Northern Trust Company was keeping tabs from that moment forward—she had put the money her property represented beyond his reach. He wanted it to spend, as he was spending Margaret's funds.

Mark had always had very grand, expensive tastes. Amelia referred to him as “The Magnificent.” Since he had married in 1910, his tastes had become even grander. He had led everyone to believe that his wife Isabel was “very wealthy” and the source of much of his opulent lifestyle, which was on a scale far beyond the rest of the family—its most visible sign the chauffeured Rolls-Royce he always appeared in for his visits. It was Amy who correctly assessed her brother, although not even she plumbed the depths of his duplicity. As Margaret would learn to her grief when Mark died, of all the Otis holdings their father had built up with such care, nothing was left—in five years Mark had dissipated it all—all, that is, except Amy's portion, which had been watched over by the Northern Trust Company. Mark had spent on himself or lost on unwise investments Margaret's whole inheritance; she would remember his Rolls with bitterness.

But that was still four years in the future. In the meantime, in 1913, foiled by Amy in his attempt to get his hands on all the family funds and forced to defend his business reputation with his uncle because of her actions, he struck back at her. He proceeded to destroy her reputation and her relationship with Charles. Diligently he did everything he could to cast Amy in a bad light, always at the same time painting himself as the generous, tolerant brother. It wasn't that hard: she
was
married to an alcoholic, Edwin
did
squander her money, and she wasn't, to begin with, a very good manager.

That summer Edwin was offered a job as a clerk with the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Minnesota. It wasn't a great offer, but he was in no position to turn it down, and St. Paul seemed the perfect place to start over, because Charles lived there and Amy was sure he would help her, and because Amy knew from her family history that the Otis name was, if anything, more highly regarded there than in Atchison.

There had been an Otis law firm in existence in St. Paul since 1857. The first to move there had been George, the closest in age to her father, in his day the most respected railroad lawyer in Minnesota, who had been a member of the state legislature, the Democratic candidate for governor, and mayor of St. Paul. Then there was his brother Ephraim (Amy's Uncle Eph), his law partner until the Civil War. George next had taken in brother Charles, who had moved to St. Paul to study law under him. When George died, Charles, following the tradition established by George, had taken in
his youngest brother, Arthur, as partner. Ephraim was in Chicago and Arthur had left for Grand Rapids, but Charles, Amy's helpful and affectionate Uncle Charles, the most important uncle of all, was in St. Paul and still practicing law—a pillar of his church, a pillar of society and, she hoped, a helping hand for her.

And so suddenly Edwin and Amy and Amelia and Muriel moved to St. Paul. It was only a menial job—clerk in the railway office—but Edwin hadn't worked for almost a year. In the fall of 1913 they moved.

Their journey was most inauspicious; it was more of a flight than a move and was undoubtedly so disorganized because of Amy's distraught frame of mind. Instead of informing her “Dear Uncle Charlie” that they were even thinking of moving to St. Paul, much less consulting him as to where to live, she simply literally arrived on his doorstep. He learned of her move to St. Paul only when she asked him to endorse the check to the movers.

 

Amy wrote Mark to tell him about their move, and unaware of his true character, told him how desperate their situation was.

Mark promptly sent this heartbreaking letter on to their Uncle Charles, at the same time cleverly blunting its impact by enclosing an explanatory letter of his own, in which he listed the funds Amy had so far received and informed his uncle “this will be supplemented by at least $2000 more between this [September 9] and October 1st”—funds that Amy undoubtedly never received. That letter, however, was merely a warm-up for his next letter to Charles. A week later, feeling on firmer ground, evidently emboldened by a letter he had received from his uncle, he carefully, nastily, and with surgical skill cut the ground out from under his sister:

The next day Mark received a letter from Amy. It frightened him, for in it she took him to task for the hostility he had shown toward her, Amelia, and Muriel. He couldn't send this letter on to Charles as he had done with her others, because of her accusations that he had conducted himself callously and unfeelingly. But if he denied getting the letter, he would undoubtedly eventually be caught out, since he had positioned himself in the role of long-suffering brother in constant correspondence with his sister. He resolved the dilemma by telling Charles that Amy seemed to be in desperate straits and that he had “immediately wired her to see you, as you have full power to act for me.”

He took another day to write to his sister, assuring her there was no bitterness in his heart toward her or her children, and that she should go to their Uncle Charles, give him a true statement of all her debts, and figure out how much money she needed to tide her over—which sums would be in the nature of a secured loan.

Mark's advice to his uncle not to worry about any “social obligation” to his sister bore bitter, bitter fruit. The result, if he was ever apprised of it, would have warmed Mark's heart. For Charles, a socially retiring person to begin with who had been a widower for fifteen years; for his son, James, ten years younger than Amy, a hard-working young lawyer becoming involved in municipal government, married, with three young children on his hands; and for his daughter Maribel, unmarried, who presided over Charles's house, Mark's advice relieved them of what would have been at best a difficult and probably unhappy situation. If they didn't take the Earharts up, then they wouldn't have to deal with an alcoholic who had brought his family to the verge of destitution. The barest of financial help was the full extent of Charles's aid.

During the long cold Minnesota winters, skating and the sport of curling (a game played on ice between two teams of four players) were the major social pastimes among the nice families in St. Paul. They were carried out at private clubs, but Amy didn't have the money for Amelia and Muriel to join the curling club on Selby Avenue, which under ordinary circumstances they would have joined—the one founded by Charles's father-in-law. No offer of financial help, no kind invitations to join them in club activities were forthcoming from Charles. So Amy, who had thought that as an Otis she would be welcomed in the city where her Uncle George had been mayor and where her “Dear Uncle Charlie” and his children lived, saw her dream shattered. No invitations for Amelia and Muriel to meet St. Paul children were extended by Charles or James or Maribel, no Otis friends called her up. The door that Charles had promised to keep open to Amy “wherever” he was, remained closed, except for the barest crack.