Durant Family Saga
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Trilogy Summary
  • Contact
  • Author Biography
  • Events
  • Copyright

The Power of Diaries in Story Telling

1/19/2015

8 Comments

 
PictureDiary of Joseph Jenkins 1878, an immigrant to Australia. Source Wikimedia. Copyright Brian Jenkins.
I was talking today with my friend who is proof- reading my book, Imaginary Brightness: The Durant Family Saga, about diaries. I told her about my primary sources for my story. Luckily, Dr. Thomas C. Durant's great-granddaughter, Bernice Eugenie Durant, took it upon herself to transcribe his son William's diaries about his travels along the Nile River in 1869 and 1873.

But that's not what brought about this conversation. Rather we were talking about moving. Yes, moving out of the house we have lived in for over 18 years so we could downsize. But what to do with all the junk we have collected over the years, our children's art work, my great aunt Olive's wing-back chair that my mother insists I keep, and the 30 some years' worth of diaries I have kept in a trunk in my basement. What do I do with those angst-filled pages from my youth?

What was so serendipitous about this conversation was that over lunch today my children and I were talking about Anne Frank's diary.  How, we wondered, did she hide it? And who discovered it? I forgot this particular story, will look it up later.

The point is that diaries tell us a lot. But more so, they tell us what people did not want us to know. William's diary for example: Bernice's prologue is very detailed. In it, she states that many pages were ripped out from his trip in 1873. This was the year of the Great Panic, like our Great Depression in the 1920s, people had over-invested, this time in railroads, and many lost fortunes, including the Durants. While he was in Egypt, William was summoned back to England where his father was waiting to tell him he must come back to America and help rebuild the family fortune.

I can't help but wonder if years later William re-read his diary entries from this stressful period of time and decided to rip out anything that would have shed a bad light on his family's situation, and then kept the rest for prosperity.

And his sister Heloise Durant Rose (Ella) refers in her court testimony during the lawsuit against her brother William (1903) to a journal she kept daily. Where, I wonder, is it? Does a collector own it? It is not with the Syracuse University collections of her correspondence. Did she burn it? Was it too scandalous perhaps and her son Durant Rose burned it?

Interestingly, my story of the Durants includes a diary. It is entirely made-up of course. It belongs to Minnie - William's supposed mistress of the woods. It was so fun to write as it allowed me to look at what was going on in 1893 through the eyes of a 17 year-old governess-turned mistress.

Not having the primary sources, like Ella's journal, leaves a lot to speculation. Although I love the research, the loose ends allow me to use my imagination.


8 Comments

The 400 Club

8/13/2014

0 Comments

 
PictureThe Vanderbilt family, members of the '400 Club',1874.
While perusing for more information about Heloise Durant Rose (Ella) I found an article recapping the lawsuit she brought against her brother from the Los Angeles Herald dated 1900.  The article refers to the '400 Club' in New York City and the members gossiping about the trial. I had never heard of this group so I looked it up and found the reference to Mrs. Astor's 400 club - a list of people she deemed were the scions of wealth in New York - old money that is - and the 400 refers to the number of people that could supposedly fit in her ballroom. Only the members or close associates of the 400 club were invited to her soirees.

I found it rather appalling actually. The list, the idea that people made such lists, and that people might have wanted to be on the list. Although this was the Gilded Age, how much I wonder, have things changed?

I looked the list over and the Durants were not 'members'. But some of the 400 clubbers were guests at their camp Pine Knot in the Adirondacks from 1892-1894. I suppose the Durants were not on the list because they were nouveau rich, acquired through railroads and mining.

Put into context, it is understandable why Ella's brother, William, was driven to maintain his status as a moneyed gentleman in New York City even though his family was officially bankrupt by 1881.


After his father's death in 1885, William started selling off the lands in the Adirondacks that his father had so artfully acquired for a pittance in the 1860s. Finally, he sold the Adirondack railroad as well, and then William had cash flow. Building and launching a yacht of his own was the epitome of social status, and in 1892, after years of struggling with his father's debts and having little money, William must have been eager to show his friends and colleagues that the Durant name was back in good standing. Hence he had a yacht so he could travel the world and race.

William’s extravagant yacht  - the Utowana - may have been his chance to attract investment in his schemes by demonstrating his own wealth to his other yachting friends. His letters from 11th Lord Napier, 2nd Baron Ettrick are filled with references to the yacht races in Cowe,  Isle of Wight. And J. Malcolm Forbes sent letters to William with detailed descriptions about the racing conditions in Newport, RI. 

Was William ‘speculating to accumulate’? Was the yacht another business venture that failed? Or was his real motive in building the yacht selfish – to don once more the trappings of success and regain entry to the social circles of the elite, a lifestyle he enjoyed for so long in his younger days?

Perhaps the flaw in what was intrinsically a reasonable strategy lies in William’s genius and his constant hunt for perfection. We know from the records that William was never satisfied with ‘just good enough’. He was driven to create perfection in everything he built, at hugely increased cost in resources, time and money. The yacht Utowana was no exception.

As the saying goes though, wealth begets wealth and that is where William made his biggest error. He spent his money, but didn't invest it in new ventures that may have kept the family fortunes afloat. What land holdings he had left in the Adirondacks and the steamboat business were not enough to keep up with the lifestyle he chose to lead. One can't help wonder though if he was driven by the need to resurrect the family name and fortune or by his own need to fit in with the 400 club. Or perhaps, both.


0 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    Author

    Sheila Myers  Professor at Cayuga Community College in Upstate New York.

    Subscribe to blog

    RSS Feed

    Follow me on Facebook or Twitter!

    Categories

    All
    Adirondacks
    Alvah Dunning
    Anne Thackeray Ritchie
    Arpad Gerster
    Awards
    Camp Kirby
    Coffee
    Collis Huntington
    Divorce
    Dr Thomas Durant
    Editing
    Egypt
    Ella Durant
    England
    Gilborn
    Gilded Age
    Giveaway
    Great Camps
    Green Wood Cemetery
    Hell On Wheels
    Heloise Durant Rose
    Historical Fiction
    Hochschild
    Huntington
    Isle Of Wight
    J.P. Morgan
    Julia Margaret Cameron
    Last Of Mohicans
    Lillian Tiffany
    Marketing
    News
    Ozymandias
    Pine Knot
    Poultney Bigelow
    Research
    Sagamore
    Sarah Bernhardt
    Tea
    Uncas
    Utowana
    Vanderbilt
    Verplanck Colvin
    William West Durant

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.