Dolly and Zane Grey

Letters from a Marriage

Candace C. Kant, Candace C. Kant

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9780874177503
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Literarische Briefe

Popular western writer Zane Grey was a literary celebrity during his lifetime and the center of a huge enterprise based on his writing, which included books, magazine serials, film and stage versions of his stories, even comic strips. His wife, Dolly, closely guided Grey's career almost from its beginning, editing and sometimes revising his work, negotiating with publishers and movie studios, and skillfully managing the considerable fortune derived from these activities.

Dolly maintained the facade of a conventional married life that was essential to Grey's public image and the traditional middle-class values his work reflected. This facade was constantly threatened by Grey's numerous affairs with other women. The stress of hiding these dalliances placed a huge strain on their relationship, and much of Zane and Dolly's union was sustained largely by correspondence. Their letters--thousands of them--reveal the true nature of this complex partnership. As edited by Candace Kant, the letters offer an engrossing portrait of an extremely unorthodox marriage and its times.

1900–1912

PART ONE

LACKAWAXEN

1900–1904

CHAPTER 1

The Brown-Eyed Rose and the Black-Eyed Devil

LACKAWAXEN VILLAGE lies on a peninsula of meadow framed by the blue water of the Delaware River and the ripples of Lackawaxen Creek. The river boasts trout, smallmouth bass, and walleye, and, in the late spring, shad.¹ On either side are hills thick with forest and alive with wildlife of all varieties. The region still attracts sportsmen who seek a primitive environment, but in 1900 it boasted a large hotel, the Delaware House, built in 1852. Situated on Pennsylvania’s northeastern border with New York State, it was less than a hundred miles from New York City as the crow flies, only three hours away by the Erie Railroad, and was a popular resort for jaded New Yorkers fleeing the heat and noise of the city.

Zane Grey, a young dentist from New York City, was there for fishing and canoeing in the summer of 1900 with his brother, R.C.² Seventeen-year-old Lina Roth, or Dolly as her family called her, was there in the company of her mother and two girlfriends, recovering from the death of her father. One afternoon late in August, Dolly and her friends were enjoying the cool breeze on the bank of the river. So intent were they on their conversation that they failed to notice the approach of a canoe until it touched the shore. In it were Zane and R.C., equipped with cameras, photographing the young women.³

Dolly found the older man intriguing (he was twenty-eight). Zane, or Doc as he was called, was admired by many women. In fact much of his practice consisted of young ladies who enjoyed the attentions of a handsome dentist. He was of medium stature with thick black hair, heavy brows, and a brooding demeanor. His semiprofessional baseball career and his fishing, canoeing, and hiking gave him an athletic build. His moody dark eyes drew Dolly almost as much as the literary ambitions he confided to her. He was an irrepressible flirt, she instantly knew, and much of what he said could not be taken seriously, but he seemed fascinated by her mind, a trait not commonly found in men of that era. For Dolly was an intellectual and had ambitions. She was to enter Hunter College that fall to study English literature and planned to continue on to Columbia University and eventually to teach. She was familiar with the music of the great composers, loved great literature, and was fluent in German.

She was also good humored, with an air of confidence and satisfaction that intrigued Zane. Strikingly handsome, she was not tall or slender, but curvaceous. Her long hair was the color of chestnuts with golden highlights, and she wore it up to enhance her delicately shaped and finely balanced features. She too was athletic, enjoying long hikes and playing basketball, but had a quiet, poised, introspective nature and even in a crowd was remarkable for her serenity.

Zane returned to New York only a few days after they met, and Dolly, still in Lackawaxen, wrote a flirtatious and frivolous letter to him almost immediately.

Is it vain of me to tell you this? No, because we love each other. I wouldn’t tell anybody else.

Last night we had a moonlight sail which was perfectly delicious.

The only thing on such occasions is that I miss you so much, always wishing you were with me.⁴

In the city they met around her schedule of studies and his practice. He escorted her to dinner and shows, called on her at home, and took her for walks. She told him of her college adventures. They communicated by letter, making arrangements to meet, giving reasons why they could not, or simply talking. By December he pressed her about her feelings toward him. She coyly replied,

DECEMBER 13, 1900

I hardly know what to say about it. I didn’t like it for it frightened me a little. I will, however, be perfectly honest with you, and try to tell you how I feel, as well as I can. Sunday, when you came I did have a more or less indifferent feeling, and it has been so all this week. Tomorrow it might be different again. I can’t tell. There was one time when I thought I almost loved you, and that feeling may come again.

It is hard to explain, but I think it is because I go to college, and see so much of other girls, and enjoy myself with them, that I feel indifferent at times. Besides, I am too young to think of such things. Before I met you, I never thought of love, and if I did, I thought of it as something in the far future. I expected to love someone sometime, and knew that when I did, it would be with my whole heart and soul. Whether I ever will love you in that way I can not tell, and you will have to have a great deal of patience with me. Perhaps if you don’t say anything or write anything to me about it for awhile it will be better . . .

Yours,
Lina R.

Arguments and misunderstandings occurred. Both had other companions and commitments, and there were conflicting demands of school, family, and work. What made it more difficult was that Dolly’s mother did not like Zane. In her eyes he had little to offer her daughter. A dentist who frittered his time away with baseball and fishing was not destined for success, and his admiration of women hinted of trouble. His background, in her eyes, was unexceptional, not just because Ohio was regarded by New Yorkers as a primitive backwoods, but also because of the Greys’ financial losses in the 1890s. Even the Zanes of Revolutionary War fame, for whom Zanesville was named, failed to impress her. Finally, there was the eleven-year age difference. Dolly was just too young to become serious about an older man.

Her mother’s disapproval sometimes made it difficult for Dolly to invite Zane to her home. At those times Dolly came to his office or they met somewhere else. Central Park was their favorite place, for there they could stroll about, occasionally finding themselves secluded from others who also enjoyed the park. Dolly and her family traveled to Lackawaxen each summer for a few weeks, and often those visits coincided with Zane’s presence there.

Mrs. Roth’s opposition may have strengthened Zane and Dolly’s attraction for each other, but Zane resented her disapproval and her efforts to prevent Dolly from becoming more attached to him. Dolly’s mother encouraged her daughter to entertain other suitors, making Zane jealous, even though he condescendingly dismissed Dolly’s feelings about his other girlfriends. First at Hunter College, then at Columbia, Dolly met many young men and was surrounded by a lively group of friends who were warmly welcomed to her mother’s apartment, making Zane quite upset.

JANUARY 5, 1902

Dear Dolly,

I am not writing this note to apologize. I don’t intend to do that. I am tired of being two-faced with that fellow and I refuse to be so any longer.

I wish to say how utterly absurd you are when you reproach me as you did today about my going with other girls and your being jealous. Why, you can’t understand what jealousy is! You might feel it in some childish fashion, but a woman’s jealousy you cannot appreciate, let alone feel.

Jealousy is a horrible thing. It sent me away from you today when I was perfectly happy. It changed that sweet feeling of love into something terrible. Tonight I am miserable. I feel like I wanted to go and get drunk; to disgrace myself; to do something awful.

You had the nerve to tell me to my face that he doesn’t care for you? Do you mean to tell me that he would not care for a woman that made me, even me, love her? There is a great deal of egotism in that remark but it is expressive of what I feel. Which is; that if I love you, men who have not had the advantages I have had to know women, simply could not help it.

I am tired of trying to see you alone and be like other lovers are, you are not like any other girl. If you were, I would not have this feeling tonight which unnerves me and brings up all that is worst in my nature.

If I could see you alone even occasionally and you would care for me as you did for fifteen minutes today, I would be happy and contented and the time might come when I could accomplish something and you would be proud of me. As it is, what chance have I to show you the best that is in me? I haven’t any chance.

You blame me for so much that is your fault. I want to know positively if you are ever going to be like other women? Are you always going to be about fifteen years old? Are you always going to put someone before me? If you are I would like to know it now and perhaps I might save myself a great deal of unhappiness.

When I think of the places I might go; of the girls I might go to see and all that, I get angry with myself. You have spoiled that. Even when I do go I would rather have you. It would be all right if we could be like other people. But I am not happy at all. I feel like a thief or a convict when I am in your house. I have been made to feel that you cannot go anyplace with me; that I am up alone with you for a few minutes only because it can’t be helped, etc., etc. I say, I am tired of it.

I suppose you don’t believe that I know any nice girls, girls just as nice as you are, who are just as well brought up and whose mothers are quite as particular as yours, who treat me differently. Well, I do.

Can’t you understand that I love you and you are all the world to me? I don’t care for anybody else. I want you.

Now if you will please sit down and write me your ideas upon this you would save a great deal of unhappiness for both of us, especially if you will do as any girl would who loved a man.

Yours
Pearl

On another evening when he arrived at her home to find another young man present, he wrote,

SEPTEMBER 1902

Dolly,

I was brutal to you today, but I could not help it. I was suffering for myself and I had to be brutal to resist your sweet pleading. When it was all over I cried like a baby or a fool. I had not intended writing you but I have thought that perhaps it would be best if I did. You were so shocked, so surprised that you seemed to think it was a jest. I said that I refused to accept the place you offer me and I meant it. I could not be satisfied to be considered last in everything. You always say you consider me first but when it comes to the test, you do not.

I never dreamed that I could love anyone as well as I have you. To be in your presence was a delight to me. When you touched me I would thrill with joy, and when you kissed me I became a madman almost. I was proud of you, of your beauty, of your wit and cleverness, of everything that was yours. I gloried in the fact that I had such a singular nature that I had given no other woman anything of love or passion, and I would have shown it a thousand times more had you allowed me. I remained in New York despite all the wishes of my folk at home. I told my mother and brothers all about you, something heretofore unheard of in me, and I have given up all the girls I ever knew for you. I thought of you all the time. This is the simple, entire truth. You have just told me that I was tired of you. So much for your understanding me. When we parted at Lackawaxen my heart was heavy and I had a foreboding of evil as I feared those were the last of our happy days. We might have known that it could not last.

When I was last up to see you I knew that my worst fears were realized. I found that I could not see you when I wished, not to say anything of being alone with you. Your old interests and attractions came back with a rush as soon as you returned to the city, and it was simply impossible that I could be first in your thoughts. I could not hope to influence you against all these things, especially your own desire for them. Do you think I could stand somewhere in the background and see all of this? To note your acceptance of attentions from other men, and I don’t mean everyday platonic friendship, to hear you say you could not see me when I wished, and to have that old feeling of uncertainty come back. I might have been able to stand that before the trip to Lackawaxen, but after your kisses, your promises, your sweet forgetfulness of self, I could never do it. I tell you I came down to earth with a dull thud last Wednesday night when I came to see you. I had been in the clouds.

I have been a better man in every way since I have known you and that is something a woman’s influence never did for me before. Now that it is gone what do you suppose will become of me?

If you wish your letters and pictures, especially those pictures you have not seen, I will send them or destroy them as you wish. That is all, Dolly. You are free.

Dolly did not disagree with her mother that she was superior in breeding, background, and education to Zane, but she thought he could overcome his deficiencies with her help. Zane admitted his shortcomings, but that did not prevent explosive reactions when he thought his dignity had been assaulted.

NOVEMBER 2, 1903

I have never, in our acquaintance, been as angry as I am now. Red said my face was white as a sheet. I haven’t looked at it, but I believe him. Why you wish to humiliat...