Extremely Lonely 1926
“But it’s a lonely life, extremely lonely.”Agnes Moorehead
Three years of teaching
I had been teaching at Soldiers Grove since 1923. The monotony had set in as I labored away at the school. I was a human, although a few might argue that point; I was so bored in the tiny hamlet of Soldiers Grove. Nonetheless, I made my own entertainment and continued striving to give my students my best. I participated in so many school events and was glad to do so. The entire school became involved when I finally got to direct a school play. I performed a song for the Washington-Lincoln celebration. I enjoyed watching the children grow so much. I was just as anxious for summer as my students were, and once June arrived and school was out, I beat a hasty retreat to St. Louis.
The Wilds Of Wisconsin
The wilds of Wisconsin can be daunting for the average person. Fortunately, I was at least familiar with them. While it does sound like the “wilds” of Wisconsin, Soldiers Grove is a mere 88 miles from Madison. But in 1923, when I first arrived to teach school, that might have well been 88 million miles. When I tell you Soldiers Grove is a small village, I am being modest about its size. The high point of 1926 was the opening of the American Legion post. Soldiers Grove was once actually called Pine Grove, but after the Civil War, the name was changed to honor the troops that camped there during the Blackhawk War. Soldiers Grove was the very definition of bucolic.
I found a room at the Roth house in Soldiers Grove when I arrived in 1923. What a beautiful place it was, and everyone was so kind. Several of my fellow teachers lived there as well. It was at 102 Pine Street. I could walk to school in 10 or 15 minutes on a snowy day and much quicker with sunshine. My room was purple. If you know anything about me, I adore not just mauve or lavender but every shade of purple above and below them. Perhaps it was divine providence! How often in this world do you find a place that was made just for you? This lovely house was my home for four years, with its domes and stained glass windows. I felt like a princess in a castle. The only troubling thing was the time it took to get home to my parents’ house, especially when they returned to St. Louis.
Like A Fish To Water
I took to teaching like a fish to water. I taught English and public speaking and coached dramatics. Little did I know that the things I was doing would be the essential tools I would need when I ventured into radio. I had always suspected that I was meant to be a school teacher. Giving knowledge to young people is sacrosanct, and teachers are the ones who mold the world through their students.
I attended summer sessions in 1924 at Columbus University and the University of Wisconsin. While I was in Madison, Pegg came up with Mother for a visit. Madison is a fantastic place; We had a great time. It is a very entertaining city. We visited the capital and saw a vaudeville show at the Orpheum. This visit felt more like it had been before the troubles between Mother and Peg. I also participated in a teaching conference in Milwaukee. I loved Milwaukee. In 1924, I decided to go to Reedsburg for Thanksgiving instead of St. Louis; I just couldn’t make it in the allotted time. I suppose it had to do more with spending time with my Mother and father, knowing they were hiding things from me. I had a beau, Fred Halverson, with whom I used to attend football games at the University of Wisconsin. Oh, it was great fun going to those games. All the folks were cheering and yelling. It can be thrilling! I performed in a recital in 1925 and sang at a Lincoln Day celebration in 1926. I had begun to feel like life was passing me by, even though I was as happy as I had ever been. Fred and I were an item, but I already knew that Fred Halverson wouldn’t be the man I would marry. He was nice enough, but I knew he would never leave Soldiers Grove, and I really wanted to go. I had been saving money since she started teaching. Papa padded the roll for me to make it easier.
At the end of the school year in June 1926, I returned to St. Louis, only to find, in true Moorehead fashion, something had happened that summer. Peggy was in a poor state—her trip to the West to see Ray had been a disaster. Peggy was not built for wild partying; this sounds like a wild house party. Pegg was fearless, typically, but now she looked worn out and extraordinarily sad. Alcohol had never passed Peggy's lips before that party, but it indeed found its way there once she got back to St. Louis. It didn’t matter to Peggy that she was breaking the law! After all, breaking the rules is part of the fun. Fortunately, Mother and Father seemed none the wiser, but Pegg spilled her guts to me. I couldn't believe what I heard came from my sister's mouth. Suffice it to say, the summer of 1926 was stressful because of Peggy’s rebellious streak. Pegg was attending nursing classes and lived on the campus, so there was little Mama and Papa could do to get her straightened out. I never understood how she could run around all night and then go to class and work without sleep. It was pure insanity. Then I found out the bank where all my deposited money had collapsed, taking the tidy sum of $300.00. It pushed back my imagined departure date from Soldiers Grove to an unspecified location. Perhaps I thought I’d just get on a ship and go to Honolulu to teach. What more could you want? There was no snow or freezing weather, so to me, it was ideal!
Honolulu Honey
But on August 5, 1926, when I got off the train to return to Soldiers Grove. I took a page from Mother’s book and went to the newspaper to tell a little story. I announced that I was looking into a teaching position in Honolulu and had lost several hundred dollars because of that bank failure. Ultimately, I wished I had never mentioned Honolulu because all the young male teachers at school would call her “Honolulu Honey.” Fortunately, they did it out of the students' earshot, or I would never have been able to live that down.
Pegg and I visited our grandparents, Grandpap and Grandma Moorehead, on the farm in July. Grandma Moorehead was frail but quite elderly. Everything seemed right on the farm. Peggy was back to her cherubic, jovial self, and our grandparents treated her like she was visiting royalty. Neither of us wanted to get on the train to return to St. Louis. Peggy became the listless creature she had inhabited in the last three years, making the return trip seem to last forever.
We got back to St. Louis on the 22nd. I only had three more days at home before I had to get back to Soldiers Grove. It meant I would have to spend at least one of those days repacking everything into her trunk. That trunk had been with me since I first went to Muskingum and would go with me back to Soldiers Grove. I had neatly painted “Bobby” on the front before leaving for Muskingum. My friends used to call her that because they all insisted I did not look like Agnes. I asked them what precisely an Agnes looks like. My middle name was Robertson, so Bobby it was!
The night before I left, I closed my trunk after placing all the items I wanted to take in it.
When I looked up, I saw Pegg standing in the doorway. She had the oddest look on her face.
I couldn’t figure out what was happening in her sister’s head. She said softly, “Agg,
when you aren’t around, I sometimes think I’m just going to lock myself in my room
and refuse to come out again.” My mouth dropped open, and I stammered, ‘
Oh my dear sweet sister, please tell me how I can help you! I hurt for you when
I see you like this.” Her response was, “You can’t help me. Nobody can help me.”
With that, she turned and entered her room, closing the door behind her. I sat down o
n my bed with a thud. I knew I couldn’t tell my Mother and father, yet I also knew I
should. I opted not just to keep the peace; I have regretted that decision daily.
Something Naughty 1928
"When I was a little girl, I was always into something naughty." 1928
Agnes Moorehead
Last Day At Soldiers Grove.
On May 3, 1928, Agnes returned to Soldiers Grove to finish the school year
after completing my first semester at the Academy. I had finally finished
my last day of teaching in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, on June 7, 1928. I was
leaving Soldiers Grove High School as a teacher, and I will do this for the last time.
My sights were set on New York City and the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts. I braved the beginning of summer
heat to go visit friends in Baraboo.
Even though my parents were moving to Dayton, I loved Wisconsin's small towns.
Reedsburg and Baraboo were close to my heart, as was the city of Madison. I was taking
a massive leap of faith.
In the eyes of my family, I was practically joining Le Cirque Satan by becoming an actress,
but I was going to do it, and that was that. I joined Mother and Father in St. Louis for the
summer on June 21. We set about packing for the move to Dayton. Mother, Father, and
Pegg would be in Dayton by the middle of August, and I would join them there before
returning to New York. More than 365 days later, my entire life would change dramatically.
The dominoes that would set up this dramatic change had already begun to fall.
Reedsburg, St Louis, and 365 Days
In 1928, Pegg was a third-year nursing student at the Jewish Hospital in St. Louis,
and as fate would have it, Pegg’s past was there, staring her in the face, too. Pegg never
recovered from the Washauer debacle. She mooned over him daily even though she knew
he was married, and I believed then that she was on the edge of losing her grip.
She had completed her training since the program was only three years long. I don’t
know whether she graduated since nobody showed me the degree. But dutifully, as always,
Pegg went with our parents to Dayton. But I could see Pegg wasn’t right,
and I didn’t know how to talk to her about it.
Mother knew as well that Pegg was at the end of her rope, and like me, she struggled
to help her. I couldn’t do much from New York, but I decided to visit every moment I
could spare.
My first full year at AADA was hectic. I had another beau named Dwight,
and boy, howdy, was that a nightmare. That man was so up and down in love and
out of love every five seconds. If I had wanted instability, I would have
stayed at home. I got a letter from him that made me feel something I
had never experienced before. I managed to be bloody angry and
laugh hysterically at the same time. Dwight was not the smoothest guy on
the ground, to be sure.
Dear Dwight
Dwight dear, TuesdayYou amaze me. I wonder if you realize how tactless your letter read.
Did you reread it before you sent it to me? But, since you did send it, my dear,
all well and good; my dear. Don’t feel that you aren’t exactly “free.”
For really, you are. Don’t blame girls for falling head over heels, you
know, since the “Battle Creek Lady” has and still is, since you feel very
much worried over her hurt and disappointment. I’m afraid you have gone
off again on another target when you think that you are in love with me.
(scratched out “Said you thought you were before. You were kind to tell me
about it–I greatly admire you. I shall not class you as a
heartbreaker, so don’t mind me.
Some of these days, we need to talk it over–you know, kind of seriously.
That’s that. I’m working like the dead–making my first step toward
a new career.
With the date on this one and who Dwight is, I cannot tell, but Jack was
the first man Agnes dated seriously in New York. This Dwight is from
Dayton. She clearly had other beaus before Jack, and why she settled on him,
I will never understand.
Oh Nurse
By 1928, Peggy was a third-year nursing student at the Jewish Hospital in St. Louis,
and as fate would have it, Peggy’s past was there staring her in the face, too.
When our parents left in 1928, Peggy went with them. At this point, Peg had
completed her training. It remains unclear whether she graduated or not. But dutifully, as always, she went with our parents to Dayton.
Before we left St. Louis, Mother and I had done stints in show business by
singing on KMOX. Mother sang on the radio, beginning in 1925 when
she and father returned to St Louis. Mother gave recitals, both public and private.
Mother was also a Carondelet Women’s Club member
and managed their musical entertainment, mostly her singing.
An Unfortunate Call
On June 4, Papa was assigned to the church in Dayton, and on June 28, seven days
after I came home, Papa tendered his resignation at Carondelet, accepting the
posting in Dayton.
It made me think of something that had not crossed my mind: what if the falling
out I had with Pegg resulted from whatever was happening between Pegg and the Washauer fellow? Furthermore, what if the decision to go to Dayton resulted from what had gone on between Pegg and the Don? Was this another Reedsburg?
Did we have to go because of something Peggy got herself involved in? Pegg had
never lived independently outside the nurse's dorm, and I had never returned home
after graduation from college because Peggy could not be trusted to be on her own. You had to babysit her. My parents refused to accept that their child was damaged.
The whole thing was just too complex!
Frankly
August 31, 1928
Dayton, Ohio
Friday
“Dr. John Henderson Moorehead, pastor-elect of Patterson Presbyterian
church, with Mrs. Moorehead, arrived in Dayton on Friday, preparatory
to assuming his new pastorate…He has been enjoying a vacation with his
parents in New Concord, Ohio.”
The number of months elapsed between Mother and Father's arrival in Dayton and Pegg's
suicide was ten. I said it before Peggy fell in love faster than most folks sneeze. It had
been ten months since she met him, so I had to believe that Peggy killed
herself over a man she had known for ten months, or at the very least, a
minimum of a couple of weeks. Poppycock! None of that thought process makes
any sense. We have all tiptoed around Peggy's behavior for years. I love
my sister beyond words, but she was not well mentally.
Author's Observation: Peg With the Golden Hair
Yes, Pegg was an angel with rose gold hair in ringlets, but she was also a loose woman,
and I’m not being funny here. In her twenty-two or twenty-three-year-old mind,
you had to have a man to be a valid human.
The first thing she did in high school was snag a senior boy, and the second
was break every moral code she had been raised with. There was Marden, Ray,
Frank, and Don Washauer, and she was fourteen when it all started and twenty-three when it
ended. I called all of this isky behavior. I have no idea what else she got up to.
I started with the 1929 and 1930 directories for Dayton, Ohio. I knew that his initials were
FP from Agnes’ postmortem opus. So I looked for Frank, Francis, and Franklin,
focusing on last names that began with the letter P. Then I checked them against
the 1930 census records for a rough estimate of birthdates.
While doing this, I gleaned their relationship status and looked for wives
we needed to narrow down the list with children.
What I ended up with is a list of six Franks. They are less than one and a half miles from 19
Stone Mill Road, but only one of these six fits perfectly. His name is Frank Powell.
Frank and his family live less than half a mile from 19 Stone Mill Road. It would be
about a 15-minute stroll, and you would have to walk right by Patterson Memorial
Presbyterian Church on the corner of Stone Mill and Brown Street.
The Grim Reaper 1927
"It's marvelous to be called a lovely witch.”
Agnes Moorehead
Grandfather McCauley Dies
July 30, 1927
Warren, Ohio
Saturday
Mother was in the kitchen. Father was in his study, and Pegg was moping around in her room.
I was sitting on the back porch reading. There was a knock at our front door. Father
was closer than Mother was, so he answered it. I stood up and went to the screen door
to the kitchen. When Papa entered the kitchen, he held an open envelope and a
half sheet of paper. Father was as white as a sheet in the face, so I knew it would
not be good news. Mother stopped kneading the dough on the Hoosier and turned to look at
my father. “Molly,” my father said solemnly, “It’s a telegram from your sister.
Your father has died.” Mother dropped the dish towel she’d had and started
to cry.
I walked away from the back door and sat down hard on the wicker settee
on the porch. I cried softly because I didn’t want to upset Mother further.
She was sobbing in great, huge wails. Father just held her close and let her cry.
Pegg had come down the back stairs to the kitchen to see if Mother was alright.
I heard her sit down solidly on the stairs and sob softly as well.
Mother was beside herself. Father immediately set about getting her to Canton.
My Aunt Agnes had telephoned about twenty or thirty minutes after Father had received
the telegram from Mother. I entered the kitchen, retrieved Mother’s handkerchief from
her apron, and handed it to her. She sobbed continuously for what seemed like an
eternity as I made her a cup of tea. I could hear my father in his study making arrangements
for them and Pegg to go to Grandma McCauley’s house. I turned and saw Pegg sitting on the
stairs with a glazed-over look, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger. It was something
Pegg always did when she was in distress. There I stood with my Mother bawling and my
sister looking as if she were on a completely different planet. Father and I seemed to be
the only two people in the house capable of functioning.
I walked into my father’s study, and he just hung up the phone. I said,
“Papa, what can I do to help?” He looked up at me, and I saw tears in his eyes for the
first time. He was deeply distressed. He was silent, so I hugged him as hard as I could and
retrieved the luggage from the attic that I knew my family would need. I had to return to
Soldiers Grove and wouldn’t attend the service. Piece by piece, I wrestled the luggage down.
I put Mother’s trunk in her room and Peggs' in hers. Father had a neat black satchel,
which I cleaned and sat on Mother's trunk.
I felt so sorry for Father. He was going to have two hysterical women, no three, no four,
with Grandma McCauley on his hands, and I knew it would be so hard for him. Grandma
McCauley made the Mother look like a bad actress. She could cry on demand, and
speaking strictly as a performer, I found that impressive! I saw them off the following
day. Peggy had cheered up a bit and was more helpful with her Mother. Mother was
still a mass of emotion. Father was so firm. He held my Mother tightly, guiding her
into the train car. The porter had put their luggage in their compartments. Pegg had her
own, but I knew she’d end up sleeping next to her Mother for comfort. I doubted Father
would sleep at all. My train left the following day, and I had nobody to see me off or look
after my grief. I was nearly always alone, even in crowds, so I was accustomed to it.
I could count on Fred for comfort when I got to Soldiers Grove.
The man who had passed away was Molly’s father. Agnes may have known
him as a child, but hadn’t seen him for years. I never understood Agnes’
parents. Grandpa McCauley lived fifty miles or more away from Grandma
McCauley. They’d lived like that for a very long time.
I’m sure that the excuse for him not being there was that he worked in
the steel mill, and what a good job it was, allowing him to provide for
Grandma. The truth of the matter is that Grandpa didn’t want to live with
Grandma, because Grandma was, well, pushy. If you lived under Grandmother’s
roof, you lived by her practically Pentecostal rules! Aggie’s Grandma Mc
Cauley was a tough old bird.
On a hot July day in 1927, Teddy McCauley, Aggie's maternal grandfather,
worked in a steel mill in Warren, Ohio. Steel mills are hot. Extraordinarily hot.
Once you add July to the words steel mill, you are talking about the fifth
circle of hell, hot. Teddy was working in a mill job as a
“heater.” Heaters are the men who tend to the furnaces used for
heating metal for forging, rolling, case-hardening, and tempering the
molten metal. A heater does a crucial job.
He is responsible for achieving and maintaining the temperature at the exact level
required for the type of material being smelted. The heater working today
was born in Manchester, England, and emigrated to Leechburg in Armstrong County
County, Pennsylvania. His name is Terrance Edward McCauley, and he is Agnes'
maternal grandfather. This is his last day on earth.
Trumbull Steel Company is where Teddy worked in Trumbull County, Ohio.
Steel mills are hazardous places. In those days, accidents were common and often fatal.
The furnaces are the most dangerous place to work. At 12:30 pm on July 30, an
accident occurred at Trumbull Steel that resulted in an enormous fatal fracture at
the base of Teddy’s skull. I doubt he even felt what hit him. The doors on
these things do have a way of being directly responsible for the death
of the operator. I lost a great uncle the same way. Teddy was one of
the most unfortunate people on the day shift on this hot summer day. A blast
furnace like the one Teddy worked on was typically 240 to 340 feet tall.
The doors on the base where coke came out were enormous and heavy.
The facts of the accident are unavailable, but you don’t need to know that a
human skull doesn’t stand a chance against a door that is not in control.
Either Teddy or his partner did not have control of the door, and it
cost him his life.
Agnes boarded the train the following day and began her return to Soldiers Grove.
With every mile she put behind her, she relaxed more. Two months from now, she would
be in New York City for three months. With that happy thought in mind, she drifted
off to sleep after she left Chicago. Agnes finally returned to Soldiers Grove
on the morning of August 4.
The following Friday, she went to her office at the school and set about preparing
herself for new students and a new year. With September 6th fast approaching,
the staff beavered away getting classrooms ready and bulletin boards decorated.
Before they could blink, it was October.
Time was whizzing by so quickly. Agnes and Fred went to the Wisconsin-Michigan game on the
20th. Agnes knew she would have to sit Fred down and discuss the future. Whenever she saw
him, he had a flower for her or a poem, and she just didn’t know how to tell him she wasn’t the
one he would marry. Off they went to the game on October 15. Off Agnes went to break a heart.
Fred had agreed to drive just Agnes and him in his car. The rest of the gang piled into other vehicles.
They chatted back and forth about Fred and Agnes, trying to guess when they would get married.
Boy, they were in for a surprise!
On the way back, she talked with Fred. When she said they were done, she thought he was
going to faint and crash the car. Fred pulled off the road for a minute while he caught his breath.
As the minute turned into thirty, Agnes had to drive them back to Soldiers Grove. Aggie said
goodnight to Fred and asked him if he could get home all right. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m used to it.”
Agnes cried all night because she had broken the heart of a gentle, wonderful man and
couldn’t forgive herself for years afterward.
Soldiers Grove to New York City.
In November 1927, Agnes moved from Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, to New York City to
attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. This was the first step towards realizing
my dream of becoming a professional actress. The years that followed would be hectic
and challenging. While completing my studies at AADA, I worked at the Dalton Progressive
School to help get by. I would also wait tables. I was awful at it, though. So, I earned money
by doing paintings and sketches. She was quite a talented artist.
These first months were challenging for me in many ways. The passing of Grandmother Moorehead
and Grandfather McCauley punctuated her first few months. My academic life was completely
different. I had always excelled at being disciplined and studying, and as a bonus, my academic life
allowed me to become other people and pretend I did not have a care in the world. During my studies
at AADA, she starred in several productions.
The sweet relief of warmth rolled over Agnes as she entered the door to her hotel.
“Miss,” the clerk said, you have a message. Agnes took the paper. It has three words on it.
“Call home immediately.” She asked the clerk who had telephoned, and the clerk quickly
responded, “Your mother,” she said softly. Agnes’ heart dropped like a stone. If her
Mother called; it was either her father or one of her remaining grandparents. She turned and
went to the phone booth in the Lobby. When her Mother answered, she could hear the
sadness in Molly’s voice, “Oh, Agnes,” she said, “Grandmother Hannah is very ill.
Your father will meet your uncle Alfred in Chicago so they can go home together.”
Agnes made an excuse to get off the phone and quickly ran up the stairs to her room,
closed the door, and locked it. Then she sat down on her bed and sobbed like there was no
tomorrow. Her Grandma Moorehead had been a rock in her life. She taught Agnes to sew,
knit, and cook. Grandma Moorehead was a gentle little woman with the soul of a pioneer
and the mind of a scientist. She could name every plant in the front of the house, including
their planting times, soil content, and how to keep them alive once they are in the ground.
Agnes just couldn’t imagine her life without her grandmother. She knew her sister would
be heartbroken, and that added tons to the grief she was feeling.
Hannah Humphrey Moorehead
November 11, 1927
Friday
Hannah Moorehead was born to Marcus Humphrey and Amanda West on October 13, 1841,
in Muskingum County, Ohio. Her father, Marcus, was born in Loudoun County, Virginia,
and her Mother, Amanda West, was also born there. She married Agnes’s great-grandfather,
Marcus Humphrey, in Muskingum County on February 14, 1839. One of Agnes’ favorite
One of her memories was when her Grandma Moorehead taught her how to make a feather bed.
This skill was intended to help her keep a house in tip-top shape, catch a good husband,
and be adequately taken care of. Agnes loved John’s parents dearly and spent many a day
at their farm in Ohio. Her grandparents spoiled me rotten. One day, Agnes decided to go to
the village, hopped on a horse, and then proceeded to do just that. It took them hours
to find her. Her grandparents applauded my gumption for doing it. They never told her
Mother or father, what she’d done. Now, she was going to lose one of them. She cried for hours
and then fell straight into a restless sleep.
Although 1927 was a year that seemed to drag out endlessly, Agnes persevered.
The death of two grandparents was anything but easy. The passing of her grandfather
McCauley and her grandmother, Moorehead, were less than four months apart.
She had barely gotten on her feet after one death before another one arrived to
take its place. But it wasn’t all upheaval and chaos. When Agnes returned home in the
summer, she got to sing on the radio. KMOX! The thought that many people could hear
her sing set Agnes on fire. Once she started singing, she didn’t want to stop, and then it
occurred to her that radio might just be a great career. She didn’t think about it long,
though she wanted to be on the stage in the limelight, so to speak.
Look, Ma, I’m On The Radio
July 15, 1927
Friday
Agnes Moorehead, The Girl Tenor, 9:30 pm, Lange’s Orchestra.
I stared at the page in disbelief! This was my first radio appearance. I would be singing
and performing a popular song! “Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me.”. I did it on the largest
broadcasting radio station in the Midwest, KMOX. I didn’t know it then, but this was the
birth of my career in radio. Mother had been singing on the radio for the last two years, and
her influence helped me get the job. I was beyond thrilled and wrote my friends in
Soldiers Grove immediately.
By August 1927, Agnes was returning to Soldiers Grove to start the school year.
Everything was slowly changing, and the change began catching up with her over the
next two years. She had auditioned for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts during
the summer and was accepted. Agnes didn’t think she was good enough and nearly
burst into tears several times. Ultimately, it turned out she was, and to prove it, she would
have to cover an entire year's worth of work in three months. She was always quick to
study, so that didn’t bother her. She spent three months in New York with her nose either
in a book or her ears listening in class. She did her year in three months. Aggie then r
eturned to Soldiers Grove to finish the year. These next two years would prove to be
both fulfilling and heart-shattering. She chose to embrace the majority of it and
endure the remaining. She had no idea she would be enduring a shattering death in the
family before she ever boarded the train for Soldiers Grove.
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