published in Marion, Ind., Chronicle Tribune, Feb. 12, 1978 ©
He was a literary lion. She was Marion, Indiana's merry widow.
Together, they had a love affair that burned across half the world and the pages of
literature like a trail of gunpowder. It began as a storybook romance, only to become more like a broken lament,
bittersweet and unfulfilled.
Edgar Lee Masters met Mrs. Lillian Pampell Wilson at a party in Chicago in 1919. He
was still riding the crest of his fame as the author of "Spoon River Anthology," a collection of poems describing the people and life
of a fictional small Midwestern town published in 1915.
Peggy, as she was known to her friends, was the wealthy young widow of a prominent
Marion banker, J. Woodrow Wilson, who had built for her a luxurious 24-room mansion in the heart of town. She traveled in the fashionable
circles of Chicago, New York and Paris. She had published a book of her one-act plays, "Fruit of Toil," in 1916.
He was 51 years old. She was 32.
It was an inevitable, if not quite perfect, match. Though already married, Masters had
displayed a penchant for becoming involved with rich, sophisticated women. Mrs. Wilson seemed drawn to men of prominence and artistic success.
Their love affair began shortly after they met and continued for about two years. Masters
made several trips to visit Mrs. Wilson in her mansion at Fourth and Garfield streets in Marion -- the house Masters called "the Sleeping
Palace" and Marion now calls the Hostess House.
The two also met in Paris, possibly in London and at Masters' retreat in Michigan.
In 1921, Masters made a desperate attempt to obtain a divorce from his wife, presumably
so that he could marry Mrs. Wilson. But, before the year was out, their romance had burned itself out, at least as far as Peggy Wilson
was concerned, and Masters' plans were exploded.
In the wake of the shattered romance, Masters wrote a bitter poem and devoted a large,
unflattering portion of a later book to the Marion woman who appears to have been the one great love of the famed poet's life.
The details of the love affair between Masters and Mrs. Wilson were uncovered by Dr.
Herbert K. Russell of Makanda, Ill. Dr. Russell, former professor of English at Western Illinois University, studied Masters' private
life as part of the research for his doctoral dissertation at Southern Illinois University.
Dr. Russell, who has studied the Illinois poet for many years, said he was particularly
interested in filling in the details of Masters' life that were not included in the poet's autobiography, "Across Spoon River," published
in 1936. Some of the results of that research, including the details of the Masters-Wilson romance, appeared in a scholarly journal, Essays
in Literature, last fall.
Dr. Russell said a woman Masters called Pamela, a "magic princess" who lived in "the Sleeping
Palace," is mentioned in his autobiography, but no further details are given. His search for Pamela led eventually to Marion and Lillian
Pampell Wilson.
"The biggest key there was a habit of Masters," Dr. Russell said. "I noted that wherever he was,
he used letter-head stationery. I don't know why, unless it was some personal tick of his.
"I came across one letter that said 723 W. Fourth St., Marion, Ind. So, I said, here was a good lead."
The lead produced the identity of the mystery woman, whose literary name was only a thinly disguised
variation of her maiden name, the researcher said. Dr. Russell said some of Masters' personal letters make specific references to Peggy Wilson and Marion.
"He was fairly clear in mentioning her name and dates," he said.
Dr. Russell traced the love affair from Masters' visits to the Wilson mansion in Marion to his meetings
with Peggy in Europe and Michigan. The researcher said he believed that, of all the women in Masters' life, the Marion woman was his greatest love.
"I think she was," he said. "I think, too, it was probably doomed to failure from the start. My impression
of her was that she was only interested in men as long as they were prominent, and by 1920 Masters' artistic career was pretty much on the decline."
Dr. Russell, who visited Marion last summer and talked with local people who had known Mrs. Wilson, said
the romance apparently ended in late 1921, when Masters realized that Peggy's feelings for him had cooled and she was seeing other men. His last visit to
the Wilson mansion is described in a sorrowful poem titled "Peggy" that was published in The Overland Monthly in September of 1926.
These are the final lines of the poem:
It's night now, Peggy, and the electric arc
Masters returned to Chicago and effected a brief reconciliation with his wife. Their divorce battle resumed
a short time later, and his wife, represented by Masters' former law partner, Clarence Darrow, secured a financial settlement that virtually ruined the
lawyer-turned-poet.
His literary career went to ruin as well. None of his later work ever rivaled "Spoon River Anthology," which
angered and embittered him.
In 1924, he published a book, "Mirage," that, according to Dr. Russell, includes a lengthy account of his
romance with Mrs. Wilson, whom he named Becky Norris in the book. In it, he holds his former paramour up to ridicule and scorn.
The romance with Peggy Wilson, then, had a dramatic effect on Masters' life and career. "It was the cause of
his downfall in many ways," Dr. Russell said.
Masters later moved to New York and married again. He died in a Pennsylvania nursing home in 1950.
Mrs. Wilson married physician-explorer Dr. John C. Vaughan in 1926. He died 14 years later, and his widow
lived in New York until her death.
In a final irony, Dr. Russell pointed out, Masters and his Peggy lived only a short distance apart in New
York in their later years. But these two former lovers, whose romance would live on forever in the pages of American literature, apparently never even knew it.
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Copyright 1978 by Jerry Miller ©
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Throws lavender lights upon your brow;
You are a ghost now, and I bow
Myself into the dark.