Grief Rides A Black Horse 1929
"Suicide is one concept I do not understand. To want to kill someone else, for a second, yes, but to want to kill oneself, never."
Agnes Moorehead
Before this portion, I wanted to tell you some things. The letter that Agnes wrote in the back of her
notebook when she was studying at the AADA is transcribed completely. What we have read before
was either unreadable and not included, or the actual letter was edited to be far more poignant and disturbing. It reveals a truth, actually several, and we should have all been able to
read it long before now. The second letter is the one written by Molly to Agnes about the situation. So much was left out, and I'm sure it was edited in an attempt to not have to discuss Molly and John's actions regarding their daughter's suicide.
Grief With A Side Of Grief
April 28, 1929
Sunday
My phone rang at 10:00 p.m. It startled me because nobody ever called this late unless something was wrong. I jumped out of bed and grabbed the receiver. Mother was on the other end. “Agnes, your Grandfather Moorehead died at 8:00 this evening.” I sat down at my desk and muttered, “What?” “He died in his sleep, dearest,” she said. “You remember his fall in January,” she asked, “He broke his thigh bone, and the doctor ordered him to bed. He got pneumonia from laying down so much, and God decided to take him home.” Mother said she would call as soon as she had the details about the funeral. Mother and Father left for New Cambridge early the following day. They would drive. I decided not to wait for the details and packed a bag, caught a cab to Grand Central, and left for Ohio to bury my beloved grandfather. She cried the whole way. I know Grandpap was old and had lived a perfect life, but he was a part of my childhood that I couldn’t give hum up. Not yet.
Looking back on it I thought this tragedy was the worst thing that could have happened to her and her family.
I would learn that less than three months later, something worse would happen that made this look easy. 1929 was not turning out to be the good year I thought it would be. It hadn’t started well at all. But I had her studies and was about to graduate, so I had many things distracting her. I needed that distraction desperately. Then there was Jack and the odd sensation that thinking of him last was a sign of the things to come. I wasn't the least bit happy about that but I would learn in short order that I had no choice in the matter. I didn't even bother to let him know I was leaving, which didn’t bother me either. Well, never mind all that. I tracked down a conductor and arranged for a telegram to be sent to Mother and Father, letting them know I was on my way and would need somebody to pick me up at the station. Before I drifted off to sleep, my last thought was, “I hope Pegg is alright.”
How the day went down
July 4th, 1929
Dayton Ohio
8:00 A.M.
It was early on a cool July morning in Dayton, Ohio. A few fluffy white clouds peppered the brilliant blue sky. A young woman had just woken up in a bedroom in a white house on Stonemill Road. The curtains were drawn, but the window was open, allowing the breeze in. Pegg lay in her bed next to one of the windows, listening to the birds singing their glorious good mornings. Pegg turned over and stared blankly at the ceiling. Turning her head to the left, she stared at the large photographs of her mother and father hanging on the wall of her room. She looked back to the ceiling, staring intently at nothing. She wore a lovely light linen nightgown with a rose pattern. Her hair was copper colored and secured with a green ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. The drapes across the room fluttered, bringing her back to reality. She blinked and finally sat up. This small twenty-three-year-old woman is Margaret Ann Moorehead, affectionately known as Peggy by all of her family. “It’s the fourth, finally,” she thought to herself. Sarcastically, she said aloud, “Oh, this will be a great day.” Though her sarcasm belied it, this would be a fantastic day with idyllic proportions. It would be a day stored as one of those luminous memories she would look back on in the coming days. She hopped out of bed, slipped on her house shoes, and grabbed her seersucker robe from the small closet. She went out the door to the bathroom only to find it occupied by her older sister Agnes. She impatiently knocked on the door. “Aggie! Some of us out here need the bathroom, too!” It took a couple of minutes, but Agnes opened the door, grinning. What’s the matter with you, AggPea? It must be some kind of emergency to be pounding on the door like that. With a flourish and a bow, Agnes said with a fake regal air and flourish of her hands,” Your throne awaits Mademoiselle.” Peggy pushed past Agnes with a grunt, closing and locking the door behind her.
Peggy emerged from the bathroom with her hair wholly undone and wild. She darted across the hall to her room to get into it before her sister opened her door. She knew that Agnes would tease her about its wild, unkempt look. She hated that, but Agnes was her sister, and she was usually okay with the teasing, but not today. She just was not in the mood for it today. She brushed her hair and pulled it back with a comb on each side to keep it out of her face. If a room could tell a story, this room would write volumes. The room itself was a pale shade of peach pink. All of the trim had been painted white except for the floor. It was covered with a lovely green and pink Persian-style rug, complete with fringe. There was a white wicker rocking chair by the window with a chintz seat cover that, like everything in this room, had roses of pink decorating the seat. Beside it sat a small matching wicker table. On that table sat a small radio set. Sitting next to the table on a child’s chair sat a violin case gathering dust, and hanging from the closet door knob was a beautiful pair of pink satin pointe shoes. Those, too, were gathering dust. Her eyes darted from the violin to the pointe shoes. That life seemed like a dream that didn’t exist anymore.
Peggy pulled back the covers of her bed, spraying it with lavender linen water. She then proceeded to make her bed. The drapes with the roses matched the bedspread with its cluster of roses in the center. It was wild with color. There were brilliant pinks, soft pinks, light greens, dark greens, and gold edging. Once she had made her bed, she grabbed a fringed shawl off the door and hung it over the white wrought iron bed frame. There were sheer chiffon scarves draped over the lamps on the dressing table. There was a beautiful stained glass lamp with dragonflies next to her bed on the white nightstand. It was a gift from her sister. That shade made the room look lovely at night, and Peggy adored it.
Peggy slipped on a simple pink sheath dress and then put on her glasses. She wore flat shoes resembling ballet slippers. She walked to the door, took a deep breath, and opened it. Agnes’ bedroom door was open, and so were her parents. Everybody was downstairs at the kitchen table having coffee. She could hear her father's strong voice debating the finer points of preaching with her sister. Her mother interjected while making breakfast. Peggy was still at the top of the stairs. The truth is, she was attempting to work up the strength to go downstairs. There was no desire to engage with her family, so she stood there for a minute, forced herself to smile, and then trotted down the stairs toward the voices in the kitchen.
Down the rear stairs, she trotted, slowly walking into the kitchen and then sitting down at the table. Laddie, Peggy’s collie, whined to come in, and her father opened the screen door to let him in. Laddie bounced up to Peggy, put his paws in her lap, and kissed her all over her face. Peggy smiled. Laddie laid his head on Peggy’s knee; he knew something was off about her today. Molly brought a cup and saucer of coffee to the table for Peggy. She sat it down on the table and leaned down to kiss her daughter on the head. Agnes watched her sister smile, but she looked at her eyes and knew something wasn’t right. Peggy drank her coffee while she rubbed Laddie’s head. She was staring out the door with a flat look on her face.
Agnes watched intently, wondering what her sister was focused on. She seemed a million miles away as she absentmindedly twisted a lock of her hair.
John was reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. Folding the paper, he asked, “What have you two planned for today?” When Peg didn’t respond, Agnes offered, “ We are going to the village to meet Frank, then we have tea at the dons this evening, and then we’ll all meet at the Country Club for the fireworks. How about it, Peg? Peggy smiled a genuine smile and nodded in agreement. When Peggy finally spoke, she said softly, “Mother, I want to wear that beautiful white dress you got me today. I’m excited about the picnic and want to look pretty for Frank. Would you mind helping me do my hair, Agnes?” Agnes smiled at her little sister and said, “ Of course I will, my sweet little sister.” Finish your coffee and have some breakfast, then we’ll work on your hair while Mother presses your dress. Come on, little sister, let’s shake a leg.”
“Let’s do this in my room,” suggested Agnes. She went to the bathroom and grabbed Peggy’s collection of rag rollers. Then she went back downstairs to grab her mother’s plant mister. Back in her room, she had Peggy sit at the dressing table as she combed Peggy’s hair. She took the plant mister and dampened her sister’s hair. She picked up her tortoiseshell comb and gently pulled it through her sister’s hair. Sectioning her sister’s hair, Agnes took each section, wrapping the bottom around the rag; she rolled each section to produce a soft spiral curl. Agnes tied each one neatly up. Laughing, she teased Peggy, telling her she looked like Medusa, but Peggy was not laughing. She wasn’t even smiling. She still had that same faraway look in her eyes. Peggy did not speak as Agnes rolled her hair for her. It made Agnes uneasy. Peggy was a chatterbox when they were younger. 1923 had changed all of that. Peggy had not touched her violin since that year nor continued the ballet dancing she loved so much. She was such a different person when she came home in 1924, and it broke Agnes’ heart to think about it. Now, as she watched her sister, she was overcome with a sense of sadness, which made Agnes all the more determined to see that Peggy had a beautiful day.
Once her hair was tied up in rag rollers, Peggy went to her room and picked out a scarf to cover them with. As she tied the scarf, she yelled at her sister in the next room, “Aggie, let’s go outside in the backyard and sit with Laddie until my hair dries.” Agnes walked into the doorway of Peggy’s room. “Sure we can AggPea. Come on.” Down the rear stairs, the two women walk with Agnes in front of Peggy. About halfway down the backyard, she sat two white Adirondack chairs with a table between them. Both Peggy and Agnes had decided to grab something to drink from the kitchen.
Peggy got lemonade, and Agnes brought coffee. Peggy looked at the coffee cup, her nose wrinkled, saying, “It is too late in the day to drink something that hot, Aggie.” Agnes responded with a tart voice, “I don’t remember asking you if I should have coffee.” Peggy turned her head, and Agnes knew she had hurt her feelings. “AggPeg, I am so sorry for snapping. I apologize. I just really needed a little pick me up.” Peggy turned back, tears welling up in her eyes. Agnes was crushed when she saw it. “Oh no, no, my sweet little sister. I am not upset, and I love you to the moon and back again. Peggy wiped a tear from her and smiled. They sat there for two hours with Laddie lying at Peggy’s feet, discussing everything from what they wanted to do that day to what they wanted to do with their lives. Agnes was thrilled and knew this was the beginning of the best day ever. Her sister was laughing and smiling. “Yes, Agnes thought, this day will be magnificent.”
July 4, 1929
Thursday
Dayton, Ohio
11:00 A.M.
When Mother pressed Peggy’s dress, she returned it to Pegg’s room and hung it on the coat hook inside the closet door. She looked around the room, thinking, “I wish she would pick up that violin and play. It would be wonderful to have that music in the house again. Deep in her heart, she understood why Pegg had turned from all the things she had loved, and there was somewhat of a permanent knot in Mother's stomach over the whole thing.” The change in her Pegg saddened Mother, but she knew she was partly to blame. 1923 had been a bad year. Things were said and done that could never be taken back. Damage was done by all that had shredded Peggy. Mother remembered when she screamed at Pegg, “You’ve ruined us, you know! The whole town will find out, and your father will never be able to show his face in his church again. All because you felt the need to be a, a, well, loose woman.” Mother could still feel the shrillness of her voice ringing in her ears. Tears came to Molther's eyes, but she didn’t cry. She whispered aloud, “The lord will comfort us and guide us. This I believe.” She turned quickly, leaving the room with all its unfortunate reminders. Mother returned to the kitchen, sat down, and had tea.
Papa sat in his “home office” in the attic. He liked it here because it was quiet and gave him time to ponder many things. Lawyers' bookcases lined up before the studs that were part of the roof support. Father had placed his desk by the two low windows and had both open so the breeze cooled the attic. There was a bible on his desk, and he was writing on a paper. He was composing his Sunday sermon. He stopped for a minute and sipped coffee from the cup and saucer he had brought from the kitchen. A breeze blew through the two windows near his feet.
Papa leaned back in his chair and let his mind wander. Just like Mother's, Father's mind wandered to 1923. What an awful year that had been. Papa was not a loud person like Mother. When he spoke, it was comforting, but one thing he could never manage was talking over Mother when she was “in a mood.” She had been exactly in that mood in September of 1923. Papa had been unable to reign her in and remembered her reducing Pegg to hysteria. Pegg had cried so hard she shook uncontrollably. After the initial blow-up, Pegg stayed in her room and spoke to no one for several days.
Meanwhile, Mother took it upon herself to head off the problem by telling the paper that Peggy would attend a new school in Aurora, Illinois. Papa had been against publicizing a lie, but Mother was who she was, and he was again unable to prevent it. He pushed the memories aside. Picking up his ink pen, he began to work on the finishing touches of his Sunday sermon entitled “The Law of Publicity Acts 26:26. He put pen to paper and wrote, “When Paul said, “For this thing was not done in a corner he not only denied that he invented the doctrines he preached, but he affirmed that they were matters of notoriety. More than that, he declared that the drama of redemption was enacted in the center of a vast stage and intimated that the cross did not measure space and time. Not only had a little corner of the ancient world been looking for its Messiah, but the whole of creation groaned and prevailed, waiting for redemption,” he wrote, “The life that Jesus lived was at times pathetically public. Think of the last days of his earthly life; there is scarcely one touch of privacy to relieve that torture of his sensitive soul.” In the days to come, Papa would remember these words in particular.
Pegg was in her room dressing for the day. She removed the rag rollers from her hair, and to her sheer delight, she had a head full of beautiful, soft curls. She yelled for me. Presently, I went into her room and walked to the dressing table. “You look adorable,” I aid. Peggy responded with, “I don’t want to look “adorable” I want to look beautiful.” Peggy crossed her arms, sticking out her lower lip with a pout. “Ok, then let us make you beautiful,” I said gleefully. Peggy handed her the silver-handled boar bristle brush from her dressing table. I gently brushed only the back half of Peggy’s hair. “Do you have a length of blue ribbon?” I asked. Opening the dressing table drawer on the left, Peggy grabbed a handful of ribbons and handed them to me. I carefully picked the ribbons apart and found a gorgeous midnight blue satin ribbon about 3 feet long, “This one is just perfect.” I went to work, and Peggy’s hair was stunning when I was done. I had pulled it up with the soft curls around Peggy’s face, just like Marion Davies. Then I wrapped the ribbon in an Ancient Greek style, tucking the ends into the golden copper-colored hair. “Oh, it’s perfect, Aggie,” said Peggy with a huge smile. She stood up and threw her arms around me, hugging me so tightly that I thought I might faint. “I’m going to finish on my own,” said Peggy joyfully.
I smiled at my sister's complete joy and left the room, closing the door gently behind me.
I then set about getting myself ready for our day out. I picked out a lavender shift with a dark purple sash around the hips, ending in a ribbon flower on the right side, a matching sailor's tie at the neckline, and cap sleeves. I opened the closet, got a pair of white patent leather low-heeled pumps, and slipped them on. The dress was brushed satin and came with a satin bowed cloche hat. “Perfect,” I thought. I sat at her dressing table and applied a bit of rouge and lipstick. Then, I put the hat on her head and pinned it to her thick, wound-up braids with a hat pin. Of course, I added earrings, crocheted lavender gloves, and a matching handbag. Now, I was ready to see the teeming masses. I stood, walked out of her room, and knocked on her sister's door. “AggPea,” I said softly, “Are you ready?”
Pegg was ready and yelled at me to “Come on in.” When I opened the door, my breath was taken away. In front of her stood my little sister, and it was evident that Pegg was no longer a little girl. The dress Peggy was wearing was white dotted Swiss with a dropped waist. The soft, light blue lining peeked out behind the white dots. It was sleeveless with a blue and yellow silk pansy on the right shoulder. At the dropped waist was a baby blue ribbon hanging under a set of three matching blue and yellow pansies stitched evenly down the left side of the dress. In her hand, Pegg had a matching parasol; on her feet were baby blue patent leather leather heels with blue and yellow pansies. Peggy looked like she had walked out of a dream.
She looked like a Princess. The entire day began right at this moment.
July 4, 1929
Dayton, Ohio
2:00 p.m.
Pegg and I walked down the four steps on the big front porch of the house. We looked like movie stars to the people on the sidewalks around them. We were striking and elegant. We opened our parasols in tandem as we walked down the short sidewalk toward the street. Silently, we walked toward River Park, where they were to meet Frank. When we got to the park, Frank hadn’t arrived yet. Pegg sighed; he was late as usual, and she knew he would have some fanciful story about why he was delayed. Pegg was used to this behavior, but I could see it bothered her. The park had benches with wood slats and wrought iron handles sitting under the giant trees in three sets and under the smaller ones only one.
We walked to one of the smaller trees and sat. Pegg kept looking to the sidewalk, watching for Frank to appear. About five minutes later, he arrived. I looked at her with astonishment because when Peggy spotted Frank, she became iridescent and joyful. Pegg popped up off the bench and skipped right toward him. He opened his arms to hug her, and as he did, he spun her around before placing her back gently on the ground. Then he kissed her on the lips. I just watched and smiled. I loved seeing Peggy happy. The dress and hair made Peggy look like an angel, and the joy of being with Frank gave her a glow. I was happy for her, but 1923 and 1924 popped into my head, muddying the water, and then 1925, the whole ordeal with Ross, who was my beau, I just hoped against hope that this would not be any of those. Frank attended Papa's church. He knew Father and Mother. Our parents trusted him implicitly, but I took it as she saw another potential disaster for my sister and prayed that this would benefit Peggy.
Frank walked over to the bench with Pegg on his arm. I stood up and offered her hand to him. He shook it and said how glad he was she could be here with them for the holiday. I thanked him politely. But, in my mind, I was bothered by the handshake. His hand was very damp, and his handshake was feeble. It felt fearful. I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind. Today was all about Peggy and I wouldn’t let anything spoil it. Peggy slipped her arm through Franks, and all three of us began walking across the park toward the Country Club. Peggy motioned to me, urging me to walk with them, and although I felt like a third wheel, I moved closer to them. Frank was talking. Peggy was giggling. I was smiling. What a glorious day this was. As we neared the lane to the Country Club, Frank suggested we all go up and have a lemonade; since his father was a member, he had access to the Terrace where they could sit in the shade, sip lemonade, and watch the men playing golf. Both Peggy and I agreed, and we went up the lane.
The doorman greeted Frank at the door and politely opened the great oak and glass door, allowing them to enter. The Country Club was so elegant that it took a minute to take it all in. Frank escorted Peggy. I followed, and they went out to the terrace. Frank found a table with an umbrella; they sat, waiting for a staff member to take their order. After the lemonade arrived, they leaned back, watching the golfers move across the greens in a beautiful ballet.
Frank had gotten some ladyfingers to go with the lemonade. It all felt very posh. Peggy and I both loved it. Three lemonades and two plates of ladyfingers later, I looked at her watch, realizing it had been two hours since they arrived. “Well, are we ready to move on yet?” I asked. Both Frank and Peggy nodded their heads yes at the same time. So off we went a terrible trio, as Peggy called us, headed down the lane and back toward Far Hills Avenue. Once we reached Far Hills Avenue, they strolled past their house to Stewart Street.
When we reached that street, they turned right and walked toward Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum. True, it was a cemetery, but the conservatory was incredible. It was peppered with beautiful trees of all varieties and offered a lovely, quiet place to stroll. We found a peaceful place to sit under a tree on a huge rock. I told Pegg a story about my apartment being so small that you could touch both bathroom walls with your arms bent. Peggy burst into laughter. It was a deep, joyful laugh and so hard that Peggy nearly doubled over. “There’s my little sister,” I thought, smiling. We sat there until supper, when we returned to Stonemill Road, then down to the church, where a big community picnic was held. To the church, Peggy sang “Somebody Is Knocking At Your Door” in her full soprano voice. I was beside myself with happiness. I loved my sister's voice. The joy in it was palpable.
When we got to the Presbyterian Church, supper was in full swing. As we walked in, they saw our parents helping serve, so Pegg and I joined, helping dish out food to their friends and neighbors. Then, we sat down as a family with Frank for supper. Everyone was hungry, so there wasn’t much talking at supper. Once we had finished, the Presbyterian Women’s Auxiliary started clearing tables and washing dishes in the church kitchen. Mother and Father tried to help, but the women would not have it, so the whole family and Frank went outside to enjoy the entertainment, which consisted of badminton, horseshoes, jump ropes, and balls. There were lawn chairs and blankets for people to sit on their own. Frank and Peggy decided to sit on a blanket on their own. I watched them intently. Peggy loved this man completely. You could see it on her face. Frank did not have that look. He just looked like someone who enjoyed having someone worship him. I furrowed my brow and yet again pushed it right out of my mind. I turned to my parents and started conversing with them about everyday things.
The day began easing into evening. The grass was sweet-smelling. The leaves on the trees shivered in the wind, making a beautiful sound. Bees and butterflies were busy getting evening nectar from the flowers. Evening songbirds sang melodiously, serenading everyone. The conversation continued for a long time while everyone enjoyed the simple joys of good company. Then the lightning bugs turned up, and everyone knew it was time to go to University Park for the piece de resistance of every Fourth of July, fireworks. Mother and I gathered blankets from the house and a bottle of homemade lemonade with paper cups to enjoy during the show. Frank and Peggy sat on the front porch, whispering. Once the basket was packed, I took it out to Frank for him to carry. He obliged. I grabbed the blankets and, off the party, went to University Park to find a good spot to view the fireworks.
As the darkness began to fall, the city of Dayton did not disappoint the crowd. The fireworks at the Dayton Country Club lasted about an hour. The group uttered OOOOs and AHHHHs at every lovely sparking rocket. The band started their music for the finale. The strains of the 1812 Overture filled the air, the cannoneers readied their guns, and as they reached the climax, the canons and the fireworks coordinated with the orchestra to produce a symphony of light and sound that thrilled the crowd so much they applauded each time it happened. While it was somewhat noisy, it enlivened the crowd, providing everyone with a palpable sense of Patriotism. With one final large and colorful burst, the fireworks ended. Peggy rested her head on Frank’s shoulder. Even Mother and Father were incredibly relaxed. I surveyed the scene with a sense of peace. I looked at her sister and was overwhelmed with her great love for this child. Pegg would always be a child to me. This was my baby sister. My pride and joy. I smiled softly as I stood to help our parents clear up everything to go home. Frank kissed Peggy goodbye and said the same to our parents and me as he headed home. We all walked back home, not knowing that this togetherness as a family in public would never happen again.
Mother and Father went to the church around eight in the morning. Peggy was on her own at home. The house was 704 yards from the church of which Papa was the pastor. It was easy to get from one to the other. All it required was a short walk or a quick run. Because of the lovely July morning, Mother and Father walked to the church in a leisurely fashion. Pegg had tea since she was alone. Our parents saw an ordinary young woman doing everyday things on a typical day. But it was not a usual day; neither of us had a way of knowing that by the afternoon, our lives would be shredded by a disaster we did not see coming.
Two Letters
Their other daughter Agnes had boarded a train only three days before to begin her journey back to New York City. Since it was a twenty-three-hour journey, she would have been back in her apartment by now. Perhaps she was walking to an audition or grabbing a taxi to take her there. She was the only person who had sensed anything amiss with her sister. In a letter filled with grief and pain that she would write ten days later, she gives us one of the two first-hand accounts of that day and some of the previous days. Agnes explains the events leading up to Peggy’s death in great detail. The other account comes from a letter written by Molly to Agnes in New York regarding a distressing event and sent special delivery at 1:00 p.m. on July 11, 1929.
These two letters and their information remain the only accounts of what happened to Peggy Moorehead on that warm July day in 1929. This event altered the entire Moorehead family in ways they couldn’t have imagined when they stood on a railroad platform and saw Agnes off to New York. For her part, Agnes had no idea when she boarded the train that this would be the last time she would ever see her sister alive again.
“…Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”
William Shakespeare
July 21, 1929
Sunday
On this day, Agnes would compose a letter to her sister. It would be full of grief, pain, sadness, loneliness, guilt, questions, regrets, love, memories, pride, and joy. This letter was meant to express feelings that Agnes felt she couldn’t share with anyone else. It is intended for Peggy and Agnes only.
What Agnes offers in her letter to Peggy is far more ethereal, compassionate, and riddled with grief. Agnes repeatedly calls Peggy beautiful, describing her like this:
“ The last days we had together–I came into your room, your airy dress–your lovely red hair and how I kidded you–such a 4th as you had with F. and the dons tea and you in white–I’m proud of you–the party and the next day we walked with the dons with you singing “Somebodies Knocking At Your Door– it rang in my ears all week. Out in the village, I can see your little feet. I made you laugh about the apartment–a good hearty laugh, and then home. Sunday, we went to church. I came. You said it was alright and that the whole day was ours. AggPeg, you don’t know how grateful I am that I came home.”
So, this slow-motion nightmare began on Monday or perhaps earlier. It wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment “I can’t stand life because my boyfriend broke up with me” suicide. Yes, suicide. Worse yet, it was suicide committed most horrendously with Bi-Chloride of Mercury or what is known as Mercury Salt. This stuff was readily available in hospitals where it is used as a disinfectant. Peggy was a nurse, and it was easily accessible to her. The horrifying part is that Pegg knew what swallowing it would do to her, and what dose to swallow so that it would be terminal.
The absolute worst part of all of this is that what Peggy did to end her life did not do so immediately, far from it. It took a long time, four and one-half days to be exact, and the pain she put herself through was heartbreaking. Once more, Agnes gives us the most information on the situation. It is intense. It is painful, and it is heartfelt. Agnes tells us in graphic detail about Peggy's pain.
What Peggy had taken, you see, was not just mercury; it had chlorine in it; furthermore, it is considered a corrosive compound. It is a white powder in its standard form and highly toxic to humans. Dying from it would have to be a painful, painful process, and unless you swallowed several bottles, it would be fatal faster, but even then, it was going to take time for you to die from it.
This brings us to one of the root of Peggy's problems. Was it Frank? Was it Mr. Washauer? Was it the emotional decimation of 1923-25? Was it a combination of these things? Rarely do children share specific details of their romantic relationships with their parents, and this situation is no different. Some difficulties had driven Peggy down the road toward suicide long before Frank ever came into her life. I have never read of anybody just suddenly, on a whim, deciding to take their own life. It could have been a long-lasting depressive state that pushed Frank to sever ties with Pegg. Some things had fractured her. You cut it; family tension added to Peggy’s fragile emotional state.
This brings me to the second victim of this suicide, Peggy's sister Agnes. What I want to talk about here is how it affects a person when a sibling takes their own life.
So much has been published now about how suicide affects the surviving sibling or siblings. I have read that they are often called the forgotten mourners. Most typically, people fixate on the parents of a dead child, rarely on the remaining child or children. This leaves them to fend for themselves with their grief. Often, they put that grief aside in an attempt to help parents cope with the loss and never fully grieve on their own. Who can determine the severity of the heartbreak of losing a sibling to suicide? Losing a sibling changes family dynamics in one swift brush stroke. In Agnes's case, she returned to being the only child in a heartbeat.
The second victim
I was 28 years old when my sister died. When a sibling dies by suicide at this stage in life, the surviving sibling learns, in a most challenging way, that life does not hold the unlimited promise they once believed it did. They are blindsided by reality. At this point in our lives, Pegg and I spent more time together than with our parents. I spent a lot of time in St. Louis in the 1920s. We had shared their whole lives. We shared a room, a bed, secrets, dreams, wishes, fears, parents, grandparents, and plans. I acted as a mother figure to Peggy because of her fractured relationship with our parents. I was undoubtedly protective of her.
At 28, I would find that I had lost my other half. Pegg and I went everywhere together. In 1925 Mother even put a note in the Zanesville newspaper saying “Misses Agnes and Margaret Moorehead,” are returning to Saint Louis after visiting their grandfather. We were a tandem, we called ourselves AggPegg. Suddenly, you are left without your right hand. You are without the one person you would talk to about something this life-altering and tragic.
The Letter-Agnes
The anguished letter Agnes wrote to her sister the week after she died. I have transcribed it in its complete form. As you will see, a great deal was left out of Tranberg's book. I had to decode the letter to read it. All of the tails on the y's, f's, g's, p's, anything below the line was left off. This was an attempt to make the letter unreadable. I read it front to back after adding the tails to the letters written without them. This is what the complete letter says:
A week later, so many things happened, and now my own dear sister, where are you? Where can you be? What made you take such painful stuff, hurting your tiny self so much worse than you were hurt? How human hands and words hurt? How brave and courageous you are to face death so young. How you know our maker. The secret of life and death–you know just so much in advance of the rest of us.
How I wanted to go in–and just the thought of seeing you suffering was beyond my strength. Your groans were heard as I paced up and down the hall-frightened. You know how I am scared of everything–you never have been.
People have regrets. My own. Mother has them. What an unhappy life. I knew it, and yet somehow, I know you knew. You were understood by me–I loved you–I love you now. You asleep in a golden bed. In a tomb like the good father that created you. I knew you would like that. And, you were beautiful–around those lovely eyes and your blessed mouth were lines of suffering, poor dear darling. You told me to be good to Laddie–I will my dearest sister. I only wish I could talk to you sometimes.
You know I felt you by me. It may be my imagination. I admit it was running wild, but somehow, I felt your tiny hands on me and your voice in my heart. I wish I could have a sign of your existence. I know you are alive and well and ever so much better off than we. Was the year of Don Washiner and your little self disarrange-( french spelling translated means self disarranged)–had that anything to do with it? Somehow, I feel that was it. Men are so heartless–so cruel, and why your self-suicide rebels to the duty of murder when F.P. is histoire? Poor dear little girl, how your words of last year ring in my ears: “You never loved a man like I have”--Now you know that I have–Fred will tell you–your spirit will know. Now you know how I feel toward Jack and yet what I admire.
The last days we had together, I came into your room, your airy dress–your lovely red hair and how I kidded you. Such a fourth as you had with F–and then the Don’s tea and you in white. I’m proud of you. Then the party and the next day we walked with the Don’s with you singing “Somebodies Knocking At Your Door.” It rang in my ears all week. Out at the village, I can see your little feet. I made you laugh about the apartment, a good hearty laugh, and then home.
Sunday, we went to church. I came–you said it was alright and that the whole day was ours. AggPeg you don’t know how thankful I am I came home.
Monday, the Tatul dogs to be washed. I know that was the beginning. Why blessed little sister? I went in such a rush after you came home. I wonder if you knew then you wouldn’t be alive in a week. How long it takes to become a few years and then a life can be taken in the twinkling of an eye.
My little sister–I love you so. I have always loved you and prayed for your happiness.
Ray called from California, another hurt that helped turn your life. Try to speak to me. I dreamed of you last night.
I love you.
Look at this phrase from this litany of anguish: "How I wanted to see you, and yet the thought of seeing you was beyond my strength." Agnes was a strong woman—we all know that—but this letter oozes grief—a grief she would never really be able to express except in the form of this letter. It has been said for a very long time that Agnes didn't get there until after her sister died, but she was there. Now we know what really happened.
Agnes was able to step onstage in front of audiences and performe no small feat. But she could not handle seeing her sister. For years we have been told Aggie arrived too late but now we know that wasn't true We also know from an article about Agnes' success in New York published in the Hamilton newspaper in January of 1929 that her family expected her home immediately after graduating in March of 1929. That never happened. But she did go in July of 1929. That visit left an indelible mark on her, one she could never pull away from. The fact that she was so grateful to have made the trip home to her family and spent time well documented in the dirge she wrote was at least comforting in an odd way.
Bringing Messages
“I don’t believe in bringing messages.”
Agnes Moorehead
When Margaret Ann Moorehead was born on April 12, 1906, in Hamilton, Ohio, her father, John, was 36, and her mother, Mary, was 22. She had one sister. She died on July 14, 1929, in Miamisburg, Ohio, at 23 and was buried in Dayton, Ohio. A childhood friend of Agnes with whom she walked to and from school daily referred to Peggy Moorehead as “your cherub of a sister.” By all accounts, she was a beautiful child and extraordinarily kind. Peggy was a tiny girl like her mother. She looked like her mother. Petite, delicate, golden red hair and porcelain skin, she was the very image of a perfect little girl. Peggy was adored by her sister, her mother, and her father. She was like a ray of golden sunshine flooding the room with an ethereal feeling.
Like her mother and sister, Peggy was musically inclined. Both she and Agnes played the violin, and both of them sang and played the piano as well. Peggy had another gift shared with her sister, but in a different way. Peggy was a dancer. To be fair, so was Agnes, but Peggy loved ballet and Isadora Duncan. When she was a freshman in high school, Peggy was an accomplished dancer. She was dancing en pointe, and newspapers pointed out how excellent she was. As very little is known about her childhood besides her cherubic nature, I’ll start with her entrance into high school.
In 1922, Margaret Ann Moorehead entered high school in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. At Reedsburg High, Peggy immediately began to shine. She was a member of the Girls Glee Club. She played violin in the school orchestra. The photo of her holding her violin while seated with the small orchestra is practically angelic. She’s sitting with her right foot barely touching the floor, and she is wearing a dark dress that appears to be velvet. Her golden red hair is in ringlets, some hanging over her left shoulder. She’s wearing glasses, but they don’t detract from her appearance. Her face is peaceful and serene, and she has a slightly upturned smile. In short, she looks lovely. It immediately struck me that she looked almost exactly like her own mother. Molly would never be able to deny Peggy as her child or that they were like twins from different periods. I always believed that Peggy was the one Molly expected to be a star, not her sister. I’m pretty sure Agnes felt that too.
In school yearbooks, they have always been fond of asking people about their hopes and dreams or what was more important to them than anything else. They certainly did in the Reedsburg High School Yearbook. Peggy listed two things: her dream of being first row, first chair violinist, and her boyfriend, Marden Phillips. In the casual photographs taken around school, one stands out. The title of the picture is “Peg O’My Heart,” and the two people outside in the snow cuddled up to each other are none other than Peggy and Marden. She is gazing up at him, engrossed utterly, and he looks down at her with adoration all over his face. It’s a lovely picture. Marden took her to the Prom, and it made the newspaper. It seemed that Peggy was coming into her own. She was participating in public speaking contests. She was performing for events at the school. She was everywhere, doing all the right things in all the right ways. I’m sure Molly and John were so happy for and with her.
It should be noted that Peggy didn’t arrive at Reedsburg High School until January 1922. Before that, she attended Grover Cleveland High School in St. Louis. It was a much larger school than Reedsburg, much more significant. Peggy’s activities there were not as noteworthy as they would be at Reedsburg. She did belong to a single club called the Alethinae. This was a group of young women that studied plays and dramatics. She is in the photo for that year with the same sweet, soft, smiling face and the same glasses, looking demure and angelic. I attribute her blossoming at Reedsburg to having been in such a large school before coming to Reedsburg High. She was shining because she had room to shine, unlike Cleveland High, where her light was hidden under a bushel of classmates.
We have all labored under the apparent misconception that Agnes was the family rebel with her acting and emoting and generally being the square peg in the round hole, not so much my sweets, not so much. Charles Tranberg stated that Agnes was an extrovert like her mother, and Peggy was shy and retiring like her father. It has made me scratch my head with wonder for years, quite honestly, because the whole idea of Peggy not living with her parents, spending the majority of her free time with her sister, and the apparent uproar that occurred before her death, at least with her mother, does not fit that shy or retiring pattern. Lo and behold, our Peggy was not the timid little, quiet wallflower we had believed she was. Peggy had an idol. An idol whose ideas and philosophies she took pretty seriously. Her idol was the grand mistress of modern dance, Isadora Duncan. So taken with Isadora's philosophy of dance was Peggy, who allegedly danced outside in the nude. Now, this comes from a reliable source to me, and the source was told by someone who knew Molly, Agnes, and Peggy.
As far as I can tell, Dr. George Perry, the teller of the story, lived in their neighborhood as a young man. Since the girls spent time with their parents in the summer, a time that would lend itself to nude dancing in Wisconsin, he most likely witnessed it. BOOOOMMMMM is the sound of many illusions being shattered into a bazillion pieces. We know that Agnes was a great fan of La Duse. She named her dog after Eleanora. Both sisters were artistic in different ways. And so many things make so much more sense if Peggy's free-thinking nature is considered. Isadora did not believe in marriage.
What's more, she may have been pregnant when she dropped off the map in 1923/24. It would be one way to explain the suicide. This would explain Molly’s self-described crass behavior. It seems that neither Moorehead girl was a paragon of virtue. They were just normal young women and they did what most normal young women would. Agnes herself even said that years later.
They believed what they believed and did what they thought was necessary. This makes me love Agnes all the more, and I am so proud to share a genetic heritage with them. Here's to you, Peggy, and your Free-Spirited self!
The dream of Reedsburg didn’t last, though. A swift, dramatic change occurred in 1923. Remember, Peggy would have begun her Sophomore year in the fall of 1923, but in December 1923, a straightforward line in an extensive list of graduates indicates the first sign of trouble.
It reads thus:
“Aurora, Illinois, Margaret Moorehead.”
It falls under the “Other Schools” heading as a list of graduates is published. This is followed by a series of somewhat confusing newspaper bits. On December 5th, it was noted that Peggy had spent Thanksgiving with her family, intimating that she had been gone, apparently if the paper was to be believed in Aurora, Illinois. Then, on December 7th, it was noted that John Moorehead was taking his daughter to her school in Aurora, Illinois, on Tuesday morning. Curious since there is no mention of him or Molly going to Aurora to retrieve her for the holiday, and even more curious is why she isn’t home for Christmas that year. She’s not in any newspaper. There’s no mention of either parent or her sister retrieving her from Aurora. It begs the question, where is she? Well, at least I can tell you where she was in the Spring of 1923, nowhere near Reedsburg. It was Cleveland High in St. Louis, Missouri, because she sits boldly as brass tacks in the Spring of 1923, sitting on the steps with the young women in the Alethinae group photo. Her hair is bobbed. She is thin and looks exhausted, but she is there.WHY? Why do you send your daughter to St. Louis after the equivalent of one semester of school at Reedsburg High and then send her back to St. Louis in the Spring of 1923? Why is she gone by December 7th, 1923, and not returning until April 8, 1924? She stayed in Reedsburg from April on. Her mother and friends escorted her to events like an outing to Devils Lake. She visited her sister in Madison in August while Agnes was attending summer school at the university. She also attends a picnic at Skillet Creek the same month. In 1924, John accepted a pastorate in St. Louis, and Margaret returned there with her parents and subsequently returned to Cleveland High. But she is an entirely different person. She stops dancing. She stops singing. She stops playing the violin. Everything that seemed so dear to her ceases to be—the photographs in the yearbook of Cleveland in 1925 show a different young woman. She is absent from every picture in the 1924 Cleveland yearbook, lending credence to her not returning to St.Louis.
Let us do some math. Something happened at the end of 1922 that made John and Molly send her back to St.Louis. Then, something in St. Louis in 1923 provoked an unnecessary newspaper blurb stating she was going to Aurora, Illinois. Why would you put that in the newspaper if whatever occurred was in any way provocative? If the photo in the yearbook happened in the spring, it was likely March or April. That would mean she went home for the summer of 1923, which would have occurred in June. The Aurora line was published in September 1923, and she hasn’t returned to St. Louis. Peggy is missing from December of 1923 until April of 1924, which is four months. She does not return to St. Louis at the end of the summer, and school begins in September. She is at home from June 1923 until December 1923, six months—ten months of nonexistence, six of which are spent at home and four in Aurora, Illinois. Only one thing fits into this slot and makes any sense. Pregnancy.
By 1925, Peggy looks completely different. Page 115 of the Cleveland yearbook is a photograph of the Choral Club. In the back row of that picture is a young woman who was once the cherubic Peggy Moorehead. She is no longer frail and delicate. She has filled out substantially, and the peaceful look and soft smile she once had are no longer there. She looks worn and tired, with a little glazed look. This is the face of a woman who has gone through something. It is a face that speaks of trauma, emotional trauma. In her left hand, which she has through the arm of the girl standing there, is what looks like a handkerchief. Could it be a cold? Yes, but the face says something different. Margaret Ann Moorehead had changed, and not for the better.
By the summer of 1925, Peggy had graduated from high school. On July 17, 1925, Peggy’s parents placed a notice in the St. Louis newspaper with a beautifully done profile portrait to announce that Peggy would be attending a house party in the West. Peggy was 19 years old. This is the first and last time a photograph of her would appear in any newspaper. Peggy attended her party and returned to St. Louis without fanfare. She then did something completely unexpected by deciding to become a nurse. She chose to study at The Jewish Hospital Nursing School. She remained there until 1928, when her father accepted the call to Patterson Memorial Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio. If newspapers are to be believed, Peggy moved with her parents to Dayton even though she had completed her nursing course and had been working as a nurse in St. Louis at The Jewish Hospital. It seems she just walked away from it all, or did she? I have always felt that some hardcore parental pressure was placed on her to go with them. Again, it begins to feel like something has happened, and her parents are afraid to allow her to remain alone in St.Louis.
John assumed his pastorate in Dayton on September 2, 1928. The church was beautiful, and the Moorehead family's home, 19 Stonemill Road, was new and just gorgeous. The bonus was that the church was just a short walk from the house.
The neighborhood was rife with beautiful trees, lawns, and flower beds, and while the town was listed as Dayton, it was also known as Miamisburg. Peggy did not return to nursing; instead, she stayed home and lived on her parents' dime. It appears on the outside as though this quiet suburb was the perfect place for Peggy. It was peaceful, well-heeled, and free from the distractions of the big city. What nobody knew except for her parents was that Peggy was, by this point, a ticking time bomb of self-destruction that would go off in July of 1929, devastating her family. The Moorehead home was a vault of secrets when it came to Peggy. Nobody would ever have guessed seeing them in public; things here would, if exposed, bring the family to its knees, and the repercussions of those secrets would affect two family members for the next sixty-plus years. The bomb went off. The crater was huge. The repercussions were huge, and the secrets that caused them would stay locked up tight for 95 years.
Agnes never spoke of her sister’s death. This is typical of a time when the stigma of suicide was considered a black mark on the family. It is easy to see that her parents understood that. They would choose instead to sweep the entire thing under the carpet. The public denial of the sibling’s suicide often leads to a failure to cope with the grief. It would be then that grief, like a mold, would force its way out of the person in many other ways. Frequently, it manifests itself as a physical illness. Sometimes it would come out in more profound, more damning ways, such as difficulty in establishing healthy long-term relationships, fear of rejection, control issues, isolation, and, not least of all, guilt. It was unhealthy for any of them, but John’s position almost demanded that it be withheld from the public. How could you trust a minister whose youngest child takes their own life? As Molly put it in her letter to Agnes, they would be “In a jam.”
I believe all of these things are evident in Agnes’ personality. Agnes had difficulty in establishing long-term relationships. Hers were stormy. Take, for example, Quint Benedetti's reference to Agnes being physically abused by her husband. "On the other hand, Agnes would sometimes show up with a deep bruise on her face or slice alongside her head or a band-aid somewhere and say, "Look what my husband did." She said it with no emotion as if it were a part of life." The only way he could have known about that was to be told by Agnes or those close to her because she wasn't married when he knew her. We know from newspaper articles that Jack Lee allegedly beat her. Lee never denied that, as far as I can tell. This was not the first time anyone had referred to her saying something with no emotion whatsoever; Bernice Mason said the same thing when she talked about Agnes' reaction to Sean's disappearance. "There is no emotion in what she says," said Mason. No emotion, none. Disconnected.
She became so disconnected that she isolated herself from everyone emotionally. She was distant and was often described by those who adored her as being “cold.” I think she demonstrated a fear of rejection yet a willingness to involve herself in relationships ending in rejection. Perhaps it was a form of self-punishment because of the guilt that hung her over her sister’s death.
Agnes had control issues but constantly put herself into situations over and with no control. She over was two people living in one body, one mind. Even Benedetti claims to have known her best, saying, "You might say Agnes lived a double life, a life on the stage, on the movie set, and her life off." The eccentric, outgoing woman the world saw and the troubled, isolated, abandoned sibling that the world only caught fleeting glimpses of. Her career was her salvation. She could spend time not having to be herself. It allowed her to leave the isolated sibling behind and become anything she wanted to be. It seems to me that Peggy's suicide was one of the things that made her so successful in her career and so unsuccessful in her private life. But she did not escape her past unscathed. Her past emotionally crippled her, and I believe she fought a mental illness of a sort. The difference between her and her sister was that Agnes won. She had to have had an unimaginable inner strength because she did it alone.
“ After all, we are not meant to be undisciplined.”
Agnes Moorehead
July 11, 1929
Dayton Ohio
Thursday
The Letter Molly
The second documentation of what happened to Peggy in July of 1929 comes from her mother's hand and is sent to her sister Agnes in New York. The letter is incredibly unusual and is peppered with information that also is unusual. What makes it remarkable is the combination of angst and information and the time and date stamps on the envelope. You see, this letter isn’t just a letter asking Agnes to come home but a letter that begins with an apology for someone else's actions. His name is Dwight, and he is a friend of the family. Molly apologizes to Agnes for Dwight having frightened her “last night.” Only two explanations for that apology make any sense. The first is that Peggy did this in the middle of the night, which flies in the face of why she did it. According to Molly, Frank told Peggy “they would quit,” after which Peggy fainted. The second is that Peggy did this the afternoon or evening of the previous day.
Given that the special delivery letter wasn’t posted until 1:00 p.m. on July 11th, the terrible deed must have occurred on July 10th for it to be plausible. Molly advised Agnes that Peggy was sleeping and had a “fair night.” She continues telling Agnes that they kept Peggy “doped" and had two excellent nurses. Molly then remarks that she had come early today, which means July 11th.
Nothing is precisely what it appears to be, and nobody behaves as they should have. Molly continues with a heartbreaking explanation. She explains that this did not have to happen and that Frank if he had used his head, might have prevented the whole situation. Instead, Frank decided to absent himself from the house, leaving Peggy on the floor completely unconscious and not bothering to let her mother or father know what had happened. It was an unforgivable act, but what makes it so extraordinary is that Frank was a member of John’s parish, attended that church, and lived 4/10ths of a mile from it. He walked right by that church if he was walking and drove by it if he was driving without telling anybody anything about the situation that would devolve into the excruciating death that Peggy would ultimately suffer.
Molly continues in her letter to Agnes, “You keep things to yourself, and we will send for you if things are going against us.” Telling your eldest daughter to keep things to herself when her baby sister has just slammed a bichloride of mercury shot, which your biologist daughter would know was fatal, seems peculiar. You deliver a blow, and then you put the person you’ve just told in a position of being able to tell not a single soul, including her closest friends and, not least of all, her fiance-to-be. A blow like that cannot be taken and then hidden with a smile. Doing so puts an already traumatized human in the position of having to hold it all in. It is followed by this a few paragraphs later, “ be on your guard for if anything happens, we are in a jam, sure. Howard Egbert, editor of the paper, came today to say he will do all he can to keep it out. Still, if D (Dwight) tells any more people publicly, we will be in a jam.” Molly leads a determined effort to avoid ever using the term suicide and does verbal gymnastics, referring to it as “that word.” Has Peggy been written off at this point? Was she more of a shame to her family?
I ask if she was a shame to her family because of these troubling lines from that same letter:
“Peg realizes now what a mistake she made and wants me to forget all the trouble, which I told her I would, and ask her to forgive me for being crass and unreasonable.” Define crass and unreasonable. When you pair those words with the word suicide, you begin to wonder what exactly Molly means by “crass and unreasonable?” If you take her at her word that she was crass, it would mean literally that she was, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, meant you did it without considering how another person or persons might feel. Once again, our vision of Molly being the compassionate preacher’s wife falls flat on its face. I think we all know what unreasonable means, but in the spirit of fairness, I will again give the Cambridge Dictionary definition: “not fair or acceptable.” It presents a difficulty, don’t you think? When did the trouble Peggy speaks of happening? Was it 1922, 1923, 1924, or 1929? Perhaps every one of them and a few will go unknown because no correspondence survives.
In an article published in “The Slavic Review,” page 827, Anne Nesbit writes, “Suicide becomes the bloody signature at the bottom of a ragged page the final incontrovertible assertion of authoritarian control over one’s life. At the same time, however, the suicide relinquishes all future control over everything, including future interpretations of their life as text.” It is an arid way of saying that suicide is a result of feeling as if you have no control over your own life, and by choosing to end it, you wrest control back. She also says, “In the search for meaning which its conclusion provokes, a life, inevitably, is scrutinized for patterns, symbols, and general themes; it is read, in short, as a text.”
In short, Peggy felt she had no control over her life, and her suicide was the final act she committed to take control of her life back. It predicts that her family will scrutinize her life to make sense of what has occurred and determine their level of responsibility for her committing the act. John turned to God. Molly turned to Grace. Agnes took pen to paper because she had nobody to turn to. All three of these people handled it in their own way. John likely prayed for consolation, or did he? Perhaps her death made John question his faith. He never discussed it with anyone or wrote a message about the act. Molly calls Grace and her mother to bring them to Dayton. Molly either never grieved at all or did it so privately that nobody observed it—the difference in tone between Molly’s letter to Agnes and Agnes’ letter to her sister is striking. Agnes strikes a chord of profound grief, and at that moment, that letter was written; if wishing could revive the dead, then Peggy would have appeared right before her. No such record exists for Molly just a matter of fact we are going to be in trouble if anybody finds out your sister did this. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Nothing is precisely what it appears to be, and nobody behaves as they should have. Molly continues with a heartbreaking explanation. She explains that this did not have to happen and that Frank if he had used his head, might have prevented the whole situation. Instead, Frank decided to absent himself from the house, leaving Peggy on the floor completely unconscious and not bothering to let her mother or father know what had happened. It was an unforgivable act, but what makes it so extraordinary is that Frank was a member of John’s parish, attended that church, and lived 4/10ths of a mile from it. He walked right by that church if he was walking and drove by it if he was driving without telling anybody anything about the situation that would devolve into the excruciating death that Peggy would ultimately suffer.
Molly continues in her letter to Agnes, “You keep things to yourself, and we will send for you if things are going against us.” Telling your eldest daughter to keep things to herself when her baby sister has just slammed a bichloride of mercury shot, which your biologist daughter would know was fatal, seems peculiar. You deliver a blow, and then you put the person you’ve just told in a position of being able to tell not a single soul, including her closest friends and, not least of all, her fiance-to-be. A blow like that cannot be taken and then hidden with a smile. Doing so puts an already traumatized human in the position of having to hold it all in. It is followed by this a few paragraphs later, “ be on your guard for if anything happens, we are in a jam, sure. Howard Egbert, editor of the paper, came today to say he will do all he can to keep it out. Still, if D (Dwight) tells any more people publicly, we will be in a jam.” Molly leads a determined effort to avoid ever using the term suicide and does verbal gymnastics, referring to it as “that word.” Has Peggy been written off at this point? Was she more of a shame to her family?
I ask if she was a shame to her family because of these troubling lines from that same letter:
“Peg realizes now what a mistake she made and wants me to forget all the trouble, which I told her I would, and ask her to forgive me for being crass and unreasonable.” Define crass and unreasonable. When you pair those words with the word suicide, you begin to wonder what exactly Molly means by “crass and unreasonable?” If you take her at her word that she was crass, it would mean literally that she was, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, meant you did it without considering how another person or persons might feel. Once again, our vision of Molly being the compassionate preacher’s wife falls flat on its face. I think we all know what unreasonable means, but in the spirit of fairness, I will again give the Cambridge Dictionary definition: “not fair or acceptable.” It presents a difficulty, don’t you think? When did the trouble Peggy speaks of happening? Was it 1922, 1923, 1924, or 1929? Perhaps every one of them and a few will go unknown because no correspondence survives.
The Letter To Agnes
Molly
My Dear Agnes,
I didn’t intend to have Dwight frighten you so last night, and it’s a shame he did, for I didn’t want that word to go over the telephone, but as you know what happened, why you are prepared for the worst if things don’t go on well. I came down early, and Margaret is sleeping. Had a fair night. They kept her doped, and we have two good nurses. This could all have been avoided if Frank had used his head and kept still, and this is what happened. You keep things to yourself, and we will send them to you if we think things are going against us. Mother came and is at the house we can; Dad and I take turns being here. I in the morning, he in the afternoon. Peg realizes what a mistake she made and says she was to blame and wants me to forget all the trouble. Which I told her I would and asked her to forgive me for being crass and unreasonable. I told her that she and you were the only thing we and we couldn’t lose her. She said she would fight and has been. She says she took care of a girl worse than she is, and she pulled thro. Agnes, I think Frank was cruel to her for out of a clear sky, he said they would quit, and she fainted, and he never called me, and if he had, I could have watched her. I’ll try to keep calm and keep your Dad cheered up. Please think of us and be on your guard. For if anything happens, we are in a jam, sure. Howard Egbert came to say he will do all he can to keep it out of the papers. But if D tells any more people publicly, we will be in a jam. He has been a peach and he directed things when we needed a cool head around. Let us hear from you. We all send love.
Lovingly your,
Mother
If You Don’t Say Suicide
It is apparent “that the word’ Molly was so desperate to avoid using on the telephone is suicide. In the ensuing years, it was always said that Margaret died of a heart seizure or heart attack. Every obituary from Xenia to Zanesville contains disinformation from “a brief illness” to “a sudden illness while at her occupation as a nurse in New York.” Suicide was then and continues to be today a stigma that families are saddled with. In addition, Margaret’s father was the minister of a Presbyterian church, and to have the daughter of a minister die by their own hand was unthinkable. If you read between the lines of that letter, you will witness a family dynamic that formed the personalities of both children. Molly refers to herself in the first person nine separate times. She only refers to her husband and herself, as we do four times. Rev. Moorehead is referred to only three times, and finally, Agnes is referred to only as Agnes once and as “you” 6 times. Blame for the suicide is laid squarely on the shoulders of Margaret, who accepts it willingly. Frank, the lover/boyfriend who instigated the ending of the relationship, is chastised for simply failing to call Molly but not for driving a disturbed young woman to suicide. Charles Tranberg makes a valid observation when he says that Agnes was “daddy’s girl” and Margaret was “mommy's girl.” However much we may want to believe it, suicide is never a momentary lapse in judgment. There are always signs and portents that someone is on their way down the one-way street of suicidal behavior. For all we know, the 1923 disappearance of Peggy wasn’t pregnancy. It most assuredly could have been a commitment to a mental health facility. While it isn’t always true that those who choose to commit suicide often have tried and been unsuccessful at it before, in Peggy’s case, it could be an explanation. It may be why her parents made her move to Dayton with them in 1928. They may have feared precisely what happened. Molly says that if Frank had come and gotten her, she could have been there to watch Peggy. If it hasn’t happened before, you typically do not worry about “watching” anybody. Molly’s mention of it leads me to believe that both John and Molly were aware that Pegg’s mental health was very fragile.
Physicians have for years listed the characteristics of “suicidal people.” Looking at that list smacks you right in the face with everything that all the Mooreheads missed.
1. A sense of isolation and withdrawal.
2. Few friends or family.
3. Distraction and a lack of humor.
4. A focus on the past. Often voicing that the world or people would be better off without them around.
5. Being haunted and dominated by hopelessness and helplessness.
6. Viewing themselves as helpless in 2 ways. First, by being unable to free themselves from the sea of despair swallowing them, and secondly, nobody else can help them either.
Certain life events precipitate suicidal behavior, and one of them is the loss of a love relationship. It has also been said that past emotional or physical damage to the person can lead to or aggravate self-destructive behavior. It is often said that “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” If a person is “suicidal,” they are in a state of extreme anguish and cannot make rational decisions or rational options for the problem. For most people who are in the right state of mind, the decision to end one's own life seems not only irrational but also incomprehensible. Loved ones cannot understand or accept that somebody they love could do this to themselves. Unfortunately, that inability to comprehend the depth of a loved one’s pain can act as a blinder to family or friends, preventing them from picking up on the clues that may be right in front of them. The person who dies by suicide is in so much pain emotionally that they cannot focus on anything but ending that pain by whatever means possible.
The obituary
The Evening Gazette
Xenia, Ohio
July 15, 1929
Monday
“Miss Margaret Moorehead, 22, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J.H. Moorehead of 19 Stone Mill Road, Dayton, died at Miami Valley Hospital early Sunday morning after a brief illness. Dr. Moorehead is the first cousin of this city's Miss Margaret Moorehead and William Moorehead.
Miss Moorehead had been a resident of Dayton for a year, coming to that city from St. Louis last fall when Dr. Moorehead assumed the pastorate of Patterson Memorial Presbyterian Church.”
Margaret Ann Moorehead died on the 14th of July 1929 at 7:50 am in the Miami Valley Hospital, Ward 8, of Bi chloride of Mercury poisoning, which the coroner ruled a suicide. She was 23 years old. She had precious little time on the face of this earth and died a horrendous, painful death at her own hands. In comments on other blogs, I have seen people wondering what could have been so bad in her life that it would have caused her to end horribly.
There is only one contributing factor to Peggy's demise that was listed on her death certificate, and that was Nephritis. Nephritis was and is just a fancy way of saying her kidney function was impaired, which is a side effect of Bi chloride of mercury poisoning. There is, however, another significant unlisted contributing factor, and that is Borderline Personality Disorder. I will refer to this as BPD; it's much easier than spelling it out. BPD is a mental illness, and the underlying cause of every single suicide is a mental illness of some type.
When someone is living with Borderline Personality Disorder, they can be sensitive to the way other people treat them, overreacting to the perceived criticism or hurtfulness. Given Molly's propensity for making demeaning, pointed remarks to Agnes, she likely did the same to Peggy without even thinking about it, especially if she felt her control over Peggy slipping away.
Their feelings about others often shift from positive to negative, generally after a disappointment or perceived threat of losing someone. We know from Agnes' letter written to her sister after her death that Agnes had most certainly had words just the previous year with Peggy, and it was over the topic that would haunt her the rest of her life: her sexuality. We can safely assume that was the topic of discussion because Agnes states, "Poor dear little girl, your words from last year ring in my ears: “You never loved a man like I have.”
The self-image of someone with BPD can also change rapidly from highly positive to highly negative. Perhaps Agnes' referral to Peggy as beautiful references her sister's view of herself. Impulsive behaviors are common in people with BPD. Although we have no documentation explicitly talking about the impulsive behavior demonstrated by Peggy, I think it is safe to assume that she had some impulses contrary to the behaviors her mother would approve of.
People with BPD tend to view the world generally as dangerous and evil, and they tend to view themselves as powerless, vulnerable, unacceptable, and unsure of self-identity. Given her shuttling back and forth from Reedsburg to Saint Louis, Peggy was undoubtedly in flux with her view of herself and the world. We will never know if the life she was living in Saint Louis was one in which she felt safe or if something traumatic happened to her during her time there. No record remains of any of it. There can be no doubt that she was powerless, vulnerable, and unsure of that.
The BPD Theory
Individuals with BPD are often described as deliberately manipulative or tricky. Still, analysis and findings generally trace behaviors to inner pain and turmoil, powerlessness and defensive reactions, or limited coping and communication skills. Inner pain is never more apparent than when someone successfully takes their own life. It speaks volumes about how Peggy saw her own life and how she viewed her parents. Suicide is, at its core, a manipulative behavior. It leaves people behind with lives forever changed, and the person who dies feels no pain. Often, it is done as a punishment. In this case, it could be not only Frank that Peggy wanted to punish but also Mollie. It also shows that Peggy had no coping skills whatsoever and wasn't offered any support, at least by her mother. I'm sure that for her father, her "troubles' ' were difficult because being a minister means that people look up to you as a role model, and there you sit with your troubled child, a challenging position.
If any of this sounds familiar, it should be because it is laid out in the communication between Mollie and Agnes that I have transcribed further on this page. In this communication, Mollie hints at the trouble Peggy wants Mollie to forgive her for. Notice that it doesn't mention any issue with their father, only an issue between Peggy and Mollie. In the previous post, I mentioned that Mollie qualified as an "overbearing mother." I also went through the list of things that can develop psychologically when you have an "overbearing mother."
Additionally, I mentioned the quip to Agnes that the "wrong daughter died." Well, as stated above, an over-involved parent can push someone into BPD, and I guarantee you that is what has happened here. BPD has also been linked to increased levels of chronic stress and conflict in romantic relationships. Remember the mention in the first go-around with this word, "Frank?" Also, think about the fact that Peggy did not live with her parents full time for years and attach that to the statement above of co-existing extremes of under and over-involvement by the parents of a child with BPD. It took me a long time to connect these dots, but the evidence, slim as it may be, is certainly there to support a diagnosis of BPD.them; they call them phases and assume they will pass. BPD is a bonafide mental illness that can and does lead to tragic endings.
Bichloride of Mercury
The Bichloride of Mercury is highly toxic. If Margaret had been a nurse, she would have been acutely aware of the properties of this poison. It was used primarily as a topical treatment for Syphilis before the advent of antibiotics. It was also used as a fungicide. It usually came dissolved in alcohol, which, if ingested, took it into the bloodstream more quickly, thereby making it all the more deadly. It was a long, drawn-out, excruciating way to die. In the early 1920s, the actress Olive Thomas, wife of Jack Pickford, died from Bi Chloride of Mercury poisoning. It was widely covered in the popular press of the time, and perhaps that was what made Margaret think of it. The symptoms are a litany of severe pain explaining why Peggy was kept "doped."
The prognosis for survival of this type of poisoning depended then on what symptoms manifested themselves within the first 10-15 minutes of ingestion and how rapidly you got to a hospital. It didn’t take much of a dose to kill you. Kidney failure and death could occur with small doses of the poison. It simply appears as though, even having expressed regret, according to her mother, Peggy was determined to end her life. What a painful, tragic end it was.
Parents of individuals with BPD have been reported to show co-existing extremes of over-involvement and under-involvement. Peggy was in this situation daily.
Grandpa Moorehead Dies
Robert Henderson Moorehead lived a very ripe old age and remained active until January 1929. That day, Robert slipped and fell on ice while he was in town. He broke bones but was not hospitalized. He went home to heal, and by April, he was dead. Two tragedies, the death of her paternal grandfather and the suicide of her sister, back to back and of such great dimension, had to have a lasting effect on Agnes.
In two years, Agnes lost her grandmother, her grandfather, and her sister. No matter who you are, that much stress combined with the stress of relocating to a city the size of New York, working to support yourself in that city, and beginning a new course of study on which rested the rest of your life would be overwhelming.
Success on the stage
Hamilton Evening Journal
Tuesday January 29th, 1929
Agnes Moorehead, Former Hamilton Girl, Achieves Success On Stage
That drama and the church are not far separated is illustrated in the success that is coming to Miss Agnes Moorehead, daughter of Rev. and Mrs John H. Moorehead, who has chosen the career of an actress.
Miss Moorehead is well known in Hamilton, having spent several years of her life here. Her father, now pastor of the Memorial Presbyterian Church in Dayton, was the pastor of the First United Presbyterian Church of Hamilton.
Miss Moorehead is now a senior at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, admittedly the outstanding school for training serious stage aspirants in the country.
Miss Moorehead had the honor of appearing in the lead role of Anna Valeska in Walter Hacketts popular comedy "Captain Applejack," when the senior students of the academy presented this play on Broadway for three performances the past week-- one on Friday at the Lyceum Theatre and two yesterday at the McAllister Theatre. This week, the play will be repeated at Columbia University. The presentation of "Captain Applejack" was the first of the year series of productions of the Academy, and in others to follow, Miss Moorehead is to play lead roles she has been informed.
Miss Moorehead has been a diligent student of drama and its more serious phases during the last three years she has attended the Academy. She has played all but two leading roles in Academy productions in the previous two years, so her outstanding work has been considered.
Miss Moorehead, a girl of striking beauty and vivid personality, was born while her father was in charge of a pastorate in Clinton, Massachusetts. While he was a pastor in Saint Louis, Miss Moorehead, who has an excellent singing voice, was being heard over station KMOX being referred to as "The Lady Tenor" because of the particular timber of her voice, decidedly of that register.
Miss Moorehead's ambition, according to her proud mother, is to conduct a dramatic studio of her own. Still, she does not propose to do this until she has gained some normal state experience following her work in the Academy.
During the summer, she expects to go into stock, a course that she regards as excellent training for her particular needs. She will complete her studies in March and visit her parents at 10 Stonemill Road in Dayton, where she has been on but one occasion before starting her professional work.
A short time ago, she had an excellent opportunity to join a stock company in New Orleans but
declined in the belief that the completion of her courses in the Academy with the training she is
getting appearing on Broadway with the Academy productions is of too great a value to pass up
though the initial play in which she appeared is a comedy Miss Moorehead's leanings are more
toward the strictly dramatic, and it is in this line she hopes to earn her laurels when she enters
her work professionally.
1929 was a pivotal year for Agnes. She graduated from AADA, and her career lay ahead of her.
However, the stock market crashed, and most importantly, her sister died. This year would change her
life in more ways than ever imagined.
Initial Lee
I've been delving into Jack's life for months and realized that he became a physical representation
of "The Little Man Who Wasn't There," a song performed by Glen Miller. The song conveys seeing a
little man who wasn't there and wishing he would disappear. Jack was like the ultimate “little man who
wasn't there.”
It's essential to delve into Jack's past, including his upbringing, family, education, and idiosyncrasies.
This understanding is the key to unlocking the mystery of who Jack was. I've been immersing myself in
Jack's life for months, and it's like he's the physical embodiment of 'The Little Man Who Wasn't There,' a
song performed by Glen Miller. The song describes seeing an invisible little man and wishing he would
disappear. Jack was like the embodiment of the 'little man who wasn't there.'
Creating Jacky Whack
Jack's life was a tapestry woven with the threads of an unconventional family and a diverse upbringing.
He was Born John Griffith Lee on June 5, 1902, in San Francisco, California. He was the son of
Marshall Robert Lee, an actor, and Susan Slater Ping. Jack's early life was unusual, as his parents
had an unconventional relationship. Marshall entered the entertainment industry after
the “Great San Francisco Earthquake.”
I Wanna Be Like Dad
Throughout his life, Jack was greatly influenced by the women around him, including his
mother, aunts, and eventually his wife. Despite his talents and ambitions, Jack often found himself
overshadowed by his father, who even adopted Jack's name as his stage name. This led to Jack being
referred to as "Jack G. Lee" to avoid confusion.
Considering his father's actions, it's not surprising that Jack had some unresolved issues.
It's not easy for anyone to have their name taken by a parent going through a midlife crisis and adopting
it as their stage name.
Jack's academic prowess was evident from an early age. He excelled in high school, laying the foundation
for what should have been an excellent future. He was a good writer, winning at least one essay contest
while in school at the High School of Commerce. The essay was about his hometown of San Francisco and
was entitled “San Francisco: The Queen City of the West. ” He participated in open-air theater and fledgling
radio productions. He belonged to the “The Calpha Club,” whose dances made the San Francisco
newspapers' society pages. Jack was regularly in the San Francisco newspapers, noting parties and dances
he had attended. He was a member of what passed for high society in San Francisco.
Jack was, believe it or not, a yell leader in high school. It meant he was a head cheerleader. Still, it was
considered a position of prestige, and his regular appearances on the Society Pages contributed to his
being well-known. It appeared that Jack was on his way up in the world while his father was in
vaudeville worldwide. Alas, it was not to be. Jack eventually went to New York, entering the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts to study acting. From the time he graduated, his entire career
was more akin to Atlas struggling to get to the top of the mountain only to fall and have to start all over again.
Besides using his son's name as a stage name, Jack's father ended his days running a skating rink in
Mineola, New York.
Jack Lee’s acting career choked and stalled, then restarted numerous times. His first choke was in 1923.
He was nowhere to be seen in the Society Pages of the San Francisco newspapers. On the other hand,
his father was performing in vaudeville shows, and the newspapers bear this out by listing
“Jack Lee” in a vaudeville performance called “The Phony Recital.” Jack’s father was very well known
on the Vaudeville circuit as a ventriloquist.
Jack began acting in earnest in 1925 when he performed in a series of plays as a member
of “The Theatre Arts Club” that were presented at The Players Guild Theatre. The club gave the plays under
the direction of Talma-Zetta Wilbur, and the company was described as progressive. This was a company of
local renown who performed on both the stage and the radio. Jack Lee was heard playing the ukulele on the
radio station KPO in July. He returned in August to the air on radio station KFRC in a series of radio plays
produced by “The Theatre Arts Club” and broadcast for public consumption. Jack was in one
called “The Trysting Place.” The particularly odd thing is that this play was written by Booth Tarkington,
the same man who wrote the book “The Magnificent Ambersons.” As we all know, one of Agnes’
finest performances was in a movie based on that book. It feels like fate, does it not? Jack was there on
the radio acting before Agnes ever sang on the air in St. Louis, so for the two of them, Jack’s link to
broadcasting began long before the woman he would eventually marry.
In 1926, Jack Griffith Lee, who added his middle name to differentiate himself from his father, still
performed with “The Theatre Arts Club.” Again, the shows were a series of one-act plays performed at
“The Players Guild Theatre.” But by 1927, there was no mention of him performing anywhere in
San Francisco. I suspect this is when Jack decided to go east and enter the AADA, where he would
meet Agnes Moorehead.
What’s Up Pop?
In 1927, a vaudeville performer named Jack Lee appeared in the newspapers in Brooklyn, New York.
This man is Jack’s father. Jack apparently follows his father or goes to New York with him. By
September of 1929, Jack returned to acting with his first show in New York in the show “Subway Murder,”
in which he played with great distinction a corpse. From this point forward, Jack’s acting career slowly slid
toward nonexistence. His performances are spotty, few and far between. Jack was outshone his whole life
except for his halcyon days in San Francisco, first by his father and then by his wife. Jack grew up in a
privileged environment without instruction on stability in employment or relationships. His father and
mother had not lived together for years, and his father would never return to his wife. Instead, he stayed
in New York, first doing vaudeville and then running a skating rink in Mineola. Robert Marshall Lee died
in a hospital in Nassau, New York, in March of 1938, and the obituary mentions that he retired from the
stage in 1931. His son never got on his feet as an actor and struggled for many years. Jack Griffith Lee
could not outshine his father, nor could he outshine his wife. He was the little man who wasn’t there.
In 1927, a vaudeville performer named Jack Lee appeared in the newspapers in Brooklyn, New York.
This man is Jack’s father. Jack followed his father or went to New York with him. By September of 1929, Jack
returned to acting with his first show in New York in the show “Subway Murder,” in which he played with great
distinction a corpse. From this point forward, Jack’s acting career slowly slid toward nonexistence.
His performances are spotty, few and far between. Jack was outshone his whole life except for his halcyon
days in San Francisco, first by his father and then by his wife. Jack grew up in a privileged environment
without instruction on stability in employment or relationships. His father and mother had not lived together
for years, and his father would never return to his wife. Instead, he stayed in New York, first doing vaudeville
and then running a skating rink in Mineola. Robert Marshall Lee died in a hospital in Nassau, New York, in
March of 1938, and the obituary mentions that he retired from the stage in 1931. His son never got on his feet
as an actor and struggled for many years. Jack Griffith Lee could not outshine his father, nor could he outshine
his wife. He was the little man who wasn’t there.
Marshall traveled extensively to perform his vaudeville shtick, and Susan was left to raise Jack alone.
When Jack was young, he frequently accompanied his parents on visits to his father's family in Woodland,
California. However, as he grew older, those visits became less frequent, and Jack primarily stayed with his
mother in San Francisco. However, when his father was in town, he joined him on visits to Woodland.
Jack's father decided to pursue a career in acting and went on to join the vaudeville Orpheum Circuit
as a ventriloquist. His career eventually led him to become involved in decorating, retail, and even
managing a roller skating rink in Mineola, New York. Interestingly, Jack's career path mirrored his
father's in many ways. Before settling down to start a family, he also went through various professions,
such as acting, radio acting, and working as a salesman and clerk.
Jack’s Mama Susan
Throughout his life, Jack was a young man raised by the women around him, including his mother,
aunts, and eventually his wife. Despite his talents and ambitions, Jack often found himself overshadowed
by his father, who even adopted Jack's name as his stage name. When Marshall stole Jack’s name,
his son was forced to use"Jack G. Lee" to avoid confusion.
Who Was Jack Lee
Jack's academic prowess was evident from an early age. He excelled in high school, laying the foundation for
what should have been an excellent future. He was a good writer, winning at least one essay contest while in
school at the High School of Commerce. The essay was about his hometown of San Francisco and
was entitled “San Francisco: The Queen City of the West. ” He participated in open-air theater and
fledgling radio productions. He belonged to the “The Calpha Club,” whose dances made the San Francisco
newspapers' society pages. Jack was regularly in the San Francisco newspapers, noting parties and dances
he had attended. He was a member of what passed for high society in San Francisco. Jack was, believe it or
not, a yell leader in high school. It meant he was a head cheerleader. Still, it was considered a position of
prestige, and his regular appearances on the Society Pages contributed to his being well-known.
It appeared that Jack was on his way up in the world while his father was in vaudeville worldwide.
Alas, it was not to be. Jack eventually went to New York, entering the American Academy of Dramatic
Arts to study acting. From the time he graduated, his entire career was more akin to Atlas struggling to get
to the top of the mountain only to fall and have to start all over again. Besides using his son's name as a stage
name, Jack's father ended his days running a skating rink in Mineola, New York.
Jack Lee’s acting career choked and stalled, then restarted numerous times. His first choke was in 1923. He
was nowhere to be seen in the Society Pages of the San Francisco newspapers. John Griffith Lee aka Jack G Lee is
"The Little Man Who Wasn't There."
Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to post your research for all of us to read.
ReplyDeleteI think I might have figured out who 'Dwight' both Agnes and her mother mention in their letters was - there was a young man with the name of Dwight Fritz who lived in Dayton at the time and, having just graduated from med school, worked as an intern at the Miami Valley hospital.