Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh Read online

  MARGARET MITCHELL

  & JOHN MARSH

  THE LOVE STORY BEHIND

  Gone With the Wind

  A Biography by

  Marianne Walker

  This new paperback edition

  coincides with the

  75th Anniversary

  of the publication of

  Gone With the Wind

  Published by

  PEACHTREE PUBLISHERS

  1700 Chattahoochee Avenue

  Atlanta, Georgia 30318-2112

  www.peachtree-online.com

  Copyright © 1993, 2000, 2011 Marianne Walker

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Publisher, excepting brief quotations used in connection with reviews, written specifically for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.

  Letters from Harold Latham and Lois Cole to Margaret Mitchell and John R. Marsh are reprinted with the permission of Macmillan Publishing Company.

  Jacket photographs of Margaret Mitchell used with permission from Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia (back) and the Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library (front). Jacket photographs of John R. Marsh from the files of Mary Singleton (back) and from the private collection of Mary Marsh Davis (front). Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh photo © CRIA Images LLC, Jay Robert Nash Collection.

  First hardcover edition, 1993

  Jacket design by Loraine M. Joyner

  Book design by Candace J. Magee

  Composition by Ann Walker Pruitt

  Production coordination by Melanie McMahon Ives

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Walker, Marianne, 1933—

  Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh : the love story behind Gone with the wind / Marianne Walker.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical reference.

  ISBN: 978-1-56145-650-5 / 1-56145-650-0 eBook

  1. Mitchell, Margaret, 1900-1949—Marriage. 2. Mitchell, Margaret, 1900-1949—Correspondence. 3. Marsh, John R. (John Robert), 1895-1952—Marriage. 4. Marsh, John R. (John Robert), 1895-1952—Correspondence. 5. Women novelists, American—20th century—Correspondence. 6. Women novelists, American—20th century—Biography. 7. Authorship—Collaboration—History—20th century. 8. Love-letters. I. Title. II. Title: Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh.

  PS3525.I972Z94 1993

  813' .52—dc20

  [B] 93-26481

  CIP

  For the man in my life,

  Ulvester Walker

  And in loving memory of my parents,

  Joseph D. and Rose Spatafora Cascio

  Contents

  Preface to the Anniversary Edition

  Preface to the First Edition

  Notes about the Letters

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  A Man Of Character

  CHAPTER 2

  1895-1919 / Opposites Attract

  CHAPTER 3

  1912-1921 / Reasonable Ambitions

  CHAPTER 4

  1922-1924 / A Bizarre Courtship

  CHAPTER 5

  1922-1925 / Love Regained

  CHAPTER 6

  1925-1926 / A Writer In Progress

  CHAPTER 7

  1927-1935 / In the Wake of a Masterpiece

  CHAPTER 8

  1935-1936 / Midwife to a Novel

  CHAPTER 9

  1936 / A Fantastic Dream

  CHAPTER 10

  July 1936 / Unbelievable Days

  CHAPTER 11

  1936-1937 / Reaping the Whirlwind

  CHAPTER 12

  1937-1939 / Publicity, Pirates, and Power

  CHAPTER 13

  1936-1939 / Making the Movie

  CHAPTER 14

  1940-1945 / Patriotic Volunteer

  CHAPTER 15

  1945-1952 / Reality of Dark Dreams

  Notes

  PREFACE TO THE ANNIVERSARY EDITION

  This edition of MARGARET MITCHELL & JOHN MARSH: THE LOVE STORY BEHIND GONE WITH THE WIND commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of GONE WITH THE WIND.

  In the spring of 1935, when Margaret Mitchell hesitantly turned her manuscript over to Harold Latham of The Macmillan Company, little did she think that her book would be one of the world’s best-known and best-loved novels. She would have found it hard to believe that more than seven decades after its initial release, Gone With the Wind has been published in nearly forty languages, in countless editions, and it is still capturing the hearts of readers. It also spawned two sequels which she, no doubt, would not have approved but which were necessary to extend copyright protection on Gone With the Wind.

  As explained in this biography, most of the original manuscript of Gone With the Wind was burned by John Marsh following his wife's death in accordance with her wishes. However, the final typescript of the last four chapters was discovered among the papers of George Brett Jr., the president of Macmillan, Mitchell's publisher. A longtime supporter of the Pequot Public Library, in Southport, Connecticut, Brett gave these chapters to the library in the early 1950s and they were twice displayed—in 1979 and 1991. But no one there realized the value of the manuscript, which was returned to storage, until Ellen Brown, who was working on her book with coauthor John Wiley, Jr., asked about Brett's collection, leading the library to rediscover these valuable pages.

  Although the popularity of the 1936 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel remains strong, some people seem to have forgotten the critical acclaim it received in the years immediately following its publication. On this anniversary of the publication, the author of Gone With the Wind deserves to be recognized once again for writing what James Michener describes best as “the spiritual history of a region.”

  Mitchell grew up surrounded by old people who remembered well Sherman’s march to the sea and the events that followed. An observant child with an eye for detail and a remarkable memory, she listened to their stories, their eyewitness accounts, and as she matured she learned to listen to the silent voices emanating from the old diaries, letters, photographs, daguerreotypes, battlegrounds, and cemeteries of north Georgia. From her listening, her observations, and her research, she produced not only unforgettable characters, but also a reliable, detailed description of day-to-day life in the South of the Civil War era.

  Many of her detractors unfairly equate her values with the values of the societies about which she wrote, but Mitchell was no uncritical defender of the Old South. Beneath the surface of her book the careful reader can find a rich vein of social criticism. Mitchell depicted many of the major characters who support the “Lost Cause” as obtuse and fatuous. She created Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara as realists who reject the old views and negate the conventions of the old society while keeping what was best about it. What Rhett loves about the Old South is what most people love. Both carve out new patterns of life for themselves while choosing to remain in the South. Historian Henry Steele Commager once pointed out that “the characters of the book represent, in many ways, the New South versus the Old, and it is not clear that one is better than the other.” He added, “It is one of the virtues of Miss Mitchell’s book that she presents the myth [of the Old South] without being taken in by it or asking us to accept it, and that she makes clear the reasons for both its vitality and its ultimate demise.”

  The point demands emphasis because Mitchell’s critics have often accused her of perpetuating attitudes of racism. Since the first edition of this book, additional evidence has emerged to support the contention that Mitchell found ways to transcend the values that still ruled the South in the 1930s and 40s. Her humane at
titudes found expression in letters that she and her husband exchanged with Benjamin E. Mays, president of Morehouse College. Published in 1996, the correspondence reveals that she provided anonymous financial assistance during the 1940s for more than twenty black students seeking pre-medical and pre-dental degrees. Her concern about the inadequacies of medical care for African-Americans also moved her to contribute generously toward the building of a new wing at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. Although she lived in a society that languished under a regimen of strict racial segregation, she did try to lessen the impact of the harshest features of that social order.

  Margaret Mitchell's philanthropy extended beyond the United States. Shortly before she died in 1949, she contributed enough money to rebuild the hospital in Vimoutiers, a small town in France that was inadvertently destroyed by American Armed Forces in World War II. She also secured additional funds from the service organization, Pilot International, to rebuild the rest of the town. The grateful town made her an honorary citizen of Vimoutiers in July 1949 and dedicated the hospital in her honor.

  Those who scorn Gone With the Wind for “promoting plantation values” have probably never read the book. They are most likely talking about the enormously popular 1939 motion picture made from her novel. And, yes, the motion picture promotes a false notion of the Old South. But Mitchell had nothing to do with making the film. In a letter to Virginius Dabney in 1942, she described her reaction to it:

  Some people gave me credit for writing it [the prologue of the film] and thought it was ‘just beautiful’; others, who knew the section about which I wrote, belabored me for dislocating one of the central ideas of the book. It was useless for me to protest that I had nothing to do with the matter. I certainly had no intention of writing about cavaliers. Practically all my characters, except the Virginia Wilkeses, were of sturdy yeoman stock.

  With a tone of resignation she added:

  Since my novel was published, I have been embarrassed on many occasions by finding myself included among writers who pictured the Old South as a land of white-columned mansions whose wealthy owners had thousands of slaves and drank thousands of juleps. I have been surprised, too, for North Georgia certainly was no such country—if it ever existed anywhere—and I took great pains to describe North Georgia as it was. But people like to believe what they like to believe and the mythical Old South has too strong a hold on their imaginations to be altered by the mere reading of a 1,037-page book. So I have made no effort to defend myself against the accusation.

  One sign of continuing public affection for Margaret Mitchell has been the remarkable outpouring of interest in the house in which she wrote much of the novel. For years, GWTW fans from all over the world came to Atlanta wanting to see some tangible link to the author and her creation but left disappointed. Many thought it was scandalous that the Midtown apartment building where Mitchell and her husband lived—while she wrote most of Gone With the Wind—had been allowed to decay.

  After years of fending off developers and their demolition crews, restoration supporters convinced Mayor Andrew Young to veto demolition permits for the building in 1988. A year later the Tudor Revival house, built as a family home in 1899 by Cornelius Sheehan, was awarded historical landmark status. The history of the house was carefully researched and documented, and the building was restored according to the original specifications. After suffering two arson attempts in 1994 and in 1996, neither of which, mysteriously enough, damaged the Marshes’ ground-floor apartment, the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum finally opened in May 1997. Thanks to the untiring efforts of Mary Rose Taylor, founding executive director of the house and museum, and the generosity of the German automaker Daimler-Benz, which donated $5 million to the restoration project, visitors to Atlanta now can see the “Birthplace of Gone With the Wind.” Since its opening, growing numbers of GWTW admirers have traveled to Atlanta to visit the Marshes’ tiny apartment. The Mitchell House is now part of the Atlanta History Center.

  I take special pride in visiting the Mitchell House, not only because I, like millions of others, like to see the homes of writers to get a vicarious glimpse of their domestic life, but also because many of the letters that I uncovered while researching my book provided information that influenced the furnishing and decorating of the restored apartment. Mitchell wrote some of those letters—published for the first time in my book—to her husband’s family during the early years of her marriage, and those letters give detailed accounts of the apartment. In this modest way, my biography helped to bring to public attention some information about Mitchell’s everyday life. My larger hope, of course, is that this anniversary edition will contribute to a more realistic assessment of the achievements of this remarkable woman.

  PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

  Although I did not realize it at the time, the genesis of this book occurred in early 1985 when I reluctantly agreed to give a talk about Gone With the Wind for a Kentucky Humanities Council program. Like millions of others, I had seen the film made from the novel but had never read the novel itself or anything about its author.

  When I got a copy of the book to read, the first thing I noticed was that the dedication page simply says, “To J.R.M.” I remember wondering then, “Who is J.R.M.?” A few days later I learned that Margaret Mitchell dedicated her novel to her husband, John Robert Marsh, who was born and reared in Maysville, Kentucky. Since Maysville is not too far from where I live, I decided to go looking for traces of him and his famous wife.

  After needling my husband into going along with me, I set out with him early one chilly Saturday morning in October 1985 on what he called “an authentic wild goose chase.” A sports addict who would have preferred to watch a televised ball game, he told me outright that he thought the expedition would be a waste of time and that I would ultimately be disappointed. And as the day wore on, it looked as if his predictions were correct. Our search first led us to Maysville, then back down to the Blue Grass region around Lexington, and then, finally, with some instructions from a rural postal clerk, to a remote community called Clays Ferry. Much to our surprise, we ended up that afternoon in a three-room log cabin built on a woodsy, steep bank near the Kentucky River. This cabin was the home of Francesca Renick Marsh, the widow of John Marsh’s youngest brother, Ben Gordon Marsh. An avid bird watcher and watercolorist who had been an art teacher at the Sayre School on North Limestone Street in Lexington, Francesca belied her eighty-three years. She drove her red Chevrolet sedan wherever she wanted to go; attended church every Sunday; read several books every week; hiked daily in the woods; and swam in the Kentucky River two miles a day, eight months out of the year, right up to a few months before her death in 1987. Self-reliant, she lived alone in this charming cabin she and her husband had bought in 1952, only two years before he died.

  In looking back, I know now that we were lucky on two accounts that day: first, because I appeared on her doorstep as a teacher preparing to make a talk about her sister-in-law’s novel, not as a writer seeking information for a book; and second, because her son, Renny, a geologist from Texas, was visiting her. As I learned later, Francesca had been so disappointed with the manner in which her famous relatives had been characterized in print that she adamantly refused to have anything to do with writers. Then, too, her home had been burglarized earlier that year, and she had adopted a guarded manner toward strangers. Had Renny not been there, I doubt if she would have let us in that day. But apparently she was satisfied with my reasons for presenting myself to her, and she invited us into her parlor filled with lovely old furniture, paintings, family mementos, and books—many of them foreign editions of Gone With the Wind. The moment I stepped into that room, I knew I was onto an adventure. And I was right.

  It was inevitable that Francesca Marsh and I became friends. Like Margaret Mitchell, I have always enjoyed listening to old people, hearing about the past and the lives of others. Biography is my favorite type of book. So my interest in her and in the author of Gone With the Wind d
id not end a few days later with my lecture at the public library, and I visited her as often as I could.

  As I look back now, I realize how favored I have been to have known Francesca, for she, and the others I met through my friendship with her, gave me an authentic, not merely a nostalgic, connection with the past. I learned about John Marsh and Margaret Mitchell, who was called Peggy, just the way one gradually learns about her ancestors—from listening to relatives and friends talk about them. Hearing Francesca and the others talk about people and days long “gone with the wind” intrigued me in a way that nothing else ever had and made me want to know more.

  However, the idea of writing this book did not occur to me until the rainy, winter afternoon in 1985 when Francesca dragged out an old cardboard box filled with stuff that she had been saving for over a half-century. I will never forget the excitement I felt when I saw that old box filled with yellowed, fragile newspaper clippings, snapshots, postcards, telegrams, old Atlanta Magazines, and a small, tied bundle of unpublished letters that John and Peggy had written to his family. These letters are a part of the Round Robins that circulated for nearly twenty-five years among John and Peggy, his two brothers and two sisters, and their spouses. Aside from those letters, the first thing that caught my attention was a picture of John in an Atlanta Sunday Magazine interview dated December 1949, only four months after Peggy’s unexpected death. His answer to the question, “How would you describe your wife?” startled me.

  “Well,” he began, “first of all, she was a lot of fun. . . .” He spread his hands helplessly. “How can you sum up a personality like her in a few words? My starting point is she was a lot of fun. Maybe someday I can succeed in putting the rest into words. But not now.”

  Because it is so unusual for anyone to describe an individual with whom he has lived for nearly a quarter-century as being “a lot of fun,” I immediately thought that their relationship must have been a very special one. But neither of the two Mitchell biographies available at that time had given me that impression.1