Loving Frank (Lloyd Wright) ~ Nancy Horan ~ May 1st

[BooksAdmin]

Before the publication of Loving Frank in 2007, few details were known about the love affair between Martha (nicknamed Mamah) Borthwick Cheney and the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The two met in 1903 when Mamah and Edwin H. Cheney commissioned Wright to design a new home for them. The strong attraction between Mamah and her Frank led to a very publicly conducted affair that scandalized Oak Park, Illinois. Shunned by society, haunted by the press, the lovers decamped to Paris in 1909, leaving behind their spouses and children. They lived abroad for a year. Scholars have relegated Mamah to a footnote in the long, tumultuous life of America's greatest architect. Loving Frank is based on years of solid research that has unearthed letters, diary entries,  and newspaper headlines.  With remarkable restraint and great sensitivity, Nancy Horan has blended the known facts with novelistic imagination to create a compelling narrative of a dramatic, ultimately tragic love story.  Rich in period detail, the story is told in Mamah's voice and vividly portrays the conflicts of a woman struggling to reconcile the roles of wife, mother, lover, and intellectual one hundred years ago. Please join us for the May discussion. ~ Ann & Traude

Links Brief Biography of Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin - Slide show Chicago Landmarks Save Wright (Preservation) Frank Lloyd Wright & Mamah Cheney] The Edwin Cheney house - photos with Nancy Horan

Discussion Divisions ---Part One --    May 1st-May 10th ---Part Two --   May 11th-May 21st ---Part Three -- May 22nd-May 31st

Questions to Consider ~Part Two

1. What do you think of the relationship between our two lovers, now that they will be living together, on the ship and in Europe?

2. Do you find it hard to read much of Frank's reaction to Mamah's devistation over the headlines in the home newpapers?

3. Mamah is free and she wants to take advantage of this new found freedom.  Would we all feel this way, in this situation?  

4. How does Catherine's response to the journalists who question her make you feel?  Do you have empathy for her?

5. And after reading Edwin letter to Mamah, did you feel sorry for him?

6. The death of Mattie has really saddened Mamah.  Wouldn't we all feel this way?  Have you lost an old and dear friend in the past few years?  Or did you lose one early in your life?

7  Are we being told early on that Mamah has a drinking or drug problem?

Discussion Leaders:  Ann & Traude

[ANNIE]

Welcome, readers!
We are opening early just in case someone wants to comment early.  Due to previous arrangements, I will be gone on Saturday and Sunday so am leaving the schedule up for you.  I have asked Traude to take my place for the weekend but if she is not here due to other circumstances, please feel free to answer the questions and comment and maybe ask some questions of your own.  See you all on Sunday night, if the creek don't rise and the good Lord's willin'.

[maryz]

I'll be checking in.

[ANNIE]

Oh, its so good to see you, MaryZ,
Did you receive my email about the discussion??  I am off to the post office but will return soon.

[JoanP]

Can't you just see trouble brewing  in the marriage  in the opening chapters?  Mamah doesn't even see it coming - - seems to be blaming poor Edwin simply for being himself - kind, content with simple things - (boring and predictable?)  How can she help from being critical or at least, uncomfortable with her life with Ed, when the architect (commissioned by Ed) pronounces - "We are ourselves what we appreciate, and no more."   Right away we know FLW has her full attention.

From the book jacket, quoted here in the heading -

While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America's greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story...

Yesterday's Washington Post ran a huge article in the Home section on books written on FLW - 50th anniversary of his death.   I'll try to find the link later - but I found this interesting -

There were of course, the turbulant relationships with women such as Maude Miriam Novel and Olgivanna Hinzenberg...Rizzoli

No mention of Mamah?
Will be watching closely to see if she was just another conquest among many - or if the architect is as smitten with Mamah as Horan will have us believe.

Edwin commissioned FLW to build a house for the family in IL.  Did he ever build it?  Is it still standing?

This should be a fascinating discussion...

[ALF43]

We lived in Lakeland florida for a short period of time.  Near one of the many lakes, where I walked there was a FLW museum of some kind.  I'm not sure if it was an estate of one of his "newer" buildings.  Does anyone know or have heard of this?

[BarbStAubrey]

 Here is the link to the center at Lakeland that features the FLW photos, drawings and furniture in his association with Florida Southern College  http://www.flsouthern.edu/fllwctr/index.htm

And this is a great site with links to all the FLW buildings, Centers, Gardens, Tours etc.
 http://www.artmarketing.com/FrankLloydWright%20links.html
 

[maryz]

Annie, I did get your e-mail - thanks.  I haven't read the book, but am a great fan of FLW and his buildings.  I'll mostly be lurking.

[ANNIE]

MaryZ,
I'm glad you are lurking but please do comment on anything you are interested in discussion.

In your books, do you have the book discussion questions in the back??? And do you have the interview with the author?  Good interview!  She explains how she wrote the book and why she chose Mamah Cheney?

I just got back to my computer and I want to thank Alf, JoanP and BarbStAubrey for leaving tempting posts.
Barbara, the links are a good way to see what he was doing throughout his life.  According to another book about FLW, the period in this book is called his Prairie House period.
 
And, yes, if Mamah didn't see what was happening in her marriage, we certainly could see where she was going.  Are you as amazed as I am that an affair this public went on the in early 1900's?  And, Edwin's response was very strange.  Is that the Victorian streak of personality in him??  He seems very restrained and careful to me.
 

[Ella Gibbons]

Ann, as I told you earlier I will be out of town for some time during this discussion, DARN!  I liked the book when I read it some time ago - was it a year or two ago?  How fast the time goes.

As I remember, Mamah (what a stupid name, how did she get it?) is unbelievable and I won't disclose any reason for those who have yet to read the book.

FLW is still memoralized in architectural circles, but I have no idea why.  I have seen two of his homes and while I understand, and even admire,  his ideas of structures blending in with the environment, his interiors seem less than homey; in fact they seem downright cold.

When I return on May 15th and a book is available at the Library I shall been in to read the posts and add a post or two.

Have a great discussion!  He is worthy of one.

[Ella Gibbons]

Is it "form follows function or "function follows form" - I can never remember that quote exactly.  And to understand it?

[ANNIE]

Ella,
I don't know the answer but I would think that its "form follows function" if one is speaking of the impact of the design creating the  way one lives in FLW's houses.

But, what I also want to say here, this is Mamah's story and her impact on FLW and her own world of women being freer than they have ever been before.  We didn't even get the vote until around 1923?  This lady was already trying to have a life that mattered (to her) and maybe her writing would have made an impact on the suffragettes who were so active around this time. 
Her ideas were so similar to the suffragettes but I didn't find the writing strong enough to support this.  The author has some copies of Mamah's letters to the Swedish philosopher and she says this helped fill out the story.  There just isn't much out there about Mamah or her affair. 
 
Now, I say that, but I have also seen pictures of headlines in the Chicago papers with stories about these two lovers. 
 
Here's a link to Wright's Prairie Style houses.  Beautifully done!
http://www.delmars.com/wright/flw2.htm 

I had forgotten that Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" was supposed to be a ficionalized story about these two lovers.

[joangrimes]

I have just started to read this book and I am reading it on my Kindle.  It is really interesting to me.   I am sure this will be be a rewarding read and a good discussion.

Joan Grimes

[straudetwo]

Hello, everybody, and welcome.

The long and very detailed timeline about FLW's life and accomplishments, including many photographs, has only a sparse sentences about Mamah Borthwick Cheney. It was quite deliberate.  The eager young architects who became his disciples in Taliesin West feared that the scandal surrounding Mamah's and Wright's living together without benefit of marriage would tarnish the master's reputation.  But FLW had an eye for women, and other scandals were to follow - later.

"Loving Frank" is Mamah's story told from her perspective.  Her full name was Martha Borthwick Cheney,  Mamah her nickname. She was born in 1869 and  earned a BA from the University of Michigan. She worked as a librarian in Fort Huron, Michigan.  She married Edwin Cheney when she was thirty. They had two children, a girl and a boy. When she met FLW, she fell head over heels in love.  Frank had six children with Kitty Tobin, his first wife.

Annie asked, "Is Mamah's tragic story relevant today?"  An excellent question.

I believe it is, especially when young children are involved.  Is it selfish for a woman to follow her heart and leave the children behind?  Does an unsatisfying/unhappy marriage justify such an extreme step?  Our local book group had a very animate debate about that.

[JoanP]

Ah, Ella, not so stupid a name when you know "Mamah" was a nickname given to little Martha  by her grandmother. I read that it is pronounced  May-muh - so let's all practice that out loud now so we sound as if we know what something if we are discussing the book in person with anyone.  May-muh!  Is this how your f2f book club pronounced it, Traudee?

It sounds as if we are supposed to be admiring the woman for leaving her husband and little children for this man.  I've only read the opening chapters - so far shé does not have my sympathy.  Back to the book!

Ann - Fountainhead?  From now on May-muh will look like Patricia Neal to me.  (I liked Patricia Neal...maybe I'll come to like May-muh too!)

[Aberlaine]

I read this book several months ago and am not going to get it back out of the library.  Too many other books to read.  But as I feel a comment coming on, I'll post it.

As for the two main characters, I didn't like either of them.  Too selfish, but maybe that's because I was raised in a more self-less atmosphere.  But, in defense of them, love makes us do strange things.

Nancy

[straudetwo]

Nancy, Thank you for coming by.  It's good to know you will be following this discussion.  If anything strikes you and you feel like posting about any aspect of this story, you know you will be welcome.

What is noteworthy of course is the fact that this story did not come from the fertile imagination of a romance writer but it [ireally[/i]happened to real people - one of them world-renowned - a hundred years ago, and books are still being written about them, like other star-crossed lovers in history.

The italicized pages, a sort of introduction, are written in the first person and could be a journal entry, either real but - if not - very well invented. The year is 1914,  a significant milepost.

In the next chapter we read how it had started, several years earlier. The narrative  proceeds in chronological order.  It is obvious that Edwin Cheney and Mamah were mismatched, which Mamah discovered a lot earlier than her husband.  FLW was clearly a charmer.  His dynamism, his plan to revolutionize architectural concepts and the work he showed her  (her neighbor's house), proved irresistible.  Edwin Cheney, who loved order and precision and "simple things" could be no competitor.  The attraction was strong, mutual and not acted on originally.

The new house FLW had built for them was finished, except for a garage. Planning and building it became a pretext, a convenient subterfuge for casual meetings.  At the time Mamah had only one child, John, and still lived in her family home with members of her family. No wonder Edwin Cheney longed for a home of his/their own!

At some point Mamah pulled back from FLW and discovered she was carrying Edwin's child.  A year (two?) after the birth of her daughter Martha she reconnected with FLW. This time all barriers fell.  Interestingly enough, it was she, Mamah, who sought him out (at the lecture)!  She had also cultivated FLW's wife, Catherine aka Kit.

JoanP,  we can only shake our heads in dismay at such heedlessness and irresponsibility. Both in their early thirties, they behave like teenagers, oblivious to any consequences.  This is definitely not admirable behavior. But it happened!
 Joan, in our f2f discussion we pronounced Mamah the way it is written. We had only the afternoon to do justice to the book.

[straudetwo]

Still in the clutches of some kind of bug I continued my reading in bed last night and pondered the questions.

I am so glad Annie got Mamah's picture in the header (not many are available); it gives us something to focus on. Look at the face, the intelligent eyes, the (to me) almost challenging look, ready for debate : the face of a strong-willed woman, insisting on the rightfulness of her passionate dreams and on her way to make them a reality.  It is amazing how she is able to convince herself that her actions ARE justified.  Can mutual folly ever be morally justified?  For my part I think not.
 
We are given to understand that FLW had dalliances with other women before Mamah, and certainly during their breakups - which Mamah learned about. Still they were drawn together like magnets. We know they discussed their respective divorces.
"I haven't shared a bed with Catherine in more than a year," FLW tells Mamah.  Whether true or not, isn't it interesting that this convenient "excuse" is still being used today, one hundred years later?

Inevitably, Catherine Wright learned of the relationship and confronted FLW, asking for one year
"to think things over".  He informed Mamah and then, inexplicably for her, stopped contacting her.
She lapsed into "moods" and periods of silence during which members of her household, especially Edwin, tip-toed around her.  Sister Lizzie, who had her own apartment in the new house, ran the household.  Mamah, in what can only be called her obsession with FLW began  looking for him at various active building sites, waiting for him for hours at one site. He never came.  One day Mamah,  trying to confide in Lizzie, learned that Lizzie already knew of the affair, and that  Edwin had probably put two and two together  by now as well. 

But once again,  the two magnets reunited on a dark night on a deserted building site. FLW told her that he been offered  a  position in Germany and pleaded with Mamah to go there with him. For her part,  Mamah had been invited  a while earlier to visit her old college friend Mattie and her family in Colorado.  Impusively Mamah  decided to accept the invitation and  to stay for a period longer than originally anticipated by either of them. 

"Why are you doing this to us?" asked Edwin when he saw her and his children off at the train station.
"Do you think you are the first woman to fall for this jackass? For Christ's sake, come to your
senses!"
"Please, Ed. I need some time", she answered.

Speaking only for myself, it is a lot easier at this point to sympathize with Edwin than  with Mamah.
Do you think Mamah has a valid defense?

[ANNIE]

Well, Traude has certainly given us the Readers' Digest version of this period in Mahmeh's life. Very nice, Traude!
I find both of these people off putting as they tear up their children's lives for there own satisfactions.  But, when I seriously think about their obsession with each other, I find myself wondering if I could do that. After all is said and done, I don't feel that Mahmeh's decision was totally wrong for her.  And that's just her decision!   She seems so confused and undecided one minute and then totally dedicated to leaving her family and joining FLW in Europe.  Given such choices, wouldn't we (I) be in the same dillema?

In the book, I seem to find Mahmeh's part in all of this rather weakly written.  I can't get my head around her reasoning about her own life's goals.  They seem very paltry to me.

[joangrimes]

Ann,

Yes I think we would be in the same delimma.  I agree that it seems to be the right decision for her at the time.  I think that maybe there is always the thought that in such a situation that things will work out as far as the children are concerned.  Even today when there are so many divorces , people do not seem to realize what they are doing to their children when they dissove their marriage.  Both of my daughters are divorced and I don't think either of them thought that the divorce would have the effect on the children that it did.  But then when we are so emotionally involved do we ever see what the real results might be.  Even if the two parites involved peacefully settle the issue of the children there are going to be negative effects on and resentment from the children.  But then if one stays in an unhappy marriage then the results may not be what we desire either.  So it is a delimma no matter what.

This book has really captured my attention and I am enjoying reading it.

Joan Grimes

[straudetwo]

Thank you, Ann and JoanG, for the points well taken.

There's no doubt the author's retelling of this historic affair and its disastrous consequences is objective to the extent possible, though her sympathies clearly lie with Mamah.  The writing may be weak and unconvincing for the reader but that, I believe, may be due to the lovers' ambiguities and inaction regarding divorce from their respective mates. 
They talked about divorce, but nothing more.  They had ben meeting furtively for five (5!) years and conceivably might have continued if FLW's  wife had not found them out.  And still they wavered.  Mamah's trip to Colorado was a temporary cop out.

Mamah married Edwin in 1899, the same year Frank married Catherine.  In 10 years, Frank and Catherine had six children.  He told Mamah that his marriage "hadn't worked" for years and she believed him ...  because she wanted to believe.  A reader might not be so credulous.
In addition to Martha and John, Mamah and Edwin were raising Jessica, the daughter of Mamah's and Lizzie's sister Jessie who had died in childbirth.  Altogether they left 9 children behind ...

For what it is worth,  only one (!) of the women in our f2f group, the mother of six,  widowed at a young age,  was able to fathom leaving her children for a lover.
 

[ANNIE]

Traude,
Why do you think Nancy Horan gave her book the title, "Loving Frank"??  I can only guess and I would think that maybe she entitled the book that way because the whole story comes around to the consequences of "Loving Frank".  He was so in the news of that time for his designs of houses and other buildings, that it had to be a chore, for Mahmah, to keep some kind of evenness to her life---their lives???  Maybe!

JoanG,
Yes, divorce does affect the children more than the parents??  Well, it hurts them a great deal.  I have a friend who divorced her first husband because he was so unemotional(her description)which seems to fit Edwin Cheney.  Do people like Edwin think that if they don't blow up and stay calm, everything will turn out all right??
Maybe, a "don't rock the boat" attitude?  He certainly didn't have anything good to say about FLW as he watched Mahmah board a train and go off to Colorado with their children.  That's the only time he actually seems to have an emotion over the affair.

And what about telling Mahmah that happiness will come if she justs acts happy?  Suuurrrrrrre!  I believe that one!  Not!

[straudetwo]

Ann,  in answer to your question. 
Nancy Horan chose the title because she believes that Mamah truly loved Frank.  Mamah herself believed it. I'm not sure they used the term "soul mate" in those days, but we have reason to  think  - on the basis of the book - THAT is what FLW was  for Mamah.  But I have the uncomfortable feeling that Mamah was also something like a handmaiden to him.

At the time FLW was not yet as famous and still in the early stages of his career. He had been noticed abroad.

Unfortunately children are often "collateral damage" in a divorce, especially if the separation is bitter. The process called 'mediation' can be helpful to arrange an amicable arrangemet, but some mates are so embittered that they categorically refuse to sit down at the same table with the partner and the mediating attorney to discuss financial issues, custody of children and visitation rights civilly.

In haste.

[JoanP]

I have to keep reminding myself that this all happened over 100 years ago in order to appreciate the extent of the scandal.  Especially for a woman - to leave her husband and live openly with another man, both of them still married!  And of course, we are reeling  at Mamah's hardhearted behavior - leaving her young children as she did, all the while wringing her hands how difficult it will be for them.

Let me get this right - Frank and Mamah are both still married.  Frank tells Mamah that Catherine wants him to wait a year before they talk about divorce.  I'm wondering just how truthful he's being with Mamah.  He's walked all over Catherine, now he seems to be manipulating Mamah.  He knows she can translate German.  How convenient.  Why not take  her along to Berlin - with all the benefits.  Notice the name of the novel is not "Loving Mamah."  I question his feelings, his motives.  I think he's using her.
I don't feel so bad for Catherine - I think she has been there before and that if she ignores the affair, it will go away.  It always does.

Loving Frank....yes, Traudee, Mamah might believe  she loves him. They  are soul mates - he appreciates her, after all.  Isn't that what love is all about - being recognized by a superior man?  Mamah seems to believe that.  She desperately tries to justify leaving the children.  They have nannies now.  They don't need her.  Of course that's not true.  We know she's going to have to realise that.

Poor Edwin. He doesn't know what to do.  He doesn't have much choice, does he, Ann?  I'm interested in the timing - when was Martha conceived?  Are we sure she's Edwin's?  She's three when Mamah leaves. 

I went on a search for the house FLW build for the Cheneys - check this out ~

The Edwin Cheney house - photos with Nancy Horan

[straudetwo]

JoanP, a WONDERFUL link!  It's so good to have this information about the house at this time.
Thank you. 

Mamah spoke Geman and French; she had entertained the idea of translating poetry into English and also begin writing.  In Boulder she waits a few days before confiding into Mattie.  Like Lizzie, Mattie does not approve.  Mamah is stung when Mattie tells her that she has led a privileged life as Ed's wife, though it is true enough.
When Mattie cautiously asks about Martha, Mamah blushes and says "She's Ed's."  Well.

Ed worshipped the ground Mamah walked on. He was solid and reliable, Mamah says so herself.
Did he have flaws other than "simple tastes", like Cuban cigars, to much of an orderly mind and not a reader?  I believe Mamah, the youngest of the girls,  was spoiled.

Obviously Mamah dad not seriously considered a new life in Boulder living in a boarding house alone with the children in a low-paying job.  Besides the children missed their father, especially John.
Then came Frank's letter (page 77).

I wonder what you think of the letter?  To me it sounds like a business proposition, or a summons.
But it was all Mamah needed. And off she went in the middle of the night ...
Mercy!

[maryz]

There's an article about the Guggenheim Museum and the Larkin Building (FLW's first commission) in the current Newsweek magazine.  Click here to get to the story.

[straudetwo]

maryz Many thanks for the excellent link.  What an interesting article!  "hot-shot architect".
He must have been that.  A visionary, an innovator, a genius. 
And as a man?

JoanP,  Ed Cheney gave Mamah a divorce,  but Catherine Wright held out until 1922 (!). A revenge of sorts?

[ANNIE]

Joan
I wondered about Martha's conception also but weren't FLW and Mahmah more or less separated at that time?And I am cynical about his excuses that he uses not to be with her.  Probably most married men who want to have a fling will use the "we haven't been man and wife for years" for a reason to be with another woman.  Its really common!

Having said that, I must remember his own words quoted by friends.  Maybe he felt more than we give him credit for.  In a book full of FLW quotes remembered by his friends, he says, in 1912 about Mahmah, "... I love the woman who has cast in her lot with me here not wisely but too well. She too has her remunerative work -- as I have. She is quite able to supply her own needs -- and we work together ..."
Source: About Wright: An Album of Recollections by Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright, page 73.

[ANNIE]

Joan,
That is a wonderful link and really adds a lot to the book itself.  I love the Faust connections, just amazing!

[JoanP]

Ann, I thought it was interesting that Nancy Horan lived seven blocks from the Cheney House, walking by every day.  She says in that link that she did not want to judge anyone - just present the story and leave the rest to the reader. 

"Does that mean I have to play this hand to the bitter end, full of regret?  Knowing I might have had the happiest life imaginable with the one man I love more than any other I have ever known?"

 

I keep reading Mamah's question to Mattie - over and over again.  Because of the children, the answer is always "yes" - but in my heart of hearts, I feel I understand her dilemma.  One life to love - and the discovery of  what it feels like to really be in love. 
Mamah believes it is fate that has brought them together, that they were meant to be.  Yet, she realizes the danger...

"What am I after that I court disaster standing here in this field with you. "

I don't think she's really planning to give up the children. She couldn't do that, could she?   I don't think she's thinking clearly.   Mattie sees the situation as it is. 
Mamah has always been reckless, she says.  And she gets Mamah to admit that  Frank has persuasive powers -

"Pretty soon you start seeing things through his eyes.
He shows you how much better you can live."

Does this sound like a suffragette speaking?  What exactly is a suffragette/suffragist anyway?
What sort of change does she advocate?

FLW - the "hotshot"  architect  is focused on his work.  But he has no problem leaving his children or taking the star-struck mother from hers.  I don't think he's really planning to leave his children. Mattie gets it right , I think, when she says - "The man's values have flown right out of his abstract windows."

I see a man with no values and a woman who believes that he is her only chance at happiness.  I find it difficult to care about either one of these two.  The children have my pity.  I'm interested to hear how they weathered this abandonment. 

I think I'm going to have to pay closer attention to FLW's architecture - that I can appreciate.  Not so certain about those low ceilings though - he himself is short in stature.  He seems to be a rather self-centered architect, doesn't he?

Have you ever seen the commercial - the famous, haughty architect who asks the perspective client, "What can I do for you?" (you need his intonation) and she reaches into her purse and pulls out a faucet, saying, "design a house around this."  His eyebrows shoot up - as if he has met a real challenge.  Do you think he's supposed to be FLW?

[ANNIE]

If one remembers, Mahmah married Edwin because her parents were so worried about her single status at an advanced age.  Don't ask(her age), I don't remember.  And he was acceptable to her parents. I cannot imagine what it would be like to marry when I wasn't sure of  my feelings.

Yes, they do come off as Star Crossed Lovers.  Lovers that poetry is written about.  There are a few quotes from FLW concerning Mahmah.  Because if he meant what he said about her after her death, he did care for her, deeply.

Did we leave a question about Shakespeare's sonnet 116??  This is in my book. 
 
Shakespeare writes " Let me not to the marriage of true minds /Admit impediments.  Love is not love/ That alters where it alteration finds..." 
 
How does the relationship of Mamah and Frank bear out the sentiments of Shakespeare's sonnet?  What other famous love matches fill the bill?

How about Wm Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies???

By the by, I love the quote about having "to play this hand to the bitter end, full of regret?  Knowing I might have had the happiest life imaginable with the one man I love more than any other I have ever know?" 
The poor woman was besotted!  She had never felt this way about any man. 
 
"But what about duty and honor, says Mattie."  Hmmmm, what about it???  Again the Victorian thread of thought or is it?  If one is trying to a moral person, what does one do???  Remember the woman in  "The Bridges of Madison County"?  She chose to be faithful to her husband and their family. 

[straudetwo]

Ann,  "besotted" is the right term.  And the author gushes a little too much IMHO.

Mamah married at 30 And Mattie was 32 when she married; both a little beyond the "marriageable age".  In this connection we might think of Lily Bart in Edith' Wharton's The House of Mirth written in 1905, or perhaps Emma Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

A good part of this immortal love seems to have been red hot passion.  Whatever was between them, it cannot have been easy for her, especially in view of the extremely close relationship FLW had with his mother.  She lived with him and Catherine; she lived with him and Mamah in Taliesin. Mrs. Wright  made no secret of the fact that she disliked Mamah; she treated her shabbily.  But we have yet to come to that, of course.

Other famous lovers?  Well, there's Emma Lady Hamilton, one of the most beautiful women of her time,  and Lord Nelson, the hero of Trafalgar.

And then there's the Irish-(or English-born) adventurer and dancer Lola Montez, the mistress of mad King Ludwig the First of Bavaria, who made her Countess of Landsfeld and banished her after she meddled in  local politics.  An interesting life she had, before and after ...  She toured the U.S. and died in New York.

Of Hearst and Davies I know only what is suggested in the movie Citizen Kane with Orson Welles.  I'd like to think, though, that the relationship between Mamah and FLW was on a somewhat higher plane (for wont of a better word).

Duty and honor may have been Victorian values, but -  together with responsibility -  shouldn't they still be valid considerations now - no matter how much the bed-hopping, sparsely clad celebrities of our day attract the ogling, salivating multitudes? 

[JoanP]

Do you think Mamah married Edwin because her parents were concerned that she had passed the "marriageable"  age?  Or did she make the decision on her own?  She admitted to Mattie that her prospects had slimmed down in Port Huron after college.

Ironic, isn't it?  She married him because she wanted to have children - and now it's the children who are making it such a difficult decision to get out of the marriage.  But when was Martha conceived?  Wasn't it at the same time the house was under construction? When she was dallying with the architect...I'm sorry, when she was falling in love with FLW?  She tells him that she is pregnant and so they stop seeing one another for two years or so ...I'm not convinced that she was conceived during the construction - by Edwin, while she feels this passion for Frank.

I'm having a tough time answering the first question in the header. "Is Mamah's story relevant to the women of today? "

I was about to say "yes" - that Mamah's behavior is more like that of a "modern"  woman, until you both remind me of some of the great passionate loves of the Victorian Age.  Will Mamah really leave the children, though?  That seems be against the nature of a woman - in any age.  Right now, she doesn't seem to be thinking clearly.  She's not thinking of giving them up to Edwin permanently - or is she?
Still, isn't the last scene heartwrenching - when she leaves them with Mattie's nanny to wait for "daddy"  to come and get them - while she takes off with her true love.  I can't stand it!  And to think that this really happened!



 

[straudetwo]

JoanP, perhaps I have been too harsh on Mamah. What right do we have to judge?  But it DID happen, no matter how hard the Wright scholars tried to expunge FLW's part in it.

It is abundantly clear from the text in the links that she did leave the children (in the middle of the night, we are told by her)  and sailed off to Europe with Frank, who dazzled he people on the ship, that they posed as man and wife (!), and that Frank, when asked how many children they had, boldly said "Nine", at which time the company at table complimented Mamah on her appearance ... 

[joangrimes]

I just cannot judge Mamah so harshly.  I have not walked in her shoes.  True I cannot see myself leaving my children but still how do I know.  I have not been in her place.

At first I had a hard time admitting that I felt the way that I have just expressed here but I do.  So if you all think I am terrible because I feel that way so be it.

I am so glad that I read this book.   

Joan Grimes

[JoanP]

hahaha, JoanG!  No, I don't think you are a terrible person - at all.  In fact, we probably all have one great love that we put aside for one  compelling reason or another - but still wonder what life would have been had we followed our hearts.

You're right - it's the children that we can't get past.  Traudee, I  maintain that Mamah did not intend to abandon her children when she took off for Paris with FLW.  She knew that their father was coming for them.  She planned to come back.   She just wanted to test the waters, to see what would happen if she went with Frank for a trial period.  Granted, 6 months is a long time for a time-out from the children.  That's what I don't understand.

Here's a question...does FLW really  believe that Mamah will be able to stay away from her children for any length of time?  Why would he think that?  How can he be in love with such a cold-hearted woman?

[joangrimes]

Frank Lloyd Wright was an utterly selfish person. He was completely self-centered.  I am sure that he felt that he was such a prize that Mamah would be able to stay away from her children as long as she had him.

What I have trouble with is  why did Mamah not see this.  But I suppose that when one is so much inlove that they are looking at the person through "rose-colored glasses".  That must have been it.

Joan G

[ANNIE]

I am reading back away and really enjoying the way the author made Mahmah such a kind mother.  I love her story about her father being a railroad man (after he was an architect) and how she was born and grew up('til age 6), in Boone, Iowa where they were not afraid of wild things.  She says that they were wild themselves.

 She remembers killing chickens for eating and a copperhead snake.  Her father's rule for the children was "Anything we found, we could raise".  So they adopted a litter of baby mice whose mother had vanished.   They fed them with an eyedropper and tried to keep them, but they also ran off.  Her sister( is this the old maid sister who moved into Mahmah and Edwin's new home?) loved the horned tomato caterpillars and they were her babies   Once they had a skunk for awhile, named Petunia.

I love these stories that Mahmah shares with her son, John.  About the note she left in her bedroom floorboard when they moved away.  She seemed to love that prairie land so much.  She was six when they left.
I know this is the fleshing out of Mahmah by the Nancy Horan but it does make Mahmah more human, not cold. And some of this may be true. 
And somewhere, we might find what her father and mother were like.

[JoanP]

I've been trying to match that happy little girl on the Prairie with the woman who could leave behind her own little girl.  She's going to do it, isn't she? Reckless, without any thought for how the children will adjust.  I think of that little girl,  "not afraid of wild things.  She says that they were wild themselves. Wild, that's how Mamah seems to be now, doesn't she?
 
 I looked up "suffragette" - which I learned is really a derogatory term.  The correct tern  is "suffragist."  The wild child now wants more than the vote, as she marched for women's rights -

 

It's 1909 I couldn't have imagined that back then we wouldn't have suffrage by now.
All the talk revolves around getting the vote.  That should go without saying.  There's so much more personal freedom to gain beyond that."

There's so much more personal freedom to gain beyond that

Is that it?  Does Mamah feel constrained by her role as wife and mother?  Does she value freedom, above all else?  Above her children?  It's almost as if she feels entitled to her freedom - as strongly as she once felt women were entitled to the vote.

Now what do you think of the fact that her father was a train man - but first he was an architect.  Do you think that this is part of the attraction to FLW?  Will she follow him the way she left the happy life on the Prairie to follow her father, the train man.

I'm ready to read on - but in my heart, I know that Mamah will not be able to forget those two kids - even though she believes she can.

[straudetwo]

JoanP, throughout this first part I have wondered how serious Mamah really was about women's suffrage = women's right to vote.  The women who fought, marched and petitioned for that right were called suffragettes, a logical derivative of the term,  not only in this country but  also in Europe,  notably in the Netherlands, and in Sweden - as we will shortly see in Part Two. 

The leading promoters of suffrage in this country were Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Suan B. Anthony (1820-1902). 
Stanton and Anthony met at the Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Mass in 1850; both attended the Women's Convention at Seneca Falls in 1851.  Neither lived to see their dream fulfilled. But the movement continued to grow.
In 1918 President Wilson showed support. Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which granted women the right to vote, took 2 more years.
The right to vote is a privilege many women take for granted these day and, sadly, do not always exercise.  Yet women still do not have full equity. Though some have broken through the glass ceiling, women still do not receivet equal pay for equal work done by men.

How serious was Mamah in her quest?   Was it the independence of women generally, or also the right to vote? We don't know.  What we infer from Mattie,  Mamah enjoyed the company of men (she admits it herself) but was not overly concerned with effectively searching for one to marry,  unlike Mattie.  Mamah may well have been what we call "a party girl" nowadays. Edwin pursued her
untl she finally said "yes". 

Edwin made it easy for her.  He was the perfect foil, and she walked all over him. She took classes, had assignations with FLW, was active in her club, organized an amateur presentation of "The Taming of the Shrew", and left the children to a nanny and running of the household to Lizzy. Without any compunction she abandoned them in Colorado in the middle of the night, alone in a boarding house, to "honeymoon" (her words) with FLW.