The Martindale Sisters of La Crosse Project

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1888

Henrietta is the eldest of three siblings, born in La Crosse on February 3, 1888, to Stephen IV and Sophie (Rosenblatt) Martindale. 

 

1907

H graduates from La Crosse Central High School, and enters Smith College, a private liberal arts college for girls, in Northampton, MA. 

She leaves Smith College for health reasons, either in the fall of 1908 or winter of 1909 (letters mention fatigue and re-occurring tooth infections), and returns home to La Crosse to rest.

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1910

In her letters to her sister Katharine, who is now a college student at Smith College, H writes from home about her expected return to Smith College in the fall and hopes to room with K.  During the years 1910-1914, H's plans and whereabouts fluctuate between La Crosse, a return to Smith,  Amherst, (MA), Vermont, and Chicago, with the beginnings of serious soul searching coming out in her letters. 

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1914-15

H is enrolled as a student at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst (today the U of MA-Amherst), studying Botany. She writes to K about unfinished coursework at Smith and difficult correspondence with certain professors, which makes us think that she has perhaps not yet graduated from Smith. This will eventually be resolved over time, and transcripts from Smith College show that she did eventually graduate. 

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1916

H is now in Chicago, studying Botany as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and "working" for Jens Jenson as an unpaid intern drawing landscaping maps. During the next few years, H will become influenced by and involved with the growing Chicago Renaissance Movement that is sweeping Chicago. The movement brings leaders together in this paradigm shift, including faculty at the U of Chicago, Jens Jensen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Professor Ferdinand Sheville, Clarence Darrow, etc. The new field of Ecology is born, along with what J. Ronald Engel calls "civil religion and public ethics" in the struggle to save the Dunes. H is very much a part of this movement, and chances are it is during this period of her life where she first hears about and perhaps meets Dr. Charles Eastman, reformer, writer, educator, and who was quickly becoming the most educated and famous Native American in the country. He and his wife, poet Elaine Goodale Eastman, had started a summer camp for (white) girls in the woods of New Hampshire in 1915. Henrietta, always striving to improve her health, writes to her parents during the spring of 1918 of her plans to attend this "summer camp for Indian girls" and "get hunkier". 

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1918

H is a camp counselor at the summer camps for Indian girls. In August of 1918, Charles and Elaine lose their eldest daughter, Irene, to the national epidemic Influenza after WWI. They are devastated and cannot grieve together as a couple. Mrs. Eastman returns to the city, Dr. Eastman remains at the camp. Henrietta writes back to her family that she is "taking care" of Dr. Eastman in his grief. She herself falls sick, and so he in turn helps to nurse her back to health. She writes of her admiration and love, referring to more of a paternal love. Nonetheless, she conceives a child with Charles Eastman. 

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1919

H's life, now completely turned upside down with her pregnancy, is hard to pin down because of a lack of clear information in her letters. She intends on keeping the child, convinced that Charles' lost daughter Irene has been reincarnated through her. In the meantime, she has come to Charles to announce her pregnancy, and assumes that he will take the child. However, rumor of this illegitimate child with a "camp counselor" reaches Elaine's ears, and although Charles will deny it vehemently, Elaine confronts him, and asks him to assume his responsibility by either providing for the child, or marrying the mother. Charles angrily insists that the mother is either lying or that the child is not his. Charles and Elaine's high profile and public marriage is over. They separate in hatred, never divorce, and never see one another again. 

H hides the truth from her parents, writes "confidential" letters to K begging her to keep the secret until H is ready to reveal the identity of the child. Using her usual poor health and fatigue as a coverup, she collaborates with her Aunt Anna Martindale, who is living in Los Angeles as a single woman, and creates the official story that she is going to visit Anna, rest up, gain strength, and start plans for a garden business that she will later implement in the Indiana Dunes property. Letters from Anna to H's parents show that Anna plays along and reveals nothing of the truth, writing only cheerful and newsy letters about H's improving health. On July 10, 1919 H gives birth to a daughter, named Irene Bonno Hyessa. H writes to K that "Irene has come back to life." 

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1921

H is back in the Midwest, living in Chesterton, IN and renting land in the Indiana Dunes. She writes very newsy and cheerful letters back home, with news of her lodge that she is fixing up for weekend and summer tourists from Chicago. There is no mention of Bonno in these letters.

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1922

Father Stephen IV buys the property in the Indiana Dunes that H has been renting. Upon his death, the land will be deeded to H. He takes out a mortgage for 5 years, for $2000.

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1923

Father Stephen IV dies suddenly in February from a heart attack. We are not sure if H comes to the funeral. After this tragic event, family relations will immediately become embittered and angry, with hostile letters being sent back and forth between H and K, unsuccessful communication attempts between the siblings to make sense of the estate, which will never be resolved and go on to haunt the entire family.

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1923-26

These years of H's life are not documented in letters. What we know is that H is a single mother with no one to provide for her and her child. K has returned to La Crosse for good now, to take over her father's business and take care of mother Sophie. H is living off the generosity of others, living in extremely poor circumstances in the Dunes, has a rural address in Chesteron, IN and refers to "The Lodge". She refuses to communicate with K, who tries to gather information about her through a secret network of mutual friends and acquaintances who may see H from time to time. People who write to K about H are very worried about her, Bonno, and the dire situation they find themselves in. In 1925, H meets Paul Wilson, a loner/loser who has quite the reputation in the Dunes area as a dark man, physically impressive and intimidating, who drinks and gambles with a violent nature, and spends as much time in jail as out of jail. Newspaper reports are numerous.

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1926

H marries Wilson at the courthouse in Valparisio, IN. They live in various places, and their marginal marriage is a classic case of alcohol abuse, domestic violence, poverty, and legal troubles. H writes hostile/accusatory letters to K asking for money that K owes her. H continues to see Charles Eastman from time to time in Chicago and asks Wilson is he can come to live with them. Wilson refuses, and writes bitter letters to Katharine, defending his behavior and accusing Henrietta of being insane. 

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1927

H's physical and mental state deteriorate. She checks in to Memorial Hospital in Michigan City, IN. A nurse writes to K, "I do not know the nature of her illness but it is mental, caused by worry over Mr. Wilson, who has run away, using her money and leaving her in desperate circumstances. I have Bonno with me and she is so happy she thinks all her troubles are at an end now." She encourages K to come right away. K does not. 

 

1928

H's second daughter, Diana "Bluebell" Wilson, is born in Chicago, in June. The family spends Christmas in La Crosse. K is not impressed with Wilson, calls him lazy.

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1929

H's third daughter, Henrietta Wilson, is born in Chicago, in September. They are receiving welfare from the county. Wilson is in and out of jail. 

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1930-32

This period shows that H's choices and consequences have pushed her over the edge of what she can handle. She is under the care of a doctor at various clinics, hospitals, institutions. Doctors, nurses, social workers write to K with their serious concerns about H, her mental status and ability to take care of her daughters. H refuses to sign the settlement on their father's estate. Bills and taxes accrue, unpaid. 

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1932

Fire destroys the house here H and her family are living. H takes her daughters and flees to southern CA to start a new life. Wilson follows. 

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1933-1962

H writes unpleasant, hostile, accusatory letters to both her mother Sophie and her sister K from CA, asking for money. Public and state welfare institutions write to K imploring her to bring H "back home" to WI because they cannot legally assist H. Through letters to K, we learn of H's horrific living conditions, her daughter's malnutrition and school absences. In 1935, H finally divorces Wilson, who will die from a gun wound in 1941 while stealing a car. Bonno will be removed from her home, become a foster child, leave home at an early age, attend Glendale High School, and move to the San Fransisco/Bay area, where she will marry James Cowper, have two daughters, (Ann 1942 & Daphne Maya 1944) get a restrain order on H to protect her own daughters. Bonno attends Berkley, leaves the country to study anthropology in Brazil and abandons her family, who never knows that she returns to CA to marry another man, Fortier (last name) and have four more children. Although H will eventually pick up an irregular correspondence with K through the 1950's, they never see each other again. 

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Charles Eastman dies alone in 1949, on a small piece of property near Detroit on Lake Ontario. He continued to see H in a loving way after H's marriage to Wilson, but there is no evidence that H keeps in contact with him once she moves to CA in 1932.

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H has been estranged from her own children for some time.

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She dies, alone, in her home, from colon cancer, in October 1962.

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K continues to write her, pestering her with questions about family furniture, and not aware that her sister is dead. When her letters are returned, K investigates, and learns of her sister's death from the post office in Pasadena. After obtaining H's death certificate, she contacts the doctor whose name is on the death certificate, and receives a letter from him, informing her of H's declining health during the last year of her life, and of his admiration for H's headstrong determination to face her impending death alone.

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H's daughter Bonno and Katharine correspond through a few letters in the 1960's, giving a new perspective to Bonno's unhappy childhood. 

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