“The Tenderfoot From Philadelphia”
Owen Wister
(1860-1938)
Known As:
~ Novelist known as The Father of Western Fiction
~ Author of “The Virginian”
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Location:
Laurel Hill Cemetery East
Section : J
Plot: 206 E 1/2 & 207 W 1/2
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† - Denotes a fellow Resident of
Laurel Hill Cemetery
Think of your favorite Western movie. I know what images come to mind. The shootouts, the card game that leave someone feeling cheated that ends with some choice words and the drawling of a six-shooter. All of the elements we know being in every Western that has become cliché, all started with a single man. Now, you would think this man was a cowboy from the roughest of mining towns, working paycheck to paycheck from one ranch to another. Believe it or not, nothing could be farther from the truth. The man responsible for creating the American Wild West Culture was from a very prominent family on the East Coast. Philadelphia to be exact. So, how did a man from The City of Brotherly Love, create such a fascination with a culture so far away? It's a good question to ask and with a story that is begging to be told, we will find out. As we travel through time, let’s look at a little background on the Wistar/Wister family.
To tell the story of any member of the Wistar and/or Wister family, we need to explain the why there are two families that are only a letter apart. Both families began Hans Casper Wüster (1671-1726) and his wife Anna Catherina Müller Wüster (1672-1770). They lived in Germany with their ten children. Yes, I said ten! Two of their sons, decided to seek a better life in America. When the first son, Hans Caspar Wüster (1696 –1752) immigrated to America in 1717 at the age of 46, his name was recorded as Casper Wistar. Then, when Johann Wüster (1708-1789) immigrated to America in 1727, his name was recorded as John Wister. Both men lived their new lives in this new country adopting the names they were recorded as. Each branch would produce people of notable work. For today’s story, we will be focusing on John Wister’s branch of the family.
In April, 1860, seeking a faster way for messages to go between the East Coast and West Coast, The Pony Express begins operations. A series of relay riders mounted on horses between California and Missouri, cutting down delivery time by ten days.
Just as President James Buchanan is leaving office, we see our newly elected successor, Abraham Lincoln.
After the 1857 Supreme Court Dread Scott decision, tensions are running high throughout the United States. Despite our name, we are anything but united. Our country is headed for a War Between The States. However, war would not be declared for another three years. One by one, states begin to secede from the Union. South Carolina becomes the first in December.
In August, Western performer Annie Oakley is born. A month before in July, notorious murderer and subject for the gruesome folk rhyme, Lizzie Borden is born. Just days before, we find ourselves on a cobblestone street in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, standing directly on Germantown Avenue, in front of Advocate St. Stephen's United Methodist Church, which was built thirty years ago in 1830. It is right next door, in a three story mansion at 5203 Germantown Avenue, that Owen Wister is born in the early morning, somewhere in the five o'clock hour. It is July 14, 1860.
The Childhood home of
Owen Wister
5203 Germantown Avenue,
Dr. Owen Jones Wister (1825-1896) and his wife Sarah Butler (1835-1908). Their only child is Owen Wister, but the family called him Dan. With all the Owens in this family, I can only assume they called him Dan to avoid confusion. Dr. Wister is a physician. Sarah Butler is the daughter of Shakespearean actress, and very well connected, Frances Anne “Fanny” Kemble (1809 – 1893). Dan grows up in a very cultured household. At the age of four, Dan begins taking classes in dance, learning to read and begins taking piano lessons. For Christmas, he receives autographed letters from his grandmother. The letters are signed by the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) and Charles Dickens (1812-1870) amongst other men of importance in the field of literature.
Being the early mischievous kid, Dan bounces from one school to another quite frequently. He finally lands at the very prestigious Germantown Academy. While talking about the school, mother, Sarah, says "where his father and grandfather and all previous Wisters went before him and learned nothing”.
Just before Dan turns ten, the family sell their mansion and sail to Europe for the first time. Living there for the next three years, both Dan and his mother begin to speak several languages.
Dan begins developing his writing talents while attending St. Paul's Boarding School in Concord New Hampshire. “Down in A Diving Bell” is his first published work in the school literary magazine in 1874, but not his last. He writes for the magazine until he graduates in 1878.
Through his early years, Dan will occasionally play piano with his cousins Mary Channing Wister (1870-1913†) and her sister, Frances Anne Wister (1874-1956†). Following this passion for music, Dan enrolls in Harvard University as a music major and aspiring composer. He becomes a member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, a club known for burlesque cross-dressing musicals. Formed in 1795, The Hasty Pudding Club is the oldest theatrical organization in America and the third oldest in the world. Dan also becomes a member of an all-male social club known as the Porcellian Club, where he becomes life-long friends with fellow member Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919).
In 1882, he graduates summa cum laude. After graduation, Dan dreams of becoming a professional musician and travels to France for a year of study. His famous grandmother, Fanny Kemble, introduces him to famed composer Franz Liszt. After performing an original composition for him, Lizt tells Fanny that her grandson has “a pronounced talent”.
Bringing his pronounced talent home, Dan returns the United States ready to begin his career as a composer. Being a very conservative physician, Dr. Wister won't hear of it. He insists that his son get a proper job. Dan caves to his father and gets a job in Boston at a bank calculating interests. After two years of working in a stuffy, small office without windows, he has a massive nervous breakdown.
Worried about Dan's health, his family turn to a cousin of theirs, Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914). Mitchel is a physician and considered the Father of Medical Neurology. When it came to nervous men, Mitchel had the perfect solution. He set up a program that sent nervous, city-raised men, out to the Western Frontier. He felt that long periods of hunting, cattle roping, rough riding and male bonding would help restore their masculine energy. Mitchel called it the “Camp Cure”.
Although the Camp Cure is designed for men to be roughing it out in nature, those complete rough edges are sanded down so that the full life-style will not be too harsh on these men. They have many comforts of the modern life. They were not simply dropped in the middle of nowhere. They are accompanied by guides, eat full meals regularly, and routinely frequent many of the small towns that are scattered throughout the frontier. A very important part of the program is for the men to write about their experience. This is something that Mitchel calls “Word Sketching”.
Some of the past participants in the Camp Cure program are painter Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892), and future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. I think the Hair Club For Men president, Sy Sperling, took a page from Mitchell. Not only is Silas Weir Mitchell the doctor, he is also a patient. He discovers this practice when it works so well for himself.
Since Mitchell does such a wonderful job treating fellow Harvard classmate Theodore Roosevelt, Dan seeks his advice and is quickly prescribed The Camp Cure.
In the Summer of 1885, Dan heads for Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Not only is this the exact cure that he needs, Dan discovers a whole new life out on the Western Frontier. The first journal entry is on July 2, 1885. He writes:
Daily entries read like the building of a story. Dan writes about his day-to-day events full of new experiences. He notes having to sleep on a counter after he finds there is no room at the inn. In the first week of his experience, he writes that his first time getting on a bronco is not so great after the horse laid down....with him on it. He also writes about bathing in Deer Creek each morning. In these journals, Dan paints the picture of the most gorgeous scenery he sees along his journey. Through daily conversations with prospectors, saloon keepers, cattle thieves and cowpunchers, he is taking notes on conversations and makes a list of words that are of common use to the locals but are unfamiliar to him.
It is well-known that Dan is out of his element. Because of his lack of knowledge, he is branded a “Tenderfoot”. A lot of city-folk are coming to the West to seek their fortune in the newly discovered mines. These newcomers find the long hours of hard labor are difficult. That the rocks and stones are painful to step on despite wearing boots. Experienced miners often get annoyed by newcomers and begin calling them tenderfoots until they toughen up and their feet are callused.
Dan makes a conscious effort not to shy away from his new tile, instead, embracing it. During a visit to Fort Washakie, a commander tells Dan “I don't sympathize with you men from the East who come here and shoot our game.” Dan simply responds, “Well sir, did you but know how little of it I shot, you would sympathize with me very deeply.” Despite his reputation as tenderfoot, Dan is well liked among all that encounter him.
Upon his return to Philadelphia, Dan goes back to Harvard to study Law. I can only speculate that this is at the urging of his father in his on-going quest for his son to maintain a proper job. Dan pleads with his father for the funds to send him back West for Summer trips, to which his father allows. Dan makes his first return trip to Wyoming in August of 1887, where his journal picks back up. While reading through his journals, one can easily follow his journey on a map as he details each landmark.
During his time out West, Dan makes a name for himself on the frontier. While at Fort Washakie, he attends dances where he is quite the ladies' man. Not only does he come across future outlaws, but to his displeasure, he shares stage coaches with drummers (traveling salesmen). He has quite the disdain for drummers.
Dan continues to rely on the West to spend his summers. However, he graduates Harvard Law School in 1888 and is admitted to the bar the following year. He begins working in law at the offices of Rawle and Ralston, the oldest law firm in the United States today. Dan is doing some clerical work as well as minor dispute cases. He finds his job to be an “unpalatable grind” and feels that Rawle was only giving him enough work to keep him busy.
One night, Dan is having dinner at The Philadelphia Club, one of the oldest exclusive clubs in the United States that still stands at 13th and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia. He is having dinner with his cousin Walter Furness (1861-1914). Their conversation turns to the terrible state of American Literature. Begging the question “where is the American Rudyard Kipling?”. Dan begins asking who will write about real men on our vanishing frontiers. Then it hits him. HE can write it. Dan heads up the stairs to the library at The Philadelphia Club and over the course of the night, he writes his first short story “Hank's Women”. Harper's Magazine pays him to publish it and Dan follows it up with “How Lin McLean Went East”. Based on the success of these two stories in Harper's Weekly, Dan leaves his job at the law firm in 1893 to become a full-time writer. Continuing with his journals, Dan makes yearly trips to the Western Frontier for the next ten years. Taking elements from his journals on his adventures out west, he begins to write a series of short storied books. His first novel, “Lin McLean”, is published in 1897.
Over the years, Dan becomes very close with his cousin, Mary Channing Wister. Although her name was Mary, the family calls her Molly. She is a power house of a woman. Molly is a founder of The Civic Club of Philadelphia, a group that was designed to address social and public reform issues. They aim to promote "by education and active cooperation a higher public spirit and better public order."
Dan and Molly spend a lot of time together and fell in love with one another. They were married on April 9, 1898. They have six children together. Mary Channing Wister (1899-1970†), twins, Owen Jones Wister (1901-1968†), and Frances Kemble Wister (1901-1992), William Rotch Wister (1904-1993), Charles Kemble Wister (1908-1969†), and Sarah Butler Wister (1913-1935†). Being that Molly is kept busy with meetings so often, the children cherish the time they get to spend with her.
Mary Channing Wister (1870-1913)
“One must come to the West to realize what one may have most probably believed all one’s life long—that it is a very much bigger place than the East, and the future America is just bubbling and seething in bare legs and pinafores here. I don’t wonder a man never comes back [East] after he has once been here for a few years.”
Now that Dan and Molly have a family, they build a summer cabin in Moose, Wyoming. Each Summer, the Wister family spend their days camping, horseback riding in the shadows of the Teton Mountains. Francis once spoke about her dreading heading back East. “We could not stand the thought of leaving. What? Sleep in a real bed again? And see trolley cars? How frightful! No more smell of sagebrush? No more rushing Snake River? No more Grand Teton? Why did we have to go back?”
In the years to follow, Dan publishes a collection of Western stories in a book called “Jimmy John Boss”, as well as biographies on Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and George Washington. If you take all of his work up to this point and put it together, it would not come close to the achievement he finds in his next novel.
In 1902, Dan goes back through his journals, taking inspiration and writes his next novel, “The Virginian”. Wanting to bring a sense of realism to his story, he would read it to his friends out west and make the needed changes to make the stories as accurate as possible. This novel brings elements to pop culture that are still used today. There is the tall, slim man of few words who knows how rope cattle on a ranch and handle his pistol. A man who is working on a ranch to reinstate his family's fortune. A high-class love interest who is inspired by Dan's wife Molly. The villain who wears a black hat and takes pride in torturing the protagonist. The eccentric but loyal sidekick. A lynching by a group of vigilantes. The villain challenging the hero to a show-down on the street. The card game that goes wrong and starts an argument.
Speaking of that famous card game. This excerpt from the book causes some controversy. The Virginian, whose name is never revealed, and his arch nemesis, Trampas, are playing cards in a saloon when this happens:
It was now the Virginian's turn to bet, or leave the game, and he did not speak at once.
Therefore Trampas spoke.
“Your bet, you son-of-a-bitch.”
The Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas:
“When you call me that, SMILE.”
And he looked at Trampas across the table.
This is the Victorian Era and you cannot talk like that. When the book is published, this line is replaced with “Your bet, you son-of-a—.” Dan is not happy with the censoring of his work. This is how they speak in the West and this is how it should be presented. Publishers feel differently. It is not until later editions of the novel that the phrase, in its entirety, was placed back into the text.
The book is dedicated to Dan's old college buddy Theodore Roosevelt, who is now the President of The United States. The dedication simply reads:
To THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Some of these pages you have seen, some you have praised, one stands new-written because you blamed it; and all, my dear critic, beg leave to remind you of their author's changeless admiration.
The novel is an instant success, publishing 100,000 copies in the first year. The New York Times calls it the closest thing to THEE American novel that has ever been written. It is translated into many languages. To this day, “The Virginian” has never been out of print.
Although he came from a family of fortune, “The Virginian” makes him exceedingly independently wealthy. Dan is now the new national celebrity, touring all over the country to promote the book.
Before “The Virginian”, cowboys were depicted as murderous thugs. Dan is the first one to break that stereotypical boundary by creating a cowboy who is handsome with humanistic qualities. He gets drunk, plays practical jokes but also shows that you could not mess with him, with the simple line “when you call me that, smile.” This novel created a new kind of hero, one that had never been seen before: The Cowboy. Little boys began wearing ten-gallon hats and carrying toy pistols. “The Virginian” sets the standard for all depictions of the West going forward, in book, radio, film and television. “The Virginian” changed how the West was viewed permanently. Wister created the Western template of the cowboy hero who defends justice, defends his girl's honor and shoots it out with the villain. It's because of “The Virginian” that Owen Wister earns the title The Father of Western Fiction. I believe that title needs to be upgraded to The Father Of American Western Culture.
Striking while the iron is hot, in 1904, Dan teams up with Kirk La Shell (1862-1905) to co-produce the original stage production of “The Virginian”, leading to a ten-year run. The first motion picture version of “The Virginian” is released in 1914 and stars Dustin Farnum as the title character. There will be five silver screen versions of the movie, a made-for-television movie and a television series that is “loosely adapted” for NBC television. “The Virginian” template is one that is still in use today.
In 1906, Dan writes “Lady Baltimore”. A novel set in turn-of-the-century South Carolina. Along with the romance and comedy, it serves up social commentary about the tension in town as well as the country. It causes a couple of stirs. Not only about the political aspects, but also about a pastry unique to Charleston, South Carolina.
As a child, Dan remembers the time he spent at The Women's Exchange, a tea room founded by fund-raising women. He remembers attending meetings with his famous family. One fond memory there was the serving of a sweet desert made of meringue, figs, cherries, walnuts, pecans, and raisins, known as Lady Baltimore. It plays a key role in Dan's novel. “Lady Baltimore” becomes Dan's second best-seller and drives the popularity of the desert, which becomes a signature dish in Charleston.
In the Summer of 1913, the five Wister children are now between the ages of 5-14. The family is staying at their new summer home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island. Molly calls her children to her bedside and breaks the news to them that she was having another baby. She tells them that she wants them to grow up to be leaders and to always set a good example for each other. On the evening of August 24, 1913, Molly gave birth to Sarah Butler Wister. Later in the night, Molly develops complications and passes away. Her cause of death is recorded as “Died of shock after delivery”. Devastated, Dan calls the children to gather on a big rock. He begins to tell them:
“I have a message for you from your mother. It is 'Goodbye'”.
In shock, all of the children questioned in unison “Goodbye?!”
He answered, “Yes, she is dead. You have a little sister.”
After The Great War breaks out in 1914, Dan focuses on his support of the Allied efforts. At Duke University, where Dan is given an honorary degree, he gives the commencement in 1915. He delivers the speech “The Pentecost of Calamity”, coaxing the United States to join the war against Germany. Publishing the speech, it becomes a best-seller.
With his sights set on Europe, Dan travels to England and France frequently, making friends of Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) and Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936).
Dan continues writing novels that are set in Europe that suggests that we improve our relations with England and France. In 1923, Dan writes a comical opera “Watch Your Thirst” displaying his opposition to Prohibition. 1930 sees the publishing of “Roosevelt, The Story of a Friendship” documenting his lifelong friendship that began in their college days.
In the summer of 1938, Dan is now 78 years old, when he returns to his vacation home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island. The very home where his beloved, Molly, passed away 25 years earlier. Dan passes away at the very same home on July 21, 1938 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Both Owen and his wife Mary Wister lay in rest, side by side in their home town of Philadelphia. They are interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery, Section J, Plot 206 E ½ & 207 W ½.
Dan's story does not end with his death however. He may have gained his fame as the author of “The Virginian”, but it was not until after his death that his reputation was sealed as a legend.
Daughter, Fanny Kemble Wister, recalls how it all happens. She receives a letter in 1951, thirteen years after her father's death. The letter is from the director of the University of Wyoming Library at Laramie, Mr. N. Orwin Rush (1907–1999). He writes to Fanny telling her that the following year, the library will be celebrating, with ceremony, the fiftieth anniversary of “The Virginian”. They are collecting a copy of every edition of the book ever published. Mr. Rush inquires if the family had any manuscripts that they could donate to the Wister Room. Fanny replied that she had the impression that all of her father's manuscripts were destroyed after they had been created. She has never seen any manuscripts of his. Fanny tells him that there was “little we could do for The Wister Room”.
A second letter arrives from Mr. Rush asking if Fanny and the family would donate the Western Diaries to The Wister Room. Having never heard of such diaries, and not finding them in his papers, Fanny writes back to Mr. Rush letting him know that she knows nothing about such diaries. A very persistent man, Mr. Rush writes a third letter to Fanny. This time, he quotes from page 28 in her father's published book “Roosevelt, The Story of a Friendship”.
“.. Upon every Western expedition I had kept a full, faithful, realistic diary: details about pack horses, camps in the mountains, camps in the sage brush, nights in town, cards with cavalry officers…”
Mr. Rush then asks where are these diaries? Determined to find them, Fanny rounds up her brothers and they search through their father's things. The youngest brother, Charles, says he will start with their father's desk. He heads up to the second floor at Butler Place and into the library that served as a study and is adjoined to their parents' bedroom. Charles opens the first drawer of his father's desk and there they are! The Wiser Journals had sat in that drawer for sixty-five years. Each of the fifteen journal covers has Owen Wister's signature, along with a date and names of the places he had been to. Each one describes the adventures Dan had taken that eventually made their way into one or more of his stories.
The Wister children all agree that the Wister Journals belong in the hands of the University of Wyoming. They donate them under the condition that they receive a copy of them. The Legislature of the state of Wyoming grants the money needed and the University Library has the journals transcribed for the family. Over the next year, pieces of the journal come one by one.
After reading all the transcriptions, Fanny sees that these journals would tell the story of her father discovering the West in his own words. Within these journals, her father paints the picture of his romantic love for the West. In his own words, her father shares his observations, but he captures a moment in the time that he is there. Everything that the West is in that moment, the culture the vagabonds, the young and wild men, becomes part of the image he creates for future generations.
Fanny adds her father's letters to the journals, and publishes “Owen Wister Out West: His Journals And Letters” in 1958. This book takes a best-selling author and turns him into the legend he is known as today.
Owen Wister’s Desk at Grumblethorpe
(Photo courtesy of Grumblethorpe)
Special Thanks to:
The Pioneers of Out Law Country
Their podcasts on Owen Wister was a tremendous help in telling the story of this Legend of The Old West.
Grumblethorpe
For confirming the location of the Owen Wister Desk.
Laurel Hill Cemetery
For allowing me access to your archives.