Frances Garfield (1908-2000)

Née Frances Marita Obrist
Aka Frances Wellman
Singer, Musician, Teacher, Author
Born December 1, 1908, Kansas, or Deaf Smith County, Texas
Died May 7, 2000, at home, "Dogwood Acres," Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Frances Marita Obrist was born on December 1, 1908, either in Kansas (by census records) or Deaf Smith County, Texas (by an entry on Find A Grave). Her father, Frank H. Obrist, worked for the U.S. Post Office. Frances received her middle name from her mother, Marita "Mettie" Burke Obrist. Her older brother, William "Bill" Obrist (1904-1981), was a ham radio operator.

Frances Obrist graduated from East High School in Wichita, Kansas, and from the University of Wichita, I believe in 1927. As a student, she was a singer and a musician, president of Epsilon Kappa Rho and secretary of the Woman's Pan-Hellenic Association. After graduating, she became director of piano at Reed Studios of Dancing, Dramatic Art & Music in Wichita. In about 1928, she became an assistant to Mrs. Thurlow Lieurance in the department of voice at the University of Wichita, where she taught voice and piano.

On June 14, 1930, at Fairmount Church in Wichita, Frances Obrist married Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986), who had also graduated from the University of Wichita (when it was still called Fairmount College) and who, at the time, was editor of the Sunday magazine section of the Wichita Beacon. The Wellmans lived together in Wichita for four or five years. In 1934 or 1935, Wellman went to New York to try his hand at professional writing. Frances remained in Wichita with her parents, though only long enough for her husband to sell some stories and earn enough of a living for the two of them. He sent for her and they lived together in New York, New Jersey, and, from 1951 onward, in North Carolina. Their son, Manly Wade Wellman, Jr., was born on November 13, 1939. Known as Wade Wellman, he was also a writer and a collaborator with his father on, among other things, the paperback novel Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds (1975). Wade Wellman died on January 25, 2018, in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Frances Wellman had her own career as a writer, actually two careers separated by nearly four decades. Using the nom de plume Frances Garfield, she had stories in Weird Tales and Amazing Stories in 1939-1940, then in Fantasy Tales, Whispers, and other titles from 1979 to 1988. Many have been reprinted. From the Internet Speculative Fiction Database and The FictionMags Index:

Frances Garfield's Stories & Essays in Weird Tales & Other Publications

• "The High Places" in Weird Tales (Apr. 1939)
• "'Not Both!'" in Weird Tales (May 1939)
• "Gulpers versus Earthmen" in Amazing Stories (Dec. 1939)
• "Meet the Authors" in Amazing Stories (Dec. 1939) with Manly Wade Wellman and Don Wilcox
• "Forbidden Cupboard" in Weird Tales (Jan. 1940)
• "Don't Open That Door" in Fantasy Tales (Winter 1979)
• "The Elementals" also called "Jimmy and the Elementals" in Fantasy Tales (Summer 1980)
• "Sweet Grapes of Autumn" in Kadath (July 1981)
• "The House at Evening" in Whispers #15-16 (March 1982)
• "Come to the Party" in Whispers IV (1983)
• "Amorous of the Far" in Fantasy Tales (Winter 1985)
• "A Dream of Castles" in The 1987 World Fantasy Convention Program Book (1987)
• "Plaza Cosmetica" in The Tome #6 (1990)
• Review of Worse Things Waiting by Manly Wade Wellman in Horror: 100 Best Books (1988)

Many of these were published in association with her husband's work.

Manly Wade Wellman died on April 5, 1986, at his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His wife survived him by more than fourteen years. She also died at home, on May 7, 2000. Like him, she was cremated and her ashes scattered on the grounds of their home, called "Dogwood Acres," in Chapel Hill.

Frances Marita Obrist (spelled O'brist), from the Wichita Beacon, January 16, 1929, page 6.

Thanks to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database and The FictionMags Index for Frances Garfield's compiled story titles.

Original text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley