Mary McEnnery Erhard (1884-1963)

Teacher, Superintendent, and Author

Born May 4, 1884, Hoboken, New Jersey

Died July 8, 1963, Swansea, Massachusetts

Mary McEnnery was born on May 4, 1884, in Hoboken, New Jersey. Daughter of an immigrant, she came by her Irish surname honestly. In about 1906, she married William Joselin Erhard, who at some point in his career served as priest-in-charge of the Emmanuel Memorial Mission (Episcopal) in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. His ministry also carried the young family to Nebraska and Brownsville, Texas. By 1930, Mary McEnnery Erhard was  back home in Hoboken with her mother, Ida McEnnery, and her three orphaned children. At the time, both Mary and her mother were teachers. In fact, Mary McEnnery Erhard spent twelve years teaching in the New York Public School System. Also in 1930, Mary became superintendent of the Episcopal Church Charity Foundation Home, otherwise known as "The Cottages," in Sayville, Long Island. A small orphanage, "The Cottages" was in operation from 1924 to 1943. Mary McEnnery Erhard served as superintendent from 1930 to 1935, when she left suddenly and mysteriously. Author Jack Whitehouse speculates that she was fired, perhaps through the efforts and ambitions of another employee.

Mary McEnnery Erhard wrote one story for Weird Tales, "Tangled Skeins," printed in the July 1927 issue of the magazine. She also wrote a story called "Lost Bride of Erin" for Catholic World (Mar. 1928). I can only guess that her tale is set in the land of her father's birth. Much of her writing concerned church history and church doctrine.

Mary lived in Sherwood, Tennessee, during the war years and in Swansea, Massachusetts, after that. For all or most of that period, she was a resident of the Eliza Gray Case Home, a retirement home for Episcopal ministers and their wives. She died on July 8, 1963, in Swansea.

Mary McEnnery Erhard's Story in Weird Tales

"Tangled Skeins" (July 1927)

Further Reading

Sayville Orphans Home: The Cottages of Saint Ann's by Jack Whitehouse (2010)

Weird Tales, July 1927, with cover art by Curtis C. Senf.

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for locating the obituary of Mary McEnnery Erhard.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales on Film-Rod Serling's Night Gallery

Rod Serling's Night Gallery

Rod Serling (1924-1975) was one of the heroes of television in what some consider its Golden Age of the 1950s. His science fiction anthology The Twilight Zone went on the air in the final television season of that golden decade and lasted five years, finally succumbing to cancellation in 1964. Six years later, Serling tried his hand at occult and weird fiction with his self-titled TV series Rod Serling's Night Gallery. As with The Twilight Zone, Serling introduced each installment in the anthology. This time Serling's introductions came in his role as the curator of the eponymous gallery. The series grew out of a feature-length pilot, one segment of which was directed by a young Steven Spielberg.

The majority of Night Gallery episodes were Serling's work, either original or as adaptations from magazines or anthologies. Other writers contributed teleplays as well. I have counted six episodes or installments based on stories from Weird Tales. I remember two from when I watched Night Gallery (as the show was known) as a child, "Brenda" and "Pickman's Model." I have recently started watching Rod Serling's Night Gallery again, and I can see why "Pickman's Model," with its fight scene between Pickman and his monster, would appeal to a child. I don't remember "Death on a Barge" from the first time around, but I can recommend it for its performance by a young and very beautiful Lesley Ann Warren and for a peek at another era in television, when there was plenty of sex for the grown-ups and chills and thrills for the kids. The episode concludes with an unsubtle and wholly erotic double entendre, one that would have flown over the heads of the kids watching.

Each season of Night Gallery had a different main title sequence. Each is creepy in its own way, but the sequence from the second season has to rank as one of the best of any television series, before or since. Night Gallery was cancelled with its third season. Two years later, television fans were shocked and saddened to hear that Rod Serling had died at age fifty. Few figures in the medium's history are as well remembered.

Season 1 (1970-1971)

• "The Dead Man" by Fritz Leiber, Jr. (Weird Tales, Nov. 1950), teleplay by Douglas Heyes

Season 2 (1971-1972)

• "The Phantom Farmhouse" by Seabury Quinn (Weird Tales, Oct. 1923, reprinted Mar. 1929), teleplay by Halsted Welles
• "Brenda" by Margaret St. Clair (Weird Tales, Mar. 1954), teleplay by Douglas Heyes
• "Pickman's Model" by H.P. Lovecraft (Weird Tales, Oct. 1927, reprinted Nov. 1936), teleplay by Alvin Sapinsley
• "The Dear Departed" by Alice-Mary Schnirring (Weird Tales, May 1944), teleplay by Rod Serling

Season 3 (1972-1973)

• "Death on a Barge" by Everil Worrell (Weird Tales, Dec. 1927, as "The Canal," reprinted Apr. 1935), teleplay by Halsted Welles

Other Stories by Tellers of Weird Tales from
Rod Serling's Night Gallery 

• "The Doll" by Algernon Blackwood (The Doll and One Other, 1946)
• "The Horsehair Trunk" by Dave Grubb (Collier's, May 25, 1946, as "The Last Laurel")
• "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes" by Margaret St. Clair (McLean's, 1950)
• "Death in the Family" by Miriam Allen deFord (Stories That Scared Even Me, edited by Alfred Hitchcock, 1967)
• "The Devil Is Not Mocked" by Manly Wade Wellman (Unknown Worlds, June 1943)
• "Big Surprise" by Richard Matheson (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 1959, as "What Was in the Box")
• "House--With Guest" by August Derleth (Lonesome Places, 1962, as "House--With Ghost)
• "The Dark Boy" by August Derleth (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Feb. 1957)
• "Cool Air" by H.P. Lovecraft (Tales of Magic and Mystery, Mar. 1928)
• "The Painted Mirror" by Donald Wandrei (Esquire, May 1937)
• "Lagoda's Head" by August Derleth (Source unknown)
• "The Funeral" by Richard Matheson (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Apr. 1955)
• "The Caterpillar" by Oscar Cook (Switch on the Light, 1931, as "Boomerang")
• "Little Girl Lost" by E.C. Tubb (New Worlds, 1955)
• "The Return of the Sorcerer" by Clark Ashton Smith (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, Sept. 1931)
• "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" by Fritz Leiber, Jr. (The Girl with the Hungry Eyes and Other Stories, 1949)
• "The Ring with the Red Velvet Ropes" by Edward D. Hoch (Source unknown)

Rod Serling in his role as after-hours guide to the Night Gallery.

And Lesley Ann Warren in her role as Hyacinth in the Night Gallery episode "Death on a Barge," based on a vampire story, "The Canal" by Everil Worrell, originally published in Weird Tales magazine.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

H.A. Noureddin Addis (1884-1958) & Marguerite Lynch Addis (1880-1948)

H.A. Noureddin Addis

Aka Harold K.P. Addis, Harold Ahmed Noureddin Addis, H.K. Addis, Ahmed Noureddin, Noureddin Addis

Né Harold Kenneth Peebles Addis

Author, Tradesman, and Grocer

Born August 6, 1884, Chesterhill, Ohio

Died December 16, 1958, Los Angeles, California

Marguerite Lynch Addis

Née Marguerite Theresa Lynch Ovens

Author and Librarian

Born October 11, 1880, Kennington, London, England

Died April 16, 1948, Los Angeles, California

Harold Ahmed Noureddin Addis sported a very Muslim-sounding name, despite the fact that he was born the blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned son of an Ohio farmer. He came into the world as Harold Kenneth Peebles Addis in Chesterhill, a small town on the fringes of Appalachia, and matriculated at Ohio State University. On the day before his twenty-first birthday, Addis left the United States for Europe. A few months later he applied for a passport in Paris so that he might travel to Turkey. According to an autobiographical sketch that appeared in The Overland Monthly in 1916 (below), Addis "resided in Constantinople" and "[w]as closely associated with some of the leading members of the Committee of Union and Progress of the Young Turk Party prior to the revolution of July, 1908." Recently married, Addis returned stateside in early 1907. Although he was still traveling under the name Harold K.P. Addis, it wasn't long before he began using alternate names.

Addis' wife on that homeward trip was Marguerite Theresa Lynch Ovens, born October 11, 1880, in Kennington, London, and baptized at St. Philip Lambeth Parish in Surrey. Her mother was British, her father a Chilean-born naval officer. In 1901, Marguerite was living with her mother in London and working as a shorthand writer (or stenographer). Harold Addis claimed to have married at age twenty-two. That would have placed the happy occasion in about 1906, or shortly before the couple set off for America. In any case, by 1910 the Addises were living in Marion, Ohio, where Harold worked as a grocer and headed a growing household of children to whom he gave Muslim names.

In the 1910s, Harold and Marguerite Addis moved west, settling in southern California. Harold worked as a carpenter and grocer and began selling stories and articles to magazines, including Asia, Adventure, and The Overland Monthly. He later added Weird Tales and Five-Novels Monthly (with Charles Saxby) to his list of credits. Marguerite Lynch Addis, later a public librarian, tried her hand at writing, too. For Weird Tales, she wrote an article, "Sorcery Past and Present" (June 1927). She also authored a book called George the Rooster, published in 1945. Her husband's lone work for Weird Tales was the story "Doctor Grant's Experiment," which appeared in the first-anniversary issue, May/June/July 1924. He, too, wrote a book, Arrow of Flame (verse, 1946), published under the name Noureddin Addis.

The Addises lived in Long Beach, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre for many years. Marguerite Lynch Addis died on April 16, 1948, in Los Angeles or Los Angeles County. Her husband followed her to the grave on December 16, 1958.

H.A. Noureddin Addis' Story in Weird Tales

"Doctor Grant's Experiment" (May/June/July 1924)

Marguerite Lynch Addis' Article in Weird Tales

"Sorcery Past and Present" (June 1927)

Further Reading

On the Internet, there is a great deal on or by Addis and the world of which he wrote. There is comparatively little on his wife. It's an interesting story, though, involving revolution and the end of an empire. Addis and his milieu are deserving of further research. Addis is also covered briefly in Ohio Authors and Their Books, 1796-1950 (1962), edited by William Coyle. Also in that book is a listing for Hugh Addis (1909-    ), another author born in Chesterhill and a resident of Sierra Madre, California. Hugh Addis wrote mystery stories. I assume Hugh Addis and Harold K.P. Addis were related.

An autobiographical sketch, a photograph, and the first few paragraphs of a story by Ahmed Noureddin, aka Harold K.P. Addis, from The Overland Monthly, 1916.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Poetry of Helen V. Rowe

Helen Van Arsdale Rowe, known to readers of Weird Tales as Helen Rowe Henze, was born in Pennsylvania but went to school in Kansas City, Missouri. Even as a high school student, she was an ambitious poet, as the following verse shows. These three poems, "The Gulls," "The Voices of Nature," and "The Journey," are from her high school yearbook, the Westport High School Herald, 1918.

These poems, published in 1918, would appear to be in the public domain.

Original text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley. 

Carlos G. Stratton (1900-1967)

Attorney, Humanitarian, Author

Born April 4, 1900, Louisville, Kentucky

Died September 16, 1967, Los Angeles, California

Carlos Gordon Stratton was born on April 4, 1900, in Louisville, Kentucky, the only child of a pair of Hoosiers. His father, Don Carlos Stratton, was born in June 1869 when the memory of the Civil War was still fresh. It's likely that Don C. Stratton was named for the Union general Don Carlos Buell, who lived in Indiana before the beginning of the war. Carlos Gordon Stratton, then, was named for his father and his mother, and perhaps indirectly for a Civil War hero.

The Stratton family moved from Kentucky to Colorado sometime between 1900 and 1910, when the census taker found them in Las Animas. By 1920, they were in Denver. Carlos Stratton served as a private in the Student Army Training Corps (S.A.T.C.) in Denver during World War I. He went on to graduate from the University of Denver in 1922 and the Denver Law School in 1925.

Stratton practiced patent law in Denver and wrote for Dicta, a journal of the Denver Bar Association. According to a family member, Stratton met with great success as a lawyer in Denver and retired to Mexico to take up writing. One result may have been his lone story for Weird Tales, "A Pair of Mummies," from March 1925. 

By 1930, Stratton was back in Denver, but only for a while. Family troubles and his disillusionment with the city sent him packing to southern California in 1934. There Stratton built a new career and a large estate. Stratton Lane in San Marino, California, is named for him. Stratton served for a time as acting consul of The Netherlands for Colorado and New Mexico. He was also very involved in the Rotary Club, the Republican Party, the Presbyterian Church, and various professional groups. Carlos Gordon Stratton died on September 16, 1967, in Los Angeles.

Carlos G. Stratton's Story in Weird Tales

"A Pair of Mummies" (Mar. 1925)

Further Reading

You can read more about Carlos Stratton in The Rotarian magazine, as well as in his obituary in the Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1967. Another brief article and a photograph appeared on the front page of the Torrance Herald, September 11, 1941.

Carlos G. Stratton in a diminutive photograph from his college yearbook at the University of Denver, 1922.

Carlos G. Stratton (1900-1967)

Note: Thanks to Randal A. Everts for further information on Carlos G. Stratton, including the portrait photograph.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Royal W. Jimerson (1895-1958)

Newspaperman and Author
Born September 4, 1895, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Died August 3, 1958, Redwood City, California

Royal Wade Jimerson was born on September 4, 1895, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and as a child lived in Menomonie, Wisconsin. At the time he filled out his World War I draft card, Jimerson was back in the city of his birth and working as a newspaper reporter for The Music Trades with offices in the Railway Exchange Building. At age twenty-two, he may have been a recent graduate, his alma mater being the University of Wisconsin. Jimerson was a reporter for the Minneapolis Star and the Minneapolis Tribune for five years before the papers merged. He relocated to California in 1925, joining the San Francisco Examiner as a rewrite man. Jimerson moved up to reporter on the San Francisco Chronicle in 1934 before returning to the Examiner in 1937 as financial editor. He became political editor a year later. Ill health forced Jimerson to retire in 1954. He died a month short of his sixty-third birthday, on August 3, 1958, in Redwood City, California.

Jimerson wrote just one story for Weird Tales, but it proved a popular one. Called "Medusa," it appeared in the April issue, 1928. It was reprinted in the magazine a decade later, in the May 1938 issue. It was also reprinted in By Daylight Only: 20 Stories That Keep You Awake (1929), the fifth in a series called "Not At Night," edited by Christine Campbell Thomson and published by Selwyn and Blount. The story is also mentioned in John Clute and John Grant's Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1999) under the entry "Atavism." Jimerson's name appeared in "The Unique Magazine" shortly before and after his story was published, for he wrote to "The Eyrie" in the January and May issues of 1928.

Royal W. Jimerson's Letters and Story in Weird Tales
Letter to "The Eyrie" (Jan. 1928)

"Medusa" (Apr. 1928, reprinted May 1938)

Letter to "The Eyrie" (May 1928)

Further Reading

I don't know of any further reading for Jimerson except his story and his obituary (a brief one) in the New York Times, August 4, 1958.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Capwell Wyckoff's Books

Capwell Wyckoff was a prolific author, despite his relatively short life. The following is an incomplete list of his books, compiled by an unknown author at an untitled website, http://lakeswan.tripod.com/capwell.html.

The Mercer Boys Cruise in the Lassie (A.L. Burt Company, 1929)

The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest (A.L. Burt Company, 1929)

The Mercer Boys on a Treasure Hunt (A.L. Burt Company, 1929)

The Mercer Boys Mystery Case 1929 (A.L. Burt Company, 1929)

The Mercer Boys on the Beach Patrol (A.L. Burt Company, 1929)

The Mercer Boys in Summer Camp (A.L. Burt Company, 1929)

The Mercer Boys as First Classmen (A.L. Burt Company, 1930)

The Secrets of the Armor Room (Saalfield Publishing Company, 1930)

Challenge of the Hills (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1931) 

In the Camp of the Black Rider (A.L. Burt Company, 1931)

The Mystery at Lake Retreat (Saalfield Publishing Company, 1931)

The North Point Cabin Mystery (Saalfield Publishing Company, 1932)

The Mystery of Gaither Cove (Saalfield Publishing Company, 1932)

The Mercer Boys and the Indian Gold (A.L. Burt Company, 1932)

The Mercer Boys with the Air Cadets (A.L. Burt Company, 1932)

The Mercer Boys and the Steamboat Riddle (A.L. Burt Company, 1933)

The Mystery Hunters at the Haunted Lodge (A.L. Burt Company, 1934)

The Mystery Hunters at Lakeside Camp (A.L. Burt Company, 1934)

The Mystery Hunters at Old Frontier (A.L. Burt Company, 1934)

The Sea Runner's Cache (A.L. Burt Company, 1935)

The Mystery Hunters on Special Detail (A.L. Burt Company, 1936)

The Search for the City of Ghosts (A.L. Burt Company, 1936)

Sounding Brass (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1943)

Bright Harvest (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1944)

Victory at Daybreak (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1945)

Singing Heart (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1947)

The Mercer Boys Cruise in the Lassie (World Publishing Company, 1948)

The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest (World Publishing Company, 1948)

The Mercer Boys on a Treasure Hunt (World Publishing Company, 1948)

The Mercer Boys Mystery Case (World Publishing Company, 1948)

The Mercer Boys With the Coast Guard (World Publishing Company, 1949)

Bright Horizons (Zondervan Publishing House, 1949)

The Bells Are Ringing (Zondervan Publishing House, 1949) 

The Mercer Boys in the Ghost Patrol (World Publishing Company, 1951)

The Winning of Kay Slade (Zondervan Publishing House, 1949)

Original text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley