Richard Presley Tooker (1902-1988)

Aka Richard Tooker, Dick Tooker, Dick Presley Tooker, Henry E. Lemke

Author, Reporter, Editor, Publisher, U.S. Marine, Cowboy, Musician, Farmer, Deputy County Clerk, etc.
Born July 3, 1902, Farina, Illinois
Died September 28, 1988, Phoenix, Arizona

Richard Presley "Dick" Tooker had a really interesting career as an author of pulp fiction. His output wasn't great, but he wrote and published steadily for thirty years. Science fiction and fantasy seem to have been his specialties, but he also wrote detective stories and Westerns. Tooker had three hardbound novels to his credit. He was also a prizewinning essayist and a writer of letters to magazines. He wrote an early zombie story as well, and an early essay on the Superior Man-type story. Because of his stories in Astounding Science-Fiction and other magazines of the 1930s and '40s, he can be considered an author of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Tooker came into the world on July 3, 1902, in Farina, Illinois. His parents were George Latimer Tooker and Laura Jane (Switzer) Tooker. As a boy, he lived in Illinois and North Dakota. In the 1920s, he served as a private in the U.S. Marine Corps. From the 1930s onward, Tooker lived in Phoenix. In the 1950s and '60s, he worked as a deputy county clerk in that city. One of his duties was to issue marriage licenses. After seven years in that business, he took out his own license and on June 11, 1964, married Jane Katherine Adams. They had a son and, at Richard Tooker's death, three grandchildren.

Tooker was near retirement age when he married. The last writing credit I have found for him was an article entitled "What Do You Really Know About Sex?", published in the men's magazine Cad in March 1969. I know nothing more on his life and career after that except the date and place of his death, September 28, 1988, in Phoenix. A Marine veteran, Richard Presley Tooker was buried at National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix.

* * *

From 1923 to 1953, Richard Presley Tooker had dozens of stories and a few letters and essays in:

Science fiction and fantasy magazines: Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories and Astounding Science-Fiction, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Science-Fiction Plus, Strange Tales, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Unusual Stories, Weird Tales, and Wonder Stories.

Mystery, crime, and detective magazines: Hardboiled, Popular Detective, and Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories.

Western magazines: Street & Smith's Western Story Magazine and 10 Story Western Magazine.

He wrote three stories for his series character Zenith Rand, Planet Vigilante, in Mystery Adventure Magazine. His first published works in the pulps were a letter to "The Eyrie" (Sept. 1923) and the short story "Planet Paradise" in Weird Tales (Feb. 1924). He had written "Planet Paradise" at age fifteen and revised it for publication. The online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls it "an unsophisticated Planetary Romance." I sense the influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Some other interesting points on Tooker's career:

According to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "He wrote one of the prize-winning essays in the contest launched by Hugo Gernsback, 'What Science Fiction Means To Me' (June 1929 Wonder Stories)."

As Harry E. Lemke, he wrote "Last of the Swarm," published in Wonder Stories in October 1933.

Tooker greatly admired John Martin Leahy's novel Draconda, serialized in Weird Tales from November 1923 to May/June/July 1924. Tooker wrote his own story called "Darcondra" for Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1937.

Tooker wrote an early zombie story, "Zombies Never Die," published in Thrilling Mystery in November 1937.

He also wrote an early essay on what I presume to be the topic of the Superior Man in science fiction, "Toward the Superman," published in Astounding Science-Fiction in March 1939. I would like to read his essay. It might help me understand more about the science-fictional Superior Man.

Tooker wrote three novels published in hardbound editions:

• The Day of the Brown Horde (New York: Payson & Clarke, 1929)
• The Dawn Boy (Philadelphia: Penn Publishing, 1932)
• Inland Deep (Philadelphia: Penn Publishing, 1936)

Inland Deep is a Lost Worlds-type story.

Tooker also had six letters in Weird Tales from 1923 to 1943. As a boy he lived in North Dakota. In 1923, he was in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We can imagine a young man, an aspiring author, fascinated by stories of science and fantasy but living in the middle of America, discovering a new kind of magazine, a unique magazine, seemingly specially made for his interests. He wrote two letters published in "The Eyrie" in the first half-year or so that Weird Tales was in print. He wrote again and again over the next two decades. It must have been a great thrill for him for Weird Tales to publish his first story, "Planet Paradise," in February 1924. He must have been in heaven.

By the way, H.P. Lovecraft also had his first letter in Weird Tales in September 1923.

Richard Presley Tooker's Letters & Story in Weird Tales

• Letter to "The Eyrie" (Sept. 1923)
• Letter to "The Eyrie" (Oct. 1923)
• "Planet Paradise" (Feb. 1924)
• Letter to "The Eyrie" (Feb. 1924)
• Letter to "The Eyrie" (Aug. 1932)
• Letter to "The Eyrie"--"A Magazine for Skeptics?" (Aug. 1934)
• Letter to "The Eyrie"--"Don't Be Funny" (July 1943)

Further Reading
"Tooker, Richard" in the online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, here.
Also, from the Internet Book Database of Fiction, presumably from an earlier source, possibly "Meet the Author" in Amazing Stories, November 1938:

Author Biography: Richard Presley Tooker, the author of The Day of the Brown Horde was born in Farina, Illinois, in 1902 and is of English and Pennsylvania-Dutch parentage. He inherited a flair for adventure from his father's people, who were sea captains, soldiers and adventurers; while from his mother came a literary bent from her relationship to Maurice Thompson, author of Alice of Old Vincennes. His first story was published in magazine form when he was 15 years old. After leaving preparatory school he held several editorial positions with various Western publications. He served for two years with the United States Marine Corps, and for one of his years has had an unusually broad experience, including being an editor, a reporter, soldier, musician, cowboy, railroad clerk, bank cashier, dairyman and farmer, but always has been a believer in his own literary ability. He is a profound admirer of Jack London and oddly enough his own life largely parallels, from a psychological and philosophical angle, Mr. London's Martin Edin. He is at the moment engaged in writing his second novel, tentatively called The Atavist.

Richard Presley Tooker with his soon-to-be wife, Jane Katherine Adams, from the Phoenix Gazette, 1964.

Original text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Shelby Steger (1906-1984)

Office Worker, Author
Born May 29, 1906, Alameda County, California
Died  September 23, 1984, Alameda County, California

Shelby Grove was born on May 29, 1906, in Alameda County, California. Her father, Olin Shelby Grove, was an architect. Her mother was Minnie (Guy) Grove. In 1930, Shelby was living in Oakland and working as an Ediphone operator. In 1940, she was a stenographer working in San Francisco.

Shelby Grove became Shelby Steger upon her marriage to Athol Bruce Steger, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, who worked in San Francisco as a printer. That is presumably where they met and presumably where they were married.

In 1945, the Stegers moved to the Missouri Ozarks so that she would have a peaceful place in which to write. They bought forty acres along the Current River near Van Buren, the seat of Carter County. There, next to Panther Spring and under a shade tree when the weather was good, she composed more than one hundred, possibly close to two hundred stories. Almost all of them were love stories sold to All-Love Stories, Fifteen Love Stories, Love Short Stories, Street & Smith's Love Story Magazine, Sweetheart Love Stories, Thrilling Love, and similar titles. Her lone detective story, "Manhunt!", published in Detective Tales in December 1949, was nationally syndicated in newspapers. Shelby Steger had one story in Weird Tales, "Stay with Me," in March 1950.

Shelby Steger also wrote a newspaper column called "Bear Camp Notes" or "Bear Camp Comments" for the Van Buren, Missouri, Current Local. Her observations on Ozark ways of speaking also went out to the nation's newspapers. Her years in Missouri, 1946 to 1956, seem to have been inclusive of her years as an author of pulp stories. Ace Books published her novel Desire in the Ozarks in 1957. She was a hardworking and dedicated writer, but after that, she seems to have written only small items published in Florida and California newspapers.

The Stegers moved to Tampa, Florida, in 1956. Athol B. Steger died there in mid 1974. Shelby Steger recrossed the country after that and died in the county of her birth on September 23, 1984. She was seventy-eight years old.

Shelby Steger's Story in Weird Tales
"Stay with Me." (Mar. 1952)

Further Reading
"Love Story Writer on Ozark Farm" by Vic Russell in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat Magazine, Sept. 7, 1952, page 14.

Desire in the Ozarks by Shelby Steger, published by Ace Books in 1957. I don't know the name of the cover artist.

Shelby Steger at work, from the article "Love Story Writer on Ozark Farm" by Vic Russell in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat Magazine, Sept. 7, 1952, page 14.

Text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Mary Sharon (1895-1962)

Pseudonym of Henrietta Prouty aka Henrietta Trefon
Author, Poet, Freelance Writer
Born December 29, 1895, Galena, Kansas
Died December 21, 1962, Los Angeles city or county, California

Mary Sharon was the pseudonym of Henrietta Prouty, who was born on December 29, 1895, in Galena, Kansas. Her parents were William Harrison Prouty, a mineworker, and Evalina Melvina "Dolly" (Maitland) Prouty. If I have counted correctly, there were eight Prouty children in all, seven girls and a boy. One of the daughters died on the day she was born.

In reading about Henrietta Prouty and her husband in contemporaneous newspaper accounts, you start to wonder what was true about them and what was mere fancy. Or maybe I should say that you start to realize how little seems to have been true and how much was very likely made up. Did she really know Douglas Fairbanks? Was she really a film actress? Did she really write scenarios and form her own movie production company during the early 1920s? I don't think anyone can say.

And then you run upon a fact:

On May 31, 1919, Henrietta Prouty married a man named Van Simon Trefon (1886-1971) in Los Angeles, California. He was supposed to have been French. In actuality, he was a native of Salonika, Greece. Maybe he was a Frenchman born in Greece.

Then the questions begin again. Did Trefon really arrive in America while working for the Pathé film company? Was he really a stage and movie actor who performed with Madame Petrova, Norma Talmadge, Mary Pickford, and Broncho Billy Anderson? Was he really a linguist, possessing a mastery of ten languages and attaining the rank of captain in the U.S. Army while working in the foreign secret service? Again, I don't think anyone can say.

Neither Mary Sharon nor Van S. Trefon is in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). That may not mean a lot. There are probably myriads of films, actors, directors, photographers, and so on not listed there. Besides that, IMDb has a screwy new format. You can't be sure of finding anything. Mary Sharon or Henrietta Trefon is supposed to have written the scenario for a movie called The Redemption of John Williams in which she was to have played the female lead and her husband was to have been "the heavy lead." Directed by Hoddy Milligan and produced by Ozark Film Company, the movie was shot, in part, in Galena in 1921. Hundreds of people were supposed to have witnessed all of that, but did it really happen? Maybe. Probably. Karl Hoddy Milligan (1881-1951) was a real person. He's listed as a maker of local movies in Main Street Movies: The History of Local Film in the United States by Martin L. Johnson (2018). Maybe The Redemption of John Williams is hiding in its pages under a different title. Maybe Desert Lure, also shot by Ozark Film Company in Galena, also with Van S. Trefon in the heavy lead, is there, too. Or maybe all of these things--all of the films and all of the facts behind them--are now lost.

A newspaper item from 1923 is more down to earth. It announced that Trefon and his wife were establishing an office in Galena for showing slide shows of comic moving pictures. This was to have been in outdoor venues in the city. Enumerated in the 1925 Kansas state census in Galena, Trefon called himself a film photographer. The couple had three young daughters at the time, a pair of twins aged four and a seven-month-old baby. Trefon's name showed up again in newspaper articles of the 1930s when he was a cameraman and independent film producer. Using the stage name Barbara Sharon, his youngest daughter was supposed to have been in the Our Gang comedies.

The Trefons were divorced on November 17, 1934. Nonetheless, Henrietta continued to use her husband's surname as her own. She lived in Culver City, California, as of April 1, 1935. In 1940, calling herself a freelance writer, she was lodging in Los Angeles with her daughters, Marjorie Derelys, aged fifteen, and Barbara Dolores, aged twelve. I don't know where her other two daughters, the twins Lorraine Erma and Maureen Mary, were at the time. If they weren't already married, they soon would be.

In 1945, Henrietta renounced any allegiance to a foreign country and was repatriated as an American citizen despite never having lived abroad. She may have been required to do this because of her marriage to a foreign national. She gave her occupation at the time as "free lance news and magazine feature writer."

In 1950, Henrietta was in Los Angeles and living with her daughter Lorraine Lawrence and Lorraine's two daughters. There had been some drama a few years before involving another of her daughters, Barbara McGlynn. At holiday time 1946, Barbara, separated from her husband and facing eviction from her tiny apartment, drank caustic poison. Fortunately for herself and her baby daughter, she only suffered a burned mouth. Unfortunately she was unable to avoid eviction.

Henrietta Prouty Trefon, aka Mary Sharon, died on December 21, 1962, in Los Angeles city or county, California. She was only a few days short of her sixty-seventh birthday. Tragedy struck a little more than a month later, on January 23, 1963, when her daughter, Barbara Dolores "Bobby" Trefon Eaton and Barbara's four-year-old son died in a house fire. Two of Henrietta's other daughters, Maureen and Marjorie, were blessed with very long lives. I don't know what happened to Lorraine, but I hope she enjoyed a long life, too.

Mary Sharon's Letter, Poem, & Stories in Weird Tales
Letter to "The Eyrie" (written from Galena, Kansas) (June 1923)
"The Ghost" (poem, Feb. 1924)
"The Door of Doom" (Feb. 1924)
"The Cat of Chiltern Castle" (Sept. 1926)

Further Reading

Many newspaper articles on her, her husband, and family from the 1920s through the 1940s.

Text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Bert David Ross (1888-1947)

Pseudonym of Gilbert C. Ross
Aka G.C. Ross
Office Worker, Insurance Salesman, Gardener, Author, Teacher
Born March 8, 1888, Red Oak, Iowa
Died March 30, 1947, Santa Clara city or county, California

Bert David Ross was the pseudonym of Gilbert C. Ross, who also went by his initials as G.C. Ross. Ross was born on March 8, 1888, in Red Oak, Iowa. I haven't found anything on his early life, but on March 15, 1925, Ross married Della Rose Brown in Seattle, Washington. The couple had two daughters, Rose Alyce Ross and Star Aileen Ross.

As of 1928, Ross was working as office manager at Acme Engraving, Seattle, Washington. In 1930, he was an insurance salesman. Ten years later, he was a gardener for a private family in the Seattle area. In 1942, when he filled out his draft card, Ross was living at Deer Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington, and working for Davis Investment Co. Finally, in 1944, he was an office worker at Bremerton Navy Yard. It was at around this time that Ross' professional writing career began. He had a story called "Scandia Reef" in Short Stories, June 25, 1944. "Overflow," in Short Stories for October 25, 1944, is set on San Juan Island, Ross' former home.

On the strength of those successes and a couple of more from early 1945, Ross, with his associates, formed the Writer's Club of Bremerton in late April 1945. Ross served as the first president, while Edward Stevenson was vice-president, Mrs. Lucille E. Doty was secretary, and Alice Smock was treasurer. According to an article from September 25, 1945, other members of the Bremerton Writers Club and their guests included: Mildred Dunn, Eddie Hammond, Muriel Innes, Jane Kent, Mr. & Mrs. Harvey Leach, Bernice McFarland, Ivy Pelky, Louise Pelky, Seaman 1st Class Larry Richardson, and Dr. & Mrs. Savage. More articles give the names of more members during the 1940s through the 1960s: Clyde Clark, Henry Clarke, Valentine Dmetriev, Mr. & Mrs. Lynn Jensen, Muriel McConnell, Margaret Metcalfe, Marian Reid, Margaret Rice, and Myrtle Tennis.

As of 1946, Ross was a teacher of creative writing in night school classes conducted at Bremerton High School. His older daughter was in high school, the younger in grade school. Later in the year, Ross and his family moved either to San Luis Obispo or San Simeon, California. G.C. Ross died in Santa Clara city or county, California, on March 30, 1947, and so his writing career that had begun three years before came to a sudden end. He had just turned fifty-nine years old. 

If the information in The FictionMags Index is accurate (I always assume that it is), then Ross' career in writing for story magazines lasted just over three years, from June 1944 to November 1947. He had two stories in Weird Tales and eight in Short Stories. Both titles were owned at the time by Short Stories, Inc., of New York City, and both had Dorothy McIlwraith as their editor.

Bert David Ross' Stories in Weird Tales & Short Stories

• "Scandia Reef" in Short Stories (June 25, 1944)
• "Overflow" in Short Stories (Oct. 25, 1944)
• "Luck Plus X" in Short Stories (Feb. 25, 1945)
• "Old Black Magic" in Short Stories (May 10, 1945)
• "Plane Paradise" in Short Stories (Mar. 10, 1946)
• "'Discovery 2nd'" in Short Stories (Apr. 25, 1946)
• "Not Human" in Weird Tales (Sept. 1946)
• "Peek and the Blackfish" in Short Stories (Jan. 25, 1947)
• "Trip to Monterey" in Short Stories (Mar. 25, 1947)
• "The Last Adam and Eve" in Weird Tales (Nov. 1947)

Further Reading

• "Invite Membership in Writers Club" in Kitsap Sun (Washington), May 1, 1945, page 4.
• "Personal Portraits" by Vera Pumphrey in Kitsap Sun (Washington), March 2, 1946, page 3.

An illustration for "The Last Adam and Eve" by Bert David Ross, drawn by Boris Dolgov and published in Weird Tales, November 1947.

Text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

H.T.W. Bousfield (1891-1967)

Henry Thomas Wishart Bousfield
Professor of History, Army Officer, Author, Banker, Businessman
Born May 29, 1891, Sudbury, Derbyshire, England
Died Early 1965, Kensington, London, England

Henry Thomas Wishart Bousfield was born on May 29, 1891, in Sudbury, Derbyshire, England. He was the son of Reverend Stephen Bousfield, a rector at Shelton, Nottinghamshire, and Edith Margaret (Wishart) Bousfield, J.P., a social worker in Grantham, Lincolnshire, after her husband's death. She was the daughter of Captain G. Wishart, R.N., of London.

H.T.W. Bousfield attended Cambridge University. In 1913, at the age of twenty-two and describing himself as a professor of history, he traveled to India. Bousfield served in the British Indian Army, attaining the rank of captain. Attached to the 69th Punjabis, Captain Bousfield served on the Western Front during the Great War, including at the Battle of Loos (Sept. 25-Oct. 8, 1915), where he had a strange experience. You can read about it on line in an item entitled "A Mysterious Visitor" in The Occult Review, Vol. XXX (July-Dec. 1919), pages 64-65.

In 1922, Bousfield was affianced to Lady June Butler, a poetess. She ended up marrying another man, in 1923. Bousfield married instead Mary Adeline Guest, on November 26, 1929, at the Church of St. Margaret's, Westminster Abbey. She wore a bridal veil worn by her great-great-grandmother, Charlotte Lennox, Duchess of Richmond, who put on the renowned Duchess of Richmond's Ball the night before the Battle of Waterloo commenced. Bousfield was friends with the Hungarian artist Philip de László (1869-1937), who presented him with a portrait of his new bride as a wedding gift.

Once returned to his native land, Bousfield worked as a banker, also as chairman and managing director of Central Advertising Service, Ltd. From 1910 until at least 1944, he wrote stories and poems published in Britannia and Eve, Country Life, The Grand Magazine, Lloyd's Magazine, Nash's-Pall Mall Magazine, Pearson's Magazine, The Royal Magazine, The Sketch, The Windsor Magazine, and other British magazines. One of these stories was in "The Man Who . . ." category, "The Man Who Took Too Much Trouble" (The Windsor Magazine, Mar. 1935). "The God with Four Arms" (The Windsor Magazine, Apr. 1933) was described in contemporary newspaper items as "macabre." It became the lead story in a collection, The God with Four Arms and Other Stories, published in 1939 by Arthur Barker Ltd. A second collection, Vinegar--and Cream, was published in 1941 by John Murray. The phrase "Very Important Person" (or "Personage") made an early appearance in his story "The Only Girl Who Wasn't a Bore" (The Windsor Magazine, Feb. 1934). Bousfield had just one story in Weird Tales, "The Impossible Adventure," in the issue of November 1940. He also wrote the text for pamphlets or brochures, including RMS Queen Mary: The Ship of Beautiful Woods (Cunard-White Star, no date).

I don't have anything on H.T.W. Bousfield after 1944 except for the year and place of his death, 1965 (in the period January through March) in Kensington, London, England. He was seventy-three years old.

H.T.W. Bousfield's Story in Weird Tales
"The Impossible Adventure" (Nov. 1940)

Further Reading
Various minor sources in newspaper and on line.

H.T.W. Bousfield with his future bride, Mary Adeline Guest, from the Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales), November 26, 1929, page 10.

A real weird tale told by Bousfield and recounted in the Liverpool Daily Post, March 30, 1936, page 9.

Original text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

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

Husbands & Wives-Part Five

Husbands and wives wrote for Weird Tales, sometimes together, sometimes separately, sometimes before they were even married. Following is a list. It is probably incomplete.

• H.A. Noureddin Addis (1884-1958) & Marguerite Lynch Addis (1880-1848)

• Frances Garfield, née Frances Obrist (1908-2000) & Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986), who also wrote under the pseudonym Gans T. Field

• Sonia H. Greene (1883-1972) & H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

• Allison V. Harding: Jean Milligan (1919-2004) & Lamont Buchanan (1919-2015)

• Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) & Leslyn MacDonald (1904-1981)

• Henry Kuttner (1915-1953) & C.L. Moore (1911-1987)

• Henry Lieferant (1892-1968) & Sylvia B. Saltzberg (1896-1952)

• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) & Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

There were other contributors to Weird Tales who were married to writers who did not contribute. For example, Frederik Pohl (1919-2013) was married to Lesli Perri (1920-1970), Judith Merril (1923-1997), Carol Metcalf Ulf (1927-2005), and Elizabeth Ann Hull (1937-2021), all of whom were also writers.

I think I'll find more husbands and wives who wrote for "The Unique Magazine." I'll add them to this list as I do.

* * *

I have written this series to show that wives have been instrumental in the success of their husbands as authors. I was on the lookout for that kind of thing while reading Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee (2018, 2019). And I found it in Robert A. Heinlein's own words regarding his second wife, Leslyn MacDonald, and in Mr. Nevala-Lee's words regarding John W. Campbell's first wife, Doña Stebbins. Campbell's second wife, Margaret "Peg" Winter, was more nearly a full and equal collaborator with him, at least in his pseudoscientific research. Heinlein's third wife, Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfeld, was also a powerful influence on her husband. She helped him in life and she helped after his death to protect him and his reputation, to preserve his work, and to promote the study and appreciation of his work. All of these wives were personally, intellectually, and creatively formidable figures. I should add that L. Ron Hubbard also married strong and able women. But then these are things that we already knew about wives and women. I am reminded here of a quote by Alexis de Tocqueville:

And now that I come near the end of this book in which I have recorded so many considerable achievements of the Americans, if anyone asks me what I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and growing power of this nation, I should answer that it is due to the superiority of their women.

That's not to take away anything from women of other nationalities, but it gets to a truth, and it's one worth remembering and keeping close at hand.

C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner, two married writers at work.

Text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley