You sound like a most intelligent person who is not easily fooled. Sensational story telling has, in this case, a means to an end, and that end is to attract the attention of the tourist trade. The truth is far from what has been woven through imagination and speculation.
I will reply to your notes not to convince anyone of the truth, but simply to try to answer your questions, whether anyone wishes to believe or disbelieve is irrelevant. I wasn't there, but I have an understanding of the Collins culture because my grandmother was a Collins and I was raised with her family. The strength of their values go back into Ireland and Scotland; called themselves
Scot-Irish. You probably know of Michael Collins who was at the beginnings of the battles between Ireland and England. If you study his history there will be no doubt in your mind how strong they were.
Truth Behind The Mystery?
Being from Ponca City, Oklahoma originally, and hearing small little pieces about E.W. Marland, his life, his fortune and his wives, I have never been able to figure out the missing pieces that are not written down in history. There appear to be huge gaps.
Yes, huge gaps, as there always are when truth is not the bases of a story.
Mr. Marland was an oil tycoon, self-made man, and millionaire by the time he was 33. By reports, he once held 1/10th of the oil power in the entire world. He is rumored to have been a generous and kind man who enjoyed luxury and entertaining.
Isn't this the first clue that there is something awry here?
He started the trend of insurance for employees and even built houses for them, and created a bank to loan them money at a rate beneath the standard. He lost his fortune twice, once to JP Morgan in 1930 in a hostile takeover of the oil company he built in Ponca City, Oklahoma.
There are gamblers and there are masters at gambling.
This part of the Collins culture was even sealed in the teachings of the children, and is not a practice for the faint hearted.
He was also governor of Oklahoma for a period of time, tried for the senate twice, but failed, and died without much to show for his lifetime of achievements.
This is one fallacy those not of their culture did not understand. The scriptures tell of Potter's Field and this was their ambition, "to have spread all their wealth out to the people so that they would ultimately be buried in Potter's Field; penniless."
Christ was their model and they believed they would be provided burial, and just as Christ was given a tomb by a wealthy man, his burial taken care of with sweet oil, so this Collin's culture believed. Oh yes, E.W. and Virginia Collins were related.
5. During his life E.W. Marland was first married to a woman named Virginia. How he met her, I don't know.
It wasn't a matter of "meeting her." They were family. It is all there in the genealogy.
Wish I did. I imagine he was charming, self-assured and swept her off her feet, but I can't find that in the history literature, or in books. I can't even find out when Virginia was born, or how old she was when she married E.W. Marland. Not much is known about her, but the people that knew her while she was alive, say that she was very pretty and sweet.
Another attribute of the Collins women, even of the descendants who live today.
Virginia and E.W. didn't have any children of their own. They ended up adopting Virginia's sister's two children, George and Lydie, and raised them as their own giving them the best of everything. I'm not sure if George and Lydie were poor and miserable prior to being adopted,
The Collins were never "poor and miserable." They were very adept and skilled at sewing, crafts, gardening, canning, just generally busy people. Mother always said, "I thought these people were poor, look at how rich they look in these pictures."
or if the Marland's money was an incentive in their adoption, or if it was something else altogether.....
Love of family, a love so strong, was the incentive.
I myself experienced this and no one can know what a lovely world this creates.
This is where the story gets sketchy and the cover-up begins. By some accounts E.W. had a roving eye, and extra-marital affairs, which devastated Virginia.
Yes, my mother was a young girl when he lived in the hunting lodge and she told stories about how the girls would run from him. By this time he was, no doubt, in senility. There was a riding stable next to the mansion where the girls went to ride horses.
Virginia died at a young age. I'm not sure what this age was, but E.W. was born in 1874, and I am guessing Virginia was younger than him, as was the custom. She died in 1926 so I'm guessing at most she was 52, but probably was younger than that. The cause of her death seems to be avoided by history. Some reports state that she died of a long illness. What kind of illness is not indicated. Other rumors were that she killed herself due to her husband's blatant disregard for the sanctity of their marriage and her own broken heart over losing his love.
I don't believe this. The Collins women were practical to a fault. Their attitude was: "Everyone has to answer for their own actions. If E.W. was careless this wasn't Virginia herself and he would have to answer to his Creator at Judgement Day for his own indiscretions. One of the last of these ladies past at Shidler when she was 106. Up until the last her home was shiny clean, tatting decorated the tables and even her stove looked to be just polished. When I asked her about it she said,
"Oh, you know I have to have a girl help me, anymore!" It was as if she was apologizing for not doing the work herself.
Sam Collins, brother-in-law to E.W. lived on the corner of 12th and Central only a few blocks away from us. A friend worked for Sam's wife and was with her reading the Bible to her when she passed. This woman too, is gone now, but she told how clean and well organized Sam's wife was. She said one day she spilled a cleaner on the carpet and thought, "Oh no! I'll have to clean that whole carpet." However, the carpet was so clean the cleaning fluid didn't even show where it had been wiped up."
What actual records show is that within two years of her death E.W. had his adoption of Lydie annulled and married her.
Does this seem strange to anyone besides me?
Of course, this sounds strange! The masters of creative marketing for tourism have created a scenario to make the common public interested.
Maybe this was normal for the 1920's and I'm just not aware of it, but the child advocate in me gets pretty freaked out by this. Especially if you look at the family portrait that is in the history archives, both online and in the museum of the Marland Mansion. The girl, Lydie, in the picture looks to be maybe 9 or 10 years of age, so there were several years at least that E.W. was in the role of her father before he took her as his wife.
And then, there is the trap. You are thinking in the realm of today's world, trying to put that time period and before back to the time of Kings into our world.
I can't help but wonder what was going on in the house prior to the death of Mrs. Virginia Marland. Maybe it's the social worker in me that can't just let it go, but I am really bothered by this. Were the rumors of E.W.'s extramarital affairs with women outside the home, or in the home?
Never in the home. The extramarital affairs were "gifts" to women in these men's way of thinking. Believe it or not, even up until a few years ago there were women who live in the very best part of Ponca because of the generosity of E.W., and that doesn't require speculations, the women themselves alluded to that. All you had to do was ask, but never, no never in the home with their own, who were under their protection. If you stop and think, E.W. and Lydie didn't even share the same bedroom, and that is a fact, left in reality and there for all to see.
Lydie was probably about 16 or 17 when Virginia died. She looks to have been very striking and full of life prior to her marriage to E.W.. Afterwards her appearance in society was much more reserved and she always called him "Mr. Marland" in public. She never had children.
This is a given, no sexual-relations, no children. Today's world may not accept this, but remember these were people of gallantry and aristocracy and this wasn't at all out of character for them.
To my knowledge she never remarried after E.W. died. I can't help but wonder, was this marriage made for convenience or love?
Now, you begin to open up to what really happened. He tried to protect Lydie in the most legal way possible. She had to be respected more as his wife, more than as his daughter. The lives of the rich and famous aren't at all the wonderful panacea we of little means like to believe. Their lives are fraught with unbelievable terrors which can throw them into all sorts of paranoid behavior, just look at Michael Jackson.
Did E.W. marry her so that she would inherit his entire fortune when he died out of selfless love for her, possibly philanthropy?
You are the first person I've ever heard voice this and I would guess, yes. Remember I wasn't there, but from an educated guess, knowing the Collin's culture, I would say this is highly probable.
Or, were his motivations less chilvalrous?
In pictures Lydie looks sad, or humbled, or something I can't exactly find a word to describe. While away from E.W. it seems she was very lively and spirited with friends and while out of town, but reserved, somber and reclusive while around E.W..
Still, not as shockingly, stark and tortured as Michael Jackson looked.
He must have adored her whether in a fatherly way or a typical "male in love" way because he had paintings and sculptures done of her. After his death she had the remaining statue of herself destroyed and buried on the property near the mansion that he lost with most of his fortune. She never said why, but she was embarrassed about the statue. I think it's because the statue had her wearing clothes that were more revealing than any modest woman would want. The clothes looked clingy and thin, revealing certain areas of her body very well.
With no way to know for sure I would say you can torture yourself no more with the above conclusion. I remember my own cousin, of the Collins', father employed an artist to do a series of pin-up girls for her to hang all along her bedroom wall. They were clad in sheer, see through fabrics, but of course without revealing actual body parts, and this is how the statue is done, sensual but tastefully discreet.
I can see Lydie destroying the statue. I've done the same myself with artwork.
"You don't like me, you don't appreciate, and you won't see this anymore." I've known other Collins women to do the same.
My cousin put a 50 year block on the sale of a beautiful home after her death that fell into total ruin for the same reason. One must understand the thinking of a family and their reasoning. It may not be your own, or mine for that matter, but it is the truth.
They have recovered, reassembled and restored the statue now and from what I remember, I would also have been embarrassed if it were me. It might as well of been a nude. Again, something that just doesn't sit well with me.
Again, the difference in thinking. I have no embarrassment whatsoever with the statue. The artist in my soul? To me, the totality of its beauty warms my heart and not lower sensual emotions.
In about 1930, only two years after his mansion was completed and given as a gift to his new wife, he was no longer able to afford the utility bills. They moved into either the Butlers quarters or the artist studio which is where Lydie lived while in Ponca until her death in 1987.
So began the final stage before death. E.W. had syphoned money off the wealthy and brought jobs to the people of Ponca City with building and works, now he was living as he wished to live, quietly without needing a massive place to entertain. A small cottage was adequate to meet his needs before death, although if you have seen the "cottage" you will agree it wasn't exactly an impoverished existance.
She seemed ashamed, according to almost everyone who knew her, or met her. She was very reclusive, lived in solitude except for about 20 years when she suddenly packed up and left town.
No, never ashamed. One lady tells how, after her return, a gala was going on at the mansion and the governor sent her a large bouquet of white roses.
"Please, take them and put them where the people can enjoy them." She directed them.
Again, the duty and commitment to "the people."
These are all little clues to tell of their real thinking
and the truth of the matter.
She reportedly was something of a political activist, and only returned to Ponca City to ask the City of Ponca to purchase the Marland Mansion when it was going to be sold for the third or fourth time.
This brings a smile to my face as I remember my Collins grandmother. Political activist is somewhat a mild term compared to their fiery dedication to their political beliefs. :)
he rest of her life she remained in Ponca and kept to herself. According to the people that met her she lived as a recluse till the day she died. She didn't get out much and was rarely seen in the town or outside her home. Not much is really known about her, except that she lived and died in solitude. She was reportedly nice, and seemed to be both grateful and generous with what she had. Her life, by all indications, was lonely. Whether this was self-inflicted or not remains a mystery. If there was ever another love in her life is also a mystery. What she was truly like, why she married E.W., how she really felt about him, what her hopes and dreams looked like, all mysteries she took to her grave. If anyone knows any of these answers and would care to illuminate me, I would love to have the gaps filled in.
I would have been more able to fill gaps if I had not been so young and too much like the Collins myself, when she was trying to make contact with me. I had no idea of the connection between family at that time.
Now all I can do is go on what I know and not what she could have told me. This makes me sad to think about it.
Donna Colleen Jones Flood
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