By Mary Dodge Allen
Mary Roberts Rinehart, (Public Domain)
This amazing woman was the First:
- Best-Selling American Female Mystery Writer
- American Female War Correspondent (WWI)
- Breast Cancer Survivor to go Public and Encourage Breast Exams
Early Life
Mary Ella Roberts was born on August 12, 1876 in Allegheny City (now northern Pittsburgh). She was the oldest of two daughters born to Tom and Cornelia Roberts. Her father ran a profitable business selling sewing machines, and her mother worked from home as a dressmaker.
When Mary was a young girl, her father lost his sewing machine franchise. He tried his hand as an inventor, but his unprofitable inventions only plunged them deeper into debt. The family finally moved in with Mary's grandmother, but the financial stresses continued.
Mary loved reading and also enjoyed writing short stories. While still in high school, she won a Pittsburgh Press short story contest. After graduation, her Uncle John generously offered to pay her way through nursing school. At the age of 17, Mary began attending the Pittsburgh School for Nurses at Pittsburgh Homeopathic Hospital.
During her nursing training, Mary was distressed by all the disease and death at the hospital. She later described it as "all the tragedy of the world under one roof." Mary's personal life would also be touched by tragedy. When she was 18, her grandmother fell down the stairs and broke her neck. A year later, Mary's father committed suicide.
Marriage
The one bright spot during her nursing training was her relationship with a young surgical intern - Dr. Stanley Rinehart. The hospital prohibited doctors and nurses from socializing, but that didn't stop them. Mary recalled, "How young we were, how secret we had to be."
Mary and Dr. Stanley Rinehart walking down a Pittsburgh street. (Public Domain)
They married in 1896, after Mary graduated from nursing school. The couple established a private medical practice, which they ran together in their home. In between the births of their three sons, Mary spent her free time writing short stories and poems. She earned a small amount of income each time one was published.
Financial Crisis
During 1903-04, the stock market took a severe downturn. Her husband Stan had invested heavily in stocks, and they lost their entire savings. Mary later wrote in her autobiography, "What could I do to help? I thought once more of writing but I was always so deadly tired."
Mary with her three sons. L-R: Stanley, Jr., Alan and Frederick "Ted" (Public Domain)
Even so, the busy mother of three young sons went to work, "writing fast and furiously" at a card table. In that first year, she write 45 short stories and earned $1,842.50, (amounting to $58,000 today).
Even after her success writing short stories, Mary still had doubts. "I had no confidence in my ability... no desire whatever to write a book. A book was for real writers."
An editor with Munsey's Magazine, who had published one of her stories, encouraged her to try writing books. Her first mystery novel, The Circular Staircase was published in 1908 and became a best-seller.
In 1909, the Saturday Evening Post began publishing many of her short stories, and by 1911, she had written five mystery novels and began writing stage plays. Mary said she could "think faster than she could write, [and] devise plots and put them on paper with amazing speed."
Her financial success enabled the family to purchase a mansion in Sewickley, a wealthy Pittsburgh suburb. They also traveled with their sons to various countries overseas, which later became settings for her novels.
War Correspondent
After the outbreak of war in 1914, Mary expressed her interest in becoming a war correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post. The Post's editor objected, thinking a war zone was too dangerous for a woman.
Mary then had what she called, "a grave conference with my husband" and obtained Stan's consent to travel to London to attend the opening of her play, Seven Days.
When she approached the Saturday Evening Post a second time, the editor - realizing how popular Mary had become with the Post's readers - agreed to finance her trip to London. He even gave her formal letters of introduction, so she could conduct interviews and write articles for the Post, while safely in England.
But Mary had more ambitious plans. After arriving in London during the Spring of 1915, Mary met with Lord Northcliffe, publisher of the London Times and asked him if she could tour war zone hospitals in Belgium and write articles for the Times. The publisher was impressed by her spirit and determination and arranged for her to travel to De Panne, Belgium and stay at the Red Cross's Hospital L'Ocean.
Red Cross's Hospital L'Ocean, De Panne, Belgium during WWI (Public Domain)
Mary was thrilled. "I am to go to the firing line." - an excerpt from her diary.
While there, she not only toured hospitals, but she also joined male journalists as they traveled to "No Man's Land," the barrier of one thousand feet that separated the weary troops on both sides, who were living in dismal muddy trenches.
From April to June 1915, Mary wrote wartime articles for both the Post and the London Times. She also interviewed Belgium's exiled King Albert, Britain's Queen Mary of Teck, (wife of King George V), and Winston Churchill.
Mary's article appeared in the June 19, 1915 issue of the Post (Saturday Evening Post)
Her Return to America
Mary loved the outdoors, and soon after she arrived home in the late Summer of 1915, she traveled out west to the newly-established Glacier National Park, where she camped, hiked and fished. She kept notes and then described her often humorous adventures in a book, Through Glacier Park, published in 1916.
Mary camping in Glacier National Park (Public Domain)
In 1922, Mary and her husband relocated to Washington, DC, where Stan began working for the Veterans Administration. Mary's prolific writing thrived. Her comedic mystery play, The Bat, (co-written with Avery Hopwood) ran for 867 performances in New York and 327 performances in London.
In the early 1930's, as the Great Depression worsened, the Rineharts lost money on many of Stan's investments. Mary continued earning a steady income writing mystery novels, as well as articles for the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and the Ladies' Home Journal.
On October 28, 1932, Mary's beloved husband Stan died of a heart attack. As she dealt with her grief, she decided to spend the winter on Florida's Gulf Coast, with her adult sons and their families. They enjoyed this so much, they returned to sunny Florida every winter.
Mary with her sons, L-R: Stanley, Jr., Alan and Frederick "Ted" (Public Domain)
Mary loved wearing fashionable outfits (Public Domain)
Breast Cancer
In 1935, Mary moved from Washington, DC to a Park Avenue apartment in New York City. The following year, while wintering in Florida, Mary discovered a lump in her breast. She returned to New York, received a diagnosis of breast cancer and had a radical mastectomy. After this surgery, Mary remained cancer-free.
Mary's daughter-in-law, Gratia Rinehart, (Alan's wife), was not as fortunate. She died of breast cancer in 1939.
In that era, breast cancer was not openly-discussed, and this bothered Mary, a former nurse. In 1947, she wrote an article, I Had Breast Cancer, published in the Ladies' Home Journal. Mary encouraged women to conduct periodic breast examinations for early detection. The article generated an overwhelming public response, larger than any in the magazine's history.
Mary later wrote in her autobiography, "It wasn't easy to write this story, but one out of every three cancer deaths is needless... could I continue to be silent? Perhaps I have done some good, as I had hoped."
Later Life
An autographed copy of Mary's photo (Public Domain)
Some have called Mary Roberts Rinehart "America's Agatha Christie."
In 1952, Mary hosted a luncheon for Agatha Christie at her Park Avenue apartment. It's the only time these two best-selling mystery writers ever met in person.
On September 22, 1958, at the age of 82, Mary died of a massive heart attack at home.
During her life, she maintained a strong marriage, raised three sons and succeeded as a foreign correspondent and a best-selling writer - careers dominated by men. Between 1909 and 1952, Mary wrote 54 mystery novels, which sold an estimated 10 million copies.
Some of her books were made into movies, such as the 1931 early sound movie, I Take This Woman, starring Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard. It was based on her novel, Lost Ecstasy, published in 1927.
1931 movie poster (Public Domain)
After her death, Mary's sons established the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation, which presents the annual Mary Roberts Rinehart Award to a woman author of a major nonfiction work.
Mary's novels can still be found online, including her first, The Circular Staircase, available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
______________________________
Mary Dodge Allen is currently finishing her sequel to Hunt for a Hometown Killer. She's won a Christian Indie Award, an Angel Book Award, and two Royal Palm Literary Awards (Florida Writer's Association). She and her husband live in Central Florida. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Faith Hope and Love Christian Writers.
Website: www.marydodgeallen.com
Recent release, anthology devotional: El Jireh, The God Who Provides
Click the link below to purchase on Amazon:
Mary's novel: Hunt for a Hometown Killer won the 2022 Christian Indie Award, First Place - Mystery/Suspense; and the 2022 Angel Book Award - Mystery/Suspense.
Click the link below to buy Hunt for a Hometown Killer at Amazon.com:
No comments:
Post a Comment