Marcella Powers

Well, I’ve cracked the code on some of Opapa’s handwriting. I was having trouble reading some of the words from his May 18, 1944 entry, when he wrote about the book he was reading. He also mentioned who the book was dedicated to, but I couldn’t make out the names. Finally, I figured it out, thanks to some help from Google. Here is what he wrote: 

“Am reading S. Lewis Gideon Planish: It’s dedicated to Marcella Powers. I remembered her from Hollywood -- that party, and going out to the monastery. She was a sweet girl. Should have kept her up.”

So in May 1944, While he was undergoing O.S.S. training, Opapa was also reading Sinclair Lewis's new novel, Gideon Planish, which was published just the year before, in 1943. 

I hadn't heard of Gideon Planish before, but apparently it is about a social climber who joined several philanthropic organizations. It's a lightly veiled (or not so lightly veiled) critique of philanthropy, and the elitism associated with it. It was not particularly well-reviewed.

Opapa does not say whether he liked the book or not. Instead, he makes a rather more interesting comment about the dedication, which is to Marcella Powers, Sinclair Lewis's girlfriend. Opapa notes that he "remember[s]" Marcella Powers "from Hollywood -- that party, and going out to the monastery. She was a sweet girl. Should have kept her up."

LOLOL, Opapa had a fling with Sinclair Lewis’s girlfriend! Apparently, Sinclair Lewis met Marcella Powers in 1939, when she was an 18-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin. They had a romantic relationship until 1947. 

I also know that Opapa met Sinclair Lewis when he first arrived in the US – I believe in 1940, so I wonder if it was through him that Opapa met Marcella Powers in the first place. 

In fact, it seems that Marcella Powers was acting in a production of “Shadow and Substance” with Sinclair Lewis (see photo) in New Orleans in 1940, which is exactly where and when Opapa first arrived in the US. So it’s possible he met both Sinclair Lewis and Marcella Powers during his first days in the United States.  

 In any case, pretty funny. 

Turns out Sinclair Lewis is from Minnesota (didn’t know that), so there is a ton of material in Minnesota archives about him, including letters, photos, etc. etc. Like this hilarious letter written in Brainerd, MN on August 15, 1942, in which Lewis makes fun of Minnesota stationary. More letters available here. Lewis was 35 (!) years older than Powers (see this photo…), and she eventually left him in 1947, when she was 26 years old. Some believe that this led Lewis to spiral downward, and he died of alcoholism four years later, in 1951. 

In any case, it occurs to me that it would be fun to order and read the books Opapa mentions that he reads. So far, the list includes Sinclair Lewis’s Gideon Planish and Grand Crossing, by Saxton.