Paul Vandervoort, ‘Memories of Dreiser’ – Indianapolis Star 10-2-1976
Posted here (PDF above):
“Memories of Dreiser”
By Paul Vandervoort
The Indianapolis Star
October 2, 1976
The article focuses on recollections of Dreiser’s niece Vera Dreiser, who had just published a book on Dreiser, My Uncle Theodore.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
July 2022
Posted above are letters from
Dreiser to his brother Ed, April 18, 1938
Ed’s reply, April 20, 1938
Also — Rome Dreiser’s death certificate
Ed was Dreiser’s young brother
Rome (born Markus Romanus Dreiser) was the second oldest of the Dreiser siblings and Theodore and Ed’s brother. He is the same Rome, a railroad engineer said to be a drifter, who — in his autobiographical work Dawn, published in May 1931, Dreiser wrote, “drank himself into failure if not death.”
Other Dreiser family members mentioned in Dreiser’s and Ed’s letters are their older sister Mame (Maria Franziska Dreiser) and her husband [Austin] Brennan; sister Emma; Mai (Skelly) Dresser. Ed’s wife; Paul Dresser, who died in 1907, the oldest of the Dreiser siblings; and Vera Dreiser, Ed and Mai’s daughter and Dreiser’s niece.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 2021
This post is in the form of a downloadable Word document (above).
Theodore Dreiser, “Dawn,” first typescript, Chapter XLII, pg. 13
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Abstract
This article focuses on Theodore Dreiser’s nephew Carl Dresser, who was born out of wedlock in 1886 to Dreiser’s sister Cacilia (Sylvia) Dreiser. The article provides hitherto unknown details about Sylvia’s affair with Carl’s father — the pseudonymous “Don Ashley” — when Theodore Dreiser, his sister Sylvia, and other siblings were living in Warsaw, Indiana with their mother, as recounted by Dreiser, with some major modifications of facts, in his autobiographical work Dawn.
I have discovered the identity of Carl’s father and confirmed details of Carl’s death. It was “known” on scant evidence that he was a suicide. It has been said, which is inaccurate, that Carl died in his teens. I have found Carl’s death record, as well as his birth record.
Dreiser’s sister Sylvia abandoned Carl and did not raise him; he was raised by Dreiser’s parents and also by his aunt Mame (Theodore Dreiser’s sister) and her husband. As an unwanted child, Carl had a difficult life. Many details have remained sketchy or were never investigated by Dreiser biographers; there is scant mention of Carl in Dreiser biographies.
The story of Sylvia’s affair and pregnancy, a scandal at the time, is worth investigating, since Dreiser saw it as not insignificant in his family history and as contributing to ideas about sex and morality he had as a teenager — he used it as the subject matter of two chapters in Dawn. And, the story of Carl’s birth and his short, unhappy life throws some light on characters in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and, to a lesser extent, in his novel Jennie Gerhardt.
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Theodore Dreiser, “The Return of the Genius,” Chicago Sunday Globe. October 23, 1892 (under byline Carl Dreiser)
Theodore Dreiser, ‘The Return of the Genius.’
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+ 132 West 15th Street, Manhattan; photo by Roger W. Smith, May 2020. Carl Dreiser was born at this address, in the apartment of Theodore Dreiser’s sister, Emma, in 1886.
53 West Erie Street, Chicago; where Carl Dresser lived at the time of his death; photo by Tamie Dehler
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Addendum, August 16, 2020:
I received an email from Professor Emeritus Thomas Kranidas today which called my attention to something I had overlooked (italics): “Dreiser was surely influenced by memory of Carl’s bellhop days. And Carl was tragically influenced by Dreiser’s portrayal of Hurstwood’s suicide in “Sister Carrie.”
Note that Carl Dresser (as detailed in my essay ) died from “Asphixiation by illuminating gas.”
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 2020; updated August 2020
Posted here (see below) are photos and portraits of Theodore Dreiser as well as numerous photos of Dreiser’s relatives and acquaintances.
There is some overlap with photos which I have already posted on this site. See
https://dreiseronlinecom.wordpress.com/?s=photographs
Notable among the persons included in these photos, besides Dreiser, are the following:
Esther A. (Schnepp) Dickerson, Theodore Dreiser’s aunt
Dreiser’s siblings Paul, Rome, Emma, Theresa, and Claire
Dreiser’s first wife Sara White Dreiser
Dreiser’s second wife Helen (Patges Richardson) Dreiser and several of her ancestors and relatives
Dreiser’s sister-in-law Mai Skelly Dreiser
Dreiser’s favorite niece Gertrude A. Hopkins
Dreiser’s niece Dr. Vera Dreiser
Harold James Dies, who was related to Helen (Patges Richardson) Dreiser and, more distantly, to Theodore Dreiser, and who served for many years as Trustee of the Dreiser Trust
Thanks are due to the following persons and institutions for permission to post photos:
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania
Vigo County Historical Society Museum, Terre Haute, IN
the late Harold J. Dies
Gloria N. Vevante (a Dreiser family descendant)
Joann Crouch (a Dreiser family descendant)
Thomas P. Riggio
Please note: if you left click on a photo of interest, a descriptive caption for that photo will appear. If you right click on the photo, you will have the option of downloading (saving) it.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 2017
Paul Vandeervoort, “Memories of Dreiser; The Famed Hoosier Writer’s Niece Writes About the Real Theodore”
Indianapolis Star, Saturday, October 2, 1976
see downloadable PDF file below
Indianapolis Star, Sat, Oct 2, 1976
OBITUARIES Vera Dreiser, 90, psychologist, former dancer
The Atlanta Constitution
Saturday, November 21, 1998
pg. C06
Author: Rachel Tobin
Dr. Vera Dreiser never flinched. Even details of the 1969 Manson murders told to her firsthand by the female suspects didn’t shock the psychologist.
“She never made judgments on her patients,” said Tedi Dreiser Godard of New York, her daughter. “She was a wonderful therapist. Anything those women told her, nothing ever shocked her. Things so horrific that you or I would’ve been so upset. She said, ‘No, I’m not upset, I’m here to help.'”
The 90-year old Macon resident, who lived in Sandy Springs for 20 years, died Tuesday of heart failure at Macon Manor Nursing Home. The body was cremated. A private memorial service will be held in New York. Bridges Funeral Home and Crematory is in charge of arrangements.
Dr. Dreiser was head of the Psychiatric Treatment Center at the California Institute for Women from 1961 to 1972. Her name appears in Vincent Bugliosi’s “Helter Skelter,” the account of the Manson case, as the psychologist who interviewed the women involved in the murders.
“They told her the most gruesome details,” her daughter said.
A dancer at Carnegie Hall as a young woman, Dr. Dreiser wanted to be a singer. However, she had a natural flair for psychology, her daughter said. The native New Yorker earned her doctorate from New York University in 1944.
With her shock of bright red hair and 5-foot-9-inch frame, Dr. Dreiser was a memorable figure who appeared on popular television shows in the 1950s-60s giving advice on relationships and mental health.
Decades ahead of her time, Dr. Dreiser, who kept her maiden name when she married the late Alfred E. Scott in 1939, experimented with yoga and wrote monthly articles for Dance News about the importance of dance in relieving stress.
In the 1970s, Dr. Dreiser retired to Sandy Springs to be closer to her daughter. In 1976, the psychologist published her family memoir, “My Uncle Theodore,” her daughter said.
Dr. Dreiser was the niece of novelist Theodore Dreiser, who wrote “An American Tragedy,” and of songwriter Paul Dreiser, who wrote “My Gal Sal.” Her father was actor and director Edward Dreiser.
“She loved to laugh, a good joke, a good party and a cocktail before dinner,” said her daughter, the only immediate survivor.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions be made to the American Cancer Society, 2200 Lake Blvd. N.E., Atlanta, GA 30319.
– posted by Roger W. Smith
February 2016
Roger W. Smith's Theodore Dreiser site 