Delos Wait was the model for "The man who was too lazy to fail" in _Time Enough for Love_.

His picture is on this web page:

, about half way down.

Hello Bill, I was wondering if this is where Heinlein got the first name for the main character in The Man Who Sold the Moon?

Beats the hell out of me.

I've been wondering to what extent Eleanor Sperling Weatheral (_To Sail Beyond the Sunset_, and elsewhere) may have been inspired by Elinor Curry Heinlein Connelly, who was RAH's first wife.

I must have blinked. When did we find out Elinor remarried a guy named Connelly?

And yes, Delos Wait is the model, iirc.

?!?

I cannot conceive of Heinlein hitting a woman.

I can conceive of a divorcee claiming that as justification for divorce in an era when divorce was difficult.

Also, Elinor's was a theater nut -- as was Leslyn. The phrase "drama queen" fit Leslyn fairly well in her later life, and may describe Elinor as well.

Would this be the appropriate place for a ribald remark about which part of her he abused, and with what?

Well, maybe not. . .

Bill, Elinor died in one of the Carolinas, right? I believe I found that record too, but good job on following up further.

Given the fact that the marriage ended largely due to Elinor's A) sleeping with the best man the night of the wedding and B) refusing to follow him to his naval bases.

It just sounds like Elinor covering her tracks. If Heinlein had done that sort of thing to Leslyn, she would have raved about it in the poison pen letters.

Does this mean that whatever Stover wanted to publish that got them so ticked off will see the light of day?

Speak not ill, etc., but I can't imagine that anything Stover wrote 15 years ago has anything valid in it not superseded by Bill's work. He seems to have ended up with a bit of Panshin Syndrome, out to write nasty stuff because "the Art Widow" honked him off.

I can sympathize but not approve.

This subthread really bloomed quickly.

The cause cited for Elinor Curry's divorce is, indeed, given in the biography, but it's not an issue because there is no evidence.

There being no evidence about it is also footnoted, as is the fact that "cruelty" (the actual word used in the petition) was one of only three grounds for divorce at that time, and the possibly more appropriate one, "adultery," was one that she could not use. Cal Laning's later claim that he was "co-respondent" in the divorce is complete nonsense, as he could have filled that legal role only in an adultery action brought by Robert; Elinor would have been accusing herself of adultery. In short, it was a formal requirement of the process that need not have any basis in fact and probably didn't.

The only way in which the editing for the biography approached either censorship or whitewashing is that David Hartwell simply did not believe the degree of "interiority" I got from Heinlein's correspondence and he required me to document every claim for an emotion or thought -- which I did. Actually, I had stripped all those cites out of the raw draft when I was condensing the ms. by 100,000 words. He caught a number, however, that had not been cited.

My goal for the biography didn't have either censorship or whitewashing as part of the mix. I attempted to provide enough supporting detail to make what Heinlein thought/did at any given moment comprehensible in terms of his life and the matters he was concerned with at the time, so that he can be seen pretty much in his own terms, rather than as a cliche of one sort or another.

Stover: a difficult matter. Stover let me read and take very extensive notes of his ms. I did make direct use of several bits of evidence and documentation that were unique to him (the interview sources on which he based his text being dead or the documents no longer available). In a few cases, he makes claims for which there is no evidence (i.e., Heinlein hooked up with Sally Rand for an ongoing affair whenever they were in the same part of the country); in this case I made a footnote that Stover says thus-and-so but I can't evaluate the claim because there's no evidence.

In one case there's a claim in Stover for which Stover has misread the evidence and concocted a bizarre flight of fancy -- the supposed Rhodes scholarship, which Stover concludes he won and turned down, to the everlasting anger of the rest of his class. Pure crap. The evidence is not the letter Heinlein received, but just the endorsements forwarding it to him. I checked with the Rhodes committee and the scholarship was never awarded-- and in any case the turn-down letter Robert wrote (and which has been preserved) was dated several months before the awards were made that year (1929). My conclusion was that he was turning down the chance to make an application (at which he had a fairly good shot). Stover's writing about the persisting anger of his classmates seems made up out of whole cloth. Possibly it came from Laning, misunderstanding (and dramatizing, as was his wont) the actual events.

This is part of the "feet of clay" biography Before the Writing Began but there were quite a number of other bizarre made-up things -- like Heinlein drove Leslyn to alcoholism by his nudism and wife-swapping lifestyle. [Can't be made to work, least of all, because the timing is off by seven or eight years]

FWIIW Art asked to see Stover's ms. before permissions would be extended for publication, after Ginny's death. Stover then withdrew the ms. and went into a snit.

In light of Bill's post above, the following articles may be of interest:

"Midshipmen to Be Permitted To Seek Rhodes Scholarships"
The New York Times May 4, 1929; pg. 13

Washington, May 3. -- Midshipmen at the Naval Academy are permitted to compete for appointment as Rhodes scholars under a decision announced today by the Navy Department, which said the navy "stands four-square" on the principles which led the late Cecil Rhodes to establish the scholarships.

Members of the first and second classes at the academy will be permitted to seek the appointments, and the successful candidates will go to Oxford in October, 1930.

"When they return," the department said, "they will undoubtedly bring new ideas and a breadth of vision which will tend to maintain our right to assert that the personnel of our navy is second to none in vision, broad purpose, and loyalty."


"NAVY NEWS" Los Angeles Times; May 10, 1929; pg. A12

"The Navy Department is drafing a plan whereby officers and midshipmen of the Navy will be permitted to compete for Rhodes scholarships for postgraduate work at Oxford University, England . . .

Heretofore, though they were eligible for the awards, officers and midshipmen have not been permitted to compete on account of shortness of personnel . . ."

As near as I can tell, the first Navy Rhodes scholars were announced in early Dec 1929. The Naval Academy offered 17 candidates, and six were awarded:

Paul L. De Vos of Arizona
Don W. Gladney JR of Arkansas
Francis R. Duborg of Nevada, posted on the USS Maryland
R. E. Van Meter of Oklahoma, posted on the USS Oklahoma
Frank M. Adamson of S Dakota, posted on the USS Texas
George H. Deiter of Wisconsin, posted on the USS New York

(Wasn't "Van Meter" used as a character name in one of Heinlein's stories?)

Others who competed:

Ensigns
S. C Anderson of Iowa
Paul Foley Jr of S Carolina
H. J. Hiemenz of Minnesota
C. V. Ricketts of Kansas
C. E. Weakley of Missouri
M. B. Wyatt of S Carolina

Midshipmen
W. C. Ennis of Arizona
F. C. Evans of Montana
E. W. Gladney of Arkansas
J. H. Hean of Louisiana
H. M. Heiser of Wyoming

Excellent find, Bill M.

One of the best finds in the bio is a letter from Leslyn calling Cal a terrible liar, which was echoed by Ginny decades later -- and what Stover never seems to have understood.

Since his bio was heavily based on interviews with Laning, it makes the entire unpublished ms. suspect. But since Stover had access nobody else had, and materials nobody else had, it is still a highly desireable source.

That Bill had access, and used it to guide much of his research, means that it had a positive influence, while Bill was able to winnow away much of the falsehoods and mistakes.

It's the primary documents we need from the bookseller Stover sold them to -- but he's stonewalling all enquiries.

I know the bookseller, and he seemed open to contact, but he turned down all further interaction that I am aware of.

Never heard of Homer, until today.

I might have been thinking of the Van Vogels, from "Jerry was a Man", or Phoebe van Metre, from Farmer in the Sky, which I recently reread. And possibly there are other "Van Something-or-Others" in Heinlein's works.

I believe the plantation owner in "Logic of Empire" was named van Something.