Volume I: Narrative History Volume I: Narrative History
In the spring of 1914 Lloyd and Marie Thanhouser were in boarding schools in Lausanne, Switzerland, while Edwin and Gertrude traveled through various European countries, stopping to visit film factories in France, Germany, and elsewhere, and staying in various grand hotels along the way. Note In the summer Gertrude and Edwin were reunited with the children, and the family began a walking tour around Mont Blanc, where the boundaries of Switzerland, France, and Italy come together. In early August, when the World War was rampaging throughout much of Europe, Note the party was at Argentière, a French village in the Chamonix district. Edwin departed immediately for Zermatt, Switzerland, where the walking tour was to end, to pick up baggage that had been forwarded there, while Gertrude took the children back to Lausanne, where trunks and larger baggage were stored.
Edwin Thanhouser recalled the time: Note "The tragedy of it all came upon me in one brief second. One morning early, I stood at my bedroom window in Argentière watching a troop train pull out. The recruits shouted the Marseillaise with tremendous enthusiasm. The ardor with which they sang thrilled me through and through. Then suddenly, while their shouting still echoed in the distance, I heard a great wail below me, and looking down I saw the mother and sister of one of those boys sobbing as if their hearts would break. Never before have I experienced such a dramatic effect, first the song and then the sob. It was tragic."
Another observer of the scene, quite possibly Mrs. Thanhouser, although her identity was not stated, told of her experiences while staying at the Hotel Alexandra in Lausanne. At the time the mobilization calls in Switzerland took proprietors, concierges, and waiters from hotels and cabmen, chauffeurs, and automobiles from the streets, and foreign visitors were forced to leave. The account noted: Note
I felt such pity for the men who had to quit their wives and families and occupations because in a far-off land a maniac had killed an archduke who meant nothing to them. One could see they had no interest in the fight. A waiter in our hotel came in to serve tea one afternoon, upset with suppressed emotion. I remarked that he looked unwell. He replied with terrible bitterness, "Madame, I am aflame inside. After I have served you this evening, I must go to war, not because we have been wrong, not for our liberty, but because a madman wants to change a map. For his insane idea, we must give up our lives."
On another occasion I overheard one of those young foreigners who come to Lausanne to learn the hotel business - in this case an Englishman - say with a great deal of feeling, "Just now I have said goodbye to four dear friends, a German, a Frenchman, an Austrian, and a Swiss. We drank one last toast to our eternal friendship. Now they have gone to fight against one another. Perhaps my government will call me, so that I, too, may have to take up arms against them." Two days later he was called. It seems to me that this great 20th century conflict will teach us that we all - French, English, American, or Serbian - belong to one great family, and that when one nation turns against another, we all suffer.
My own personal experiences are probably the same as those of all Americans who were in Switzerland at the time. On Tuesday, August 4th, only four days after the beginning of war activities, all the horses in Lausanne had disappeared. We tried all day to get our baggage to the station but we could find no conveyance. After we had given up all hope of ever getting it to the train, our courier appeared with what he said was the last horse in the city, an old beast, too decrepit for military service. This poor creature pulled our trunks to the station, while we women - six of us - walked, for we absolutely could not get a carriage.
Before we left Lausanne we saw hotels being closed all about us. The men had gone to the front, and the maids had gone to the harvest fields in order to save the precious crops from rotting. Everywhere we found Americans in distress. The banks had refused to cash checks, so that no one could pay hotel bills. Some proprietors began to ask payment because they had to pay cash for their milk and food, and guests could give them no money. What the Americans will do when the hotels close, I cannot imagine. As it was, many did not have enough money in cash to leave Switzerland. Perhaps they will have to walk as the Italian workers in Germany and Switzerland did. We saw thousands of these poor people with only the clothes on their backs and the little things they could carry, struggling to reach Italy. All their larger effects had to be left behind. It was all horrible. My sympathy has been worn threadbare. I only wish that I could help the Americans who are still there.
A few days later the Thanhouser family went to Milan, Italy, where Edwin was able to arrange accommodations on a shabby steamer, Principe di Udine, of the Lloyd Sabaudo Line, which was to sail from Genoa. The vessel was chartered by a number of well-known Americans, Frederick W. Vanderbilt among them, who began negotiations by guaranteeing payment of 300,000 francs for the entire first and second cabin accommodations. At first it was the intention of the steamship company to have the vessel call at Naples and Palermo to take on some 1,100 Italian emigrants in steerage, but as this would have necessitated a further delay of four days, the two additional stops were cancelled, and the price to charter the entire ship on an exclusive basis was raised to 500,000 francs, payable in gold. Securing the necessary funds involved great difficulty and was finally accomplished by the fortuitous circumstance of the National City Bank of New York having a considerable cash deposit on hand in the banks of Genoa. Payment was made on Tuesday, August 11th, and the ship was set to sail on the 12th. When various bankers' commissions and other charges were added, the payment had swollen to 575,000 francs, or approximately $115,000 in American dollars.
As the Italian emigrants were not taken aboard, the ship was managed as if it were a single class, with everyone having full privileges of the decks and public rooms, no matter where his stateroom was located. The passage to New York was established at $250, payable in gold, per berth for first cabin accommodations, $100 in gold for second cabin, and $50 in gold for the "dormitories" or steerage. Every berth was quickly allotted, and it was said that many eager Americans were left behind in Genoa, although, considering the space said to have been available earlier for Italian emigrants, there must have been room aboard for them. Eventually, 166 men and 233 women were accommodated, some of whom had absolutely no funds and were taken without payment of passage money. Edwin Thanhouser had a pocket full of gold coins he had obtained to pay his way through Switzerland, France, and Italy, and these served as payment. A $2,500 letter of credit in his pocket was virtually useless, as government officials would not permit him to draw more than $10 per day from it.
On August 12th all was in confusion at the Genoa wharf, as porters and passengers stumbled against one another in the urge to load the ship quickly. Vendors of deck chairs, cheap binoculars, and other goods sought to gain a few coins from the meager purses of those about to board. In the meantime, those who had already crossed the gangplank were doing their best to make themselves comfortable in the recently fumigated and cleaned ship. On the dock a band struck up The Star Spangled Banner.
During the first several days of the voyage, passengers mingled with each other and exchanged stories of the first few days of the war and how each had been involved in uncomfortable circumstances. The uncertainty bred tension, but soon this passed, and the travelers kept busy with reading, games, and other leisure pursuits. Young Lloyd Thanhouser busied himself in the radio room and listened to transmissions. During the afternoons various impromptu talks and programs were given by talented members of the passenger contingent. Despite later recollections that facilities were rather primitive, there was an air of elegance to the proceedings, and even an orchestra was aboard.
On the third day out a warship approached the Principe di Udine, but it was soon learned that it was a British vessel, and all was in good order. Another English warship was encountered on Friday, August 21st, about 700 miles off the coast of New York. When the ship reached New York City, Edwin Thanhouser's cash on hand consisted of a pocket piece, one United States dime. From a newspaper reporter who interviewed the family on the dock he borrowed a dollar for cab fare.
A colorful account of the Thanhouser family's exit from Europe was carried in the New Rochelle Evening Standard, August 26, 1914:
Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Thanhouser, 1 Hamilton Avenue, Rochelle Heights, and son and daughter Lloyd and Marie, returned to New Rochelle on Monday after a memorable journey on the Italian steamship Principe di Udine from Genoa. They were enjoying a protracted sojourn in Europe when they were unceremoniously hustled home by the sudden war. They were on a walking tour around Mont Blanc in France when one morning they awoke and found all of the men hurriedly leaving the village in which they had spent the night. In a few hours not a soul was left in the village but tourists, women, old men, and children. Even some of the foreigners, residents of the village, had caught the infection and were off to the war as volunteers. As seems to have been the case throughout all France, the women bade the men a cheerful goodbye, but when the men had gone an atmosphere of gloom and weeping settled over the village.
The next village the Thanhousers found in the same condition, so they turned their steps toward their base, Lausanne, Switzerland, where their baggage was checked. They hastily packed up. Then there was difficulty getting Mrs. Thanhouser's jewelry, which was in the safe deposit vaults of a local bank. The superintendent of the vaults had gone to the war, and Mr. Thanhouser was told the vault could not be opened without him. Mr. Thanhouser is a man who does things, and that excuse did not bother him. He obtained an interview with the bank president and made that official believe that the Thanhouser jewels were safer out of his vaults than in them. The president himself opened the vault and delivered the jewels.
They secured passage in a train for Genoa and were feeling comfortable and expecting a pleasant trip to the Italian port when the train was stopped and they were told to get out, as the train had been requisitioned to carry troops. Mr. Thanhouser had some difficulty getting his baggage off the train and succeeded in getting most of it before the train started. All the railway porters seemed to be too busy with other things. Some of their baggage was stolen. The Principe di Udine was the only Italian steamship available for a transatlantic trip at the time. Others were already crowded or had left the port. It cost the Thanhousers $780 for the accommodations in the second cabin. The Principe di Udine is an old timer, formerly used on South American trips, and was as lively a piece of sea furniture as one could expect for the money. Even the second cabin passengers had continual entertainment. All day the roaches would perform on the walls, ceiling and along the decks, and all night the bedbugs entertained. The first day out the fish supply became exhausted. The second day the meat got so strong that the sailors had difficulty throwing it overboard. The remainder of the trip was maintained on spaghetti prepared in 61 different ways, but its disguise was always transparent. The Thanhousers, however, learned the art of eating spaghetti gracefully. Eating spaghetti on board an ocean liner is a different proposition from eating it on land, for one has to allow for the roll of the boat and swinging the morsels into the mouth. If one learns to eat it in the native fashion on shipboard, it is dangerous for those sitting next to him when he eats it at a banquet on land.
The weather was so warm that most of the passengers used their cabins for storerooms for their baggage and took their beds on deck every night. In this way the 13 days of the trip were passed, and when they arrived in New York City the passengers were happier than they had been in a long time. The Thanhousers had a great desire for a real American meal, and they got it when Lloyd Lonergan took them to his favorite restaurant in New York Monday night.
The Moving Picture World Note told of Edwin Thanhouser's view of the war's effect upon the motion picture trade in Europe:
War caught Mr. Thanhouser, with Mrs. Thanhouser and their children, on a walking trip. They had reached Switzerland after a pleasant jaunt from Southern France when war and mobilization, calling the workers one and all from every city, town and little village, left life at a dead standstill. There was nothing to do but come home.... Every theatre and picture house in Lausanne, he stated, had been closed by order of the authorities. Neutrality in Switzerland is very important, and he commented that perhaps there was some apprehension that an offering might excite the emotions of some and cause a disturbance. But, he added, none of the countries involved has any money to spare for amusements. It is a grim life and death struggle, and all their energies are bent to weather it through. He thinks that, no matter how the war turns out, this will be so for a good long while. Bread and butter will long be more important than pictures in Europe. Picture-making has absolutely ceased. The actors are at the front, and some of them won't come back. At present only old men, women and little children are left to do what they can in the fields. Most of the crops will have to rot where they stand for there is no one to get them in.
Mr. Thanhouser had many interesting things to say about the general progress in the European motion picture business and art. The war has caught all this in a choking grip. Speaking of these things pleasantly in his parlor at the Great Northern Hotel in New York City, as though these advances and this progress so painfully made and so eagerly labored for were still going on, it is probable that neither Mr. Thanhouser nor the interviewer vividly realized how grim and terrible a picture of war's destruction his account was driving. These valuable activities have ceased; perhaps they are being destroyed. And, of course, what is true of the motion picture business is true of all kinds of activities, and especially true of all kinds of artistic and scientific activity.
Mr. Thanhouser thinks that one of the most important and hopeful advances in all the motion picture business was being made in Germany. Some of the best pictures he has ever seen were recently made in Germany. There producers and players have been growing more and more skillful in setting forth hard-stirring things by means of repose and mental suggestion and in escaping from that restlessness in continuous motion which must, of course, tend to make a picture's message less sure of itself and shallower. Some of the best German pictures, he thinks, have been made by the Mestere Company, with Hetty Porter as the leading woman.
In France, too, he found improvement, particularly in the work of the Gaumont Company. The best improvement in their work, he sees, has been in the quality of the stories, but there has also been progress all along the line - acting, stage craft and photography. He was delighted with the show offered at the Gaumont Palace in Paris, which seats as many as the Hippodrome here in New York yet exhibits to a full house every night and sells standing room - all at high prices. The well-balanced variety of the show pleased him. There were black-and-white pictures, colored films and singing pictures with short scenics and educationals, but no songs or anything that wasn't photographic. He added, though, that he had just come from an afternoon from the Strand Theatre in New York City and was enthusiastic over the way pictures are handled there. It is the best conducted picture house that he has yet seen.
In England he finds that picture makers have proved their misty climate is not the impossible handicap to good photography which many have long supposed it to be. Some recent English photography is as clear and as good as that made on the Continent or elsewhere. Many fine and interesting offerings have been recently turned out in English studios.
He finds that architecture and decoration of the picture houses are considered far more important abroad than these things are in this side of the sea. Art Nouveau is markedly in fashion there, especially in Berlin, where there are picture houses decorated with the grace and beauty that are never seen here. He thinks, too, that we in America have not taken the same care in choosing and balancing the program as abroad, where an evening's entertainment is apt to be more satisfactory as a whole. He is not at all sure that our feature films are, as a rule, just what the people want. Of course, he said, any reasonable length of film at all will be a delight, for the story warrants that length, but he finds that in the making of many features we, on this side, have been too tempted to pad out for mere length's sake. Yet some of our new features he finds greatly pleasing. He finds, too, that our big features have led us in America to make flattering progress in the handling of big subjects. He is optimistic as to the picture business in the future here in America, both artistically and from a business viewpoint.
Years later Note Edwin Thanhouser's son Lloyd recalled: "When we got back from Europe - I think I was 12 years old - I decided the nicest thing to do down near the waterfront of the Thanhouser studio was to have a marshmallow roast. And I built a nice little fire in the dried grass around there. It caught fire and burned all the ropes mooring the boats to the shore and they all drifted out. Uncle Lloyd Lonergan came to our rescue. He paid $20 to quiet the thing up. We had our nurse down there, too. At the same time the children were taken care of by this English nanny. At one time a boy from Iowa came to clean the Thanhouser house in New Rochelle and he looked at the woman and asked who she was and I said she is our nurse. 'Were you sick?' I said no, and then he said 'Why do you need a nurse?' I then said that I guessed my mother needed a nurse. Those were the days when you had servants."
Meanwhile, Edwin Thanhouser, his mind as active as ever, looked around for a new business venture.
Copyright © 1995 Q. David Bowers. All Rights Reserved.