 There's history here. And here. There's history there. History is everywhere. So today we're here to talk about Edison Marshall, who's Rogue Valley boy made good. I'm curious how many of you already know about Edison Marshall? A few. That's about where we were in Medford last week, or have not read his books, obviously, or maybe you didn't know you'd read his books. So Edison Marshall, Medford kind of likes to claim him as one of their own, even though he didn't live there after the late 1920s. His early connections, talking about South Oakdale, is how I got hooked into him. But his early connections to South Oakdale were part of what was made of a viable part of history to make the historic district important enough to finally happen. All the different people who live in the historic districts are more than just the architecture and the streetscape. It's also who lived there and the impact they had on their community. And there were a lot of interesting people who lived on South Oakdale who impacted Medford more than Edison Marshall did, but as far as a national celebrity, he would have been our celebrity. So he was the one that had some recognition outside of the local area that made us look more important than we probably really were. So he was a celebrity to the people who lived in Medford, and it was later in his life that he became a national celebrity. The Medford Mail Tribune reported on him a lot, and you'll see as I go through here, I'll be quoting different articles that they wrote. Either he fed them the information or they were really keeping track of him. But the names of the people who lived on South Oakdale are ones that if you're interested in Medford history, you probably recognize, but they were the bankers, orchardists, mayors and educators like Hedrick, journalists, all kinds of people who really made an impact on the neighborhood, on the growth of Medford in its early years. So long after Edison left town, I walked to and from junior and senior high school. Every day up and down Oakdale, I walked up and down from the south side of Stuart, up Oakdale to go downtown to hang out with my friends, or if our church was down at 4th and Oakdale. So I was very familiar with the houses. I'd look at all those old houses that came and went, and I'd think about who lived there and thought these houses were really cool looking. My folks had just built a brand new N56 three-bedroom ranch house. That wasn't cool. It was new, but these old houses were interesting. So I kind of just knew the neighborhood and always had enjoyed being able to walk up and down it. Then in 1970, my husband and I were actually able to buy a house on South Oakdale, and it wasn't long after we were in the house that people were coming to us and saying, oh, Edison Marshall lived in your house. And there were a couple other people, the John Orth family had lived in the house. And other people that were interesting in the community. But so it was Edison Marshall that kind of caught my interest. And as an avid reader, I went out and hunted up some of his books. Now, in the 70s, it was Ken Corliss downtown at the Bartlett Street bookstore who would find those books for me. And he would find them all around the country as he'd go out book buying in those pre-Internet days. Then later it was very easy. Now you can go on eBay and there's thousands of them listed from 50 cents to $125 the other day I saw for the one, his probably best known book. So I got interested in him and kind of got hooked into reading his books. And as I read them, it was very fun to sit there late at night maybe and read one of his stories that I knew he actually wrote when he had lived in our house and think about, oh, he was sitting right here. His niece had come and visited us for an afternoon and had said, told us which bedroom upstairs that he had used as his room to write in. So the connection was fun just as a reader. And the Historical Society also had a pretty good file on the Marshall family. So there was information there that made me feel like I knew him a little more or his family since he had grown up down the street. At home we have a bookshelf that has all his books that I've been able to collect on it and I have a couple bins of extra stuff in the attic that I pull out once in a while and look at. So Edison Marshall. One of the quotes he's best known for was in a 1965 grit magazine interview. I went after the two big prizes, fame and fortune and I got them both. I think he was pretty proud of himself. So planning this talk I kind of joked with Dennis that I might call it Edison Marshall, full of himself. As some of that reputation in Medford kind of lingered and I get little tidbits from here and there of that nothing that's especially written down anywhere but people would say there are little comments here and there. So we have his parents George and Lily Marshall. Edison was born in Indiana in 1894. His father was a newspaper publisher. His mother had been a school teacher. The only thing we know about those early years before he came to Medford was that on his 11th birthday he was given a .22 rifle and that spurred his life long interest in being a hunter. So two years after he got that rifle his father decided to retire at the age of 57, sold his newspaper and headed west to the Rogue Valley looking for orchard land. That was right at the height of the orchard boom of the years people were coming from the east coast and investing a lot of money. So in May of 1907 he wrote long letters home to his wife addressing her as Darling Girl, which I always thought was very sweet. And he was detailing his search for property. He tells them about the orchards he sees, what they cost, how much money they have to spend. And he actually came close to buying orchards near Ashland. So Ashland could have claimed Edison as their own if that had happened. Then at one point he wrote to her that he had moved from a $2 a day room to a $1 a day room so they could stay longer and look a little more. He did find a property to buy and we're going to have trouble there. Oops, this been true. He told me we're supposed to fumble around so that we're authentic up here. So in June he put money down on land and orchards in Southwest Medford. And he paid Edward DeHart $33,000 for that property that DeHart had bought only four years earlier for $15,000 from J.H. Stewart. So in four years it had more than doubled in value. Now Stewart had moved out of the house because the Medford City Council wanted to extend the boundaries of the city limits and he was going to end up in the city taxes and he did not want that to happen. So he just moved not too far away down and around the corner to King's Highway and built another fine home with other orchards that he already owned on Southside of Stewart. So finally we get the whole family moved to Medford when Edison is 13 years old. They owned the east side of South Oakdale from what is now Stewart to the old Medford High School east to the railroad tracks. Now if you know Medford a little bit, South Oakdale is the street that runs north and south from South of Stewart now but up past the courthouse between the courthouse and the Carnegie Library if that orients you a little. So it's the south end of town but south of the courthouse and the library. When George Marshall became an orchard as he also platted off the east side of South Oakdale and started selling house lots. And the dual family on the other side on the west side began doing the same. We have a dual family member here with us today. His sister, Star, graduated from high school and married Don Colvick and his brother, Vance Pinto Colvick also known as Bozo the Clown. So we have a lot of little connections with local history there. We're not going forward here. No, that was the house that George Marshall bought. It's known as the Stewart House. It's a historical name. The Stewart has, and then Marshall's lived in it for quite a while. So it had a, interesting, it had a water tower. It was pretty much by itself on that side of the street at that time and the empty land went back. The houses that got later built behind through here were more in the fifties that got built through other than Holly Street. Had a couple older houses on it. I shouldn't have gone backwards. Doesn't like me. There we go. OK, here we have the Marshall family sitting on the back porch of that house. Edison has his little sister Hope sitting on his shoulders. Star and Lucille is older sisters in the front row. And his brother, Vern, who was the oldest in the family in the middle of the back. And then his parents, Lily and George. Over on the side, up in the top right hand corner, his sister, Star, at 16. I assume that would have been her high school graduation photo, most likely. And then Lucille in 1910 as a college girl. When Edison attended Medford High School, which this was, this building was downtown at Fifth and Bartlett, which is now the commons. It would have been right where some of the green space at the commons is. And as you notice, the dates there did not last very long as a high school building because the town was growing so fast. By 1924, they had moved the, they built what's now known as McLaughlin. And made that the high school. But by 1931, they'd already outgrown that. And that's when they built the high school on South Oakdale. And McLaughlin became junior high. So this was a junior high in between 24 and 31. And then, I don't know what year they actually tore it down, but it didn't last long, which always just amazes me. You've got this amazing building, and it didn't last very long. That it wasn't valued enough to keep track of it. So Edison graduated from this building in 1913. So he had to hike clear downtown to get to high school. And during those high school years, he zeroed in on his plans to become a writer. This was his big dream. But along the way, he also had some other adventures. In 1912, there was a story that Sealy Hall, and some of you might recognize the name as an aviator, whose airlines eventually became United Airlines, but he was a Medford product. And he recounted a story about the 1912 high school football team and the Medford school board saying that they no longer wanted to have organized athletics, have students participate in them. And so the high school held a protest, and they prevailed on the basis of it being wholesome and healthy for you. So Edison was not a player, but he was the team business manager and involved in that protest. Edison continued his love of hunting. Again in 1912, he went hunting with one of his classmates, Noel Lindley. There's a Lindley Street in Medford too. And he dropped his rifle when adjusting the sights. It accidentally discharged with an explosion that blew off his left thumb and got shot into his face and into his ear. He was rushed by Otto to Sacred Heart Hospital, that he didn't get shot full face and killed was deemed a miracle. And now there's always two sides to the story. And I just got a little extra tidbit about this today. But another classmate, George Viles, wrote a very disparaging report of the accident on what a doofus and unlikeable person Edison was, and that no one wanted to go hunting with him. So today I just learned that maybe George liked to criticize people. So there's maybe not just second side, but a third side to this story. He attended the University of Oregon in 1913 to 1916. He belonged to Delta Sigma Epsilon. As a freshman, he sold his first story. The male Tribune story headline reads, Edison Marshall is rising author. He had received a check from Argosy Magazine for a story called The Leopard. And the paper declared his friends as having quote, predict for him a brilliant literary career. In 1915, he was elected as the playwright of his sophomore class at the University. And again, the Tribune says that it was the best that had ever been seen at the University. And I'd like to know who told him that. Would Edison let him know or what? His parents maybe? So December of that year, he was also quoted as saying that he had written boxes of verse, pounds of drama, a book or so, and everything else that's possible to write. But he didn't send any of it to editors or a little of it. Back in Medford, here we are with the Marshall Home, probably around 1920. And now Hope has her high school graduation picture at age 16 and his brother, Vern, a portrait there around 1918. But the bust of the fruit industry hit the Marshalls hard. Edison was later to say that the cold wind of poverty gave them a good scare. He resolved that whatever he did in life, it needed to make a bountiful living. I wonder if his family finances made him drop out of college because he left before his senior year. Leaving the U of O without graduating, returning home, our author did a short stint at the Medford Sun newspaper. Again, Vilas wrote how editor George Putnam told him that he had to ease Edison out as being only in the way around the office. 1918 found Edison in the army at Fort Harding, Georgia, as a public relations officer. Remember, he doesn't have a thumb and so he probably couldn't be in the military infantry. But one day seated in front of his tent during a thunderstorm, he was hit by lightning and knocked to the ground. He escaped harm while others were injured and one was killed. This is another story that was in the Medford Mail Tribune back home. That job, along with his time as the Medford Sun reporter, were the only ones that he ever claimed as having actually earned a salary. He was very proud that he'd earned his living independently as a writer. While in Georgia, he met his future wife, Agnes Sharpe-Flint. In 1919, this was very important in his career. He wrote a short story that won him much fame called The Elephant Remembers. And it was printed in literary textbooks for high school students and used for years. And I've somewhere read about how many thousands of students kind of grew up reading this in high school. And the other day, I went online out of curiosity and seen if I could find a book with it in it. And I didn't, but what I found was you can print the whole story right off the internet if you want to, which I did. So now I have a copy of that story. But or you can order it for your nook. So he also was published in a few magazines like The Popular Magazine. And Ben Truey's predominantly Medford website reprints his 1919 Medford male tribune story that he wrote about his first airplane ride. 1920 finds him newly married and living in Medford with Agnes at his parents' home, along with his brother, Vern, his wife, Lois, and daughter, I think Margaret, was her name. And so it was a full house. I got it. Thanks. So 1921. This was a big important thing in his life also. Found him living at 705 Park Street, but he's also riding up a storm. It's also the year that he was awarded the prestigious O'Henry Award for the Best Fiction Story published in the U.S. in 1921, The Heart of Little Shakira. Along with that, he got a $500 check. And I keep thinking I'm gonna figure out how much that would be today, but it's quite sizable, it's a hunk of money, I would say. This was big time fame, and along with a little fortune. So now in 1922, I finally get him and Agnes living in my house at 1009 South Oakdale. This picture was really about 1910, I believe. And he also was a significant year in that he got his first screen credit for the Snowshoe Trail. It was a silent movie. 1921 was also the year that Edison Jr. was born. Here we have Edison Sr. and Agnes proudly holding their son. Also, two years later, they had a daughter, Nancy, but I do not have pictures of her. He added more adventure novels, including Shepherds of the Wild, Seward's Folly, and Land of Forgotten Men. Magazine serials were becoming an important part of his income base, and that there were several pulp magazines that printed his stories. Edison was going on more and more hunting trips, mostly to Alaska and Canada, and Agnes would go home to visit her family in Georgia with two small children that had to have been quite a probably train trip in those days. During one of the times that they both were gone, his mother Lily found out that he had let someone she called the Englishman stay in the house, who was discovered throwing drinking parties and having women over. And they discovered this when a water pipe broke, and they had to go make arrangements to have it fixed, and here's this guy, and here's all these bottles laying around him. It was pretty scandalous. She wrote about it to a daughter in some letters, and some to Agnes. Her star's grandson, Tim Colvick, shared copies of those letters with me. His mother felt that, Edison's mother, felt that he was just too trusting and was taken advantage of. But it's a lot of details in those magazines. One of the young women named in the letters, excuse me, letters not magazines, was a miss ready. So some of you might recognize that miss ready. Her father was a mayor, and there's a street name for the family and that sort of thing. So, I love the covers on these magazines. Skyline of Spruce, and this article that's at the side there, I'm gonna read a little bit from because it's just fun to hear how they wrote news stories in those days. His byline to Bedford, Oregon, January 9th, 1923. Startled by the crashing of underbrush, Edison Marshall, noted fiction writer, turned to meet the savage glare of a monster grizzly bear. Quick as a flash, Edison fired. The grizzly paused for a moment, then enraged into even greater ferociousness by the sting of the wound charged. Edison put everything he had, including a prayer. Into one more shot, the last he would be able to fire before the beast would be upon him. Luck was with him, the bear fell dead at his feet. And that said Marshall today, to a reporter for the Telegraph and NEA Service is my answer to your question, whether it's easy to write fiction. Marshall is a writer who believes in getting material first hand. The encounter with the grizzly occurred while he was in Alaska in search of color. And to prove it, he brought forth a picture showing him and the conquered grizzly in a canoe crossing back to camp. Skyline of Spruce, Marshall's latest story is replete with the thrills described by a man who has experienced myriads of them. It tells of adventure and romance in the great outdoors of Canada's caribou range. And then this news service evidently had acquired the serial rights to that story also, and so they were gonna start printing it. After Skyline came out, Edison wrote to a reviewer. Thank you for reviewing my novel. I would rather have a deprecating review than no review at all, followed by a long diatribe on the realism of the West in his stories. He did not take criticism well, is what I figured out. Good housekeeping serials developed into a mainstay that would last for a couple of decades. And oral history at the SOHS Research Library in the 1980s included the story of Claire Higgins as the hired housekeeper she objected to Edison's love of Limburger cheese, and he insisted that he keep it out in a second refrigerator on the porch. Locals told of fancy parties. Little neighbor girl Betty Bardwell in a fluffy dress, did you know Betty Bardwell? Yeah. Would show guests where to put their coats. Her mother Bert wrote a fun letter in 1977 to Laura Porter, Laura Drury Porter, who also had been a resident in our house, telling how poor frail Agnes, Southern girl that she was, just could not back the car out of the driveway and she'd go do it for her. How the Marshalls had brought with them to Medford, a couple as maid and butler. He was also called Bert, causing one not to know which Bert was being called for. I always wondered where they let them sleep. And there's been intimations that this was a black couple at the time and she brought from the South, but I've never been able to verify that. I just somehow, something somebody said to me in those early years, set that in my mind, but I may be wrong, which in Medford would be very unusual at the time. In 1926, the Marshalls moved back to the South to be near Agnes's family. She never did quite fit into Medford. The Bardwells were asked to help throw a little going away party, but the list grew and grew and grew and Mrs. Bardwell said that they got stuck with most of the food and drink. In 1009, our house was rented out and then sold in 1930 to the John Orths. This is a photo of, it says, it's a vintage postcard. It says hunting lodge, but before it was this hunting lodge image, it was called Seven Gables and it was the home that they bought in North Augusta, South Carolina, and this is where they lived through the 1930s, just across the border from Augusta, Georgia. By 1927, he was going more often on fishing trips and off to Alaska hunting for story background, dropping by Medford to see his family. Visits always garnered Medford male tribune press on his latest adventures. Agnes stayed home. Seven Gables was quite the house. In a short biographical entry that was written at the time they were in the house, it tells that he was decorated by the French government, but it doesn't say what for, have no idea. And it lists his address as Seven Gables and his affiliations as an elk, mason, protestant, and Republican. But he did have time to sign autographs. And this one I found interesting, this is the little tidbit I bought off of eBay. Never know what you're gonna find there. 1929 and it's some, I would assume probably younger person, somebody named Joan had written him asking for an autograph. But what's interesting is that up at the top in the letterhead, it says Edison Marshall, Seven Gables, and then it says Augusta, Georgia. But it wasn't in Augusta, Georgia. It was across the state line in North Augusta, South Carolina. So he's kind of fudging this a little. I think he's thinking that Augusta sounds more prestigious or something. Here in the, around 1930, I think these photos are, their photos again from that came through to me from Tim Colvig and Star, Tim's grandmother. Photos of George and Lily with unnamed grandchildren. And down here at the bottom, the women would be, I figured out, starting on the left, that would have been Star and then Hope, his two sisters, his mother, Lily, his wife, or excuse me, his sister Lucille, his wife, Agnes. And this would be Lois, who would have been Burns' wife. Out in the water tower there that you saw on that very first picture of the Stuart houses still there. Back in Medford, he lost his father in 1931 and his mother in 1936. And she was remembered for being her, for her artistic talents and as an intellectual. Oddly, he stretched his fame with a magazine ad endorsement based on his poor mother spinning her last widowed money on a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. And I've got a copy of that ad at home, which I didn't try to include here because it's really hard to see, but it says something about widowed mother spins, part of her last thousand, you know, inheritance. It's like, why would you do that to your mother? I just don't get it. But anyway, the family home was sold and she moved down with her daughter Star and Don Colvig in the weed area, in Chasta area of weed. And Vern continued to live in the Rogue Valley as a fruit farmer. I don't know what happened to Hope as far as her life going forward. Still cranking out serials for Good Housekeeping in the 1930s, several novels were also published. And why it's easy to get these magazine covers is people collect them for the art. There were artists like Jesse Wilcox Smith and different Verns, I can't remember somebody. Anyway, there were people who regularly did the cover artwork and they are collectible to some people. And so if you go to like to an antique show and you find a paper dealer, you can usually find, and I did it kind of the first time by accident and I'm standing there in Portland saying, this guy lived in my house and they're looking at me like, yeah, sure, but anyway. So you can see here that you have on the far side, Edison's name is in big print and that's probably because it was the first of a three-part serial. And so they're telling you that there's a new story but as you're going down some of the others where his name's maybe not as big, it's probably the third part of the serial but people that are hooked will find it and read it. So some of the other things he wrote in the 1930s, novels were Ogden's Strange Story, Diana the Lost Land, The Doctor of Lonesome River. And they're all still pretty hokey. Those earliest books all had some young, beautiful woman and her father, her mother died when she was young and her father was maybe some lumberman or something up in the wilds of Alaska and along would come the big handsome guy that saved her from something, maybe a grizzly bear and then they'd get snowed in somewhere in a cabin but nothing naughty ever happened. The stories were pretty predictable but they were a little, you know what you'd call hokey but they worked up to some better novels in the 40s and the 50s and it was fun to see how he grew as an author over those years. Other magazines that he wrote for regularly were Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, American and Reader's Digest would print his stories. Whoops, a little, yep, yep, we're gonna play with our buttons here. So this picture would no longer be two PC but I'm sure he was very proud of it at the time. He branched out with trips to Africa and into China and India, big game and tiger hunting. He claimed it was not for enjoyment but for realistic experiences to add color to his stories. Story names reflected those exotic places, the Lord of the Elephant, the Fox of Zanzibar, the Cave of a Million Buddhas. Here we have Emporine Tea with his wife Agnes in 1938 and his sister Lucille's Sunday afternoon tea that she held to introduce him to her friends. His sister Lucille O'Neill was her married name, was a well-respected teacher in Plymouth Falls, had a long career over there, she had an education center named for her and she also served on the Oregon Board of Education. Finally, in 1941, he hits the fame, the big book that really put him on the map. His first bestseller, Benjamin Blake, is an 18th century romance with, from a review saying, vivid detail and hints of lusty sex, just hints. Evidently, I'm not sure, I don't remember, it's been a long time since I've read it. It puts him over the top as far as being successful and then a year later, with a Tyrone Power movie retitled Son of Fury. Now the picture up here shows Son of Fury, this came out just a year after the Benjamin Blake came and you notice Son of Fury's now at the top of the book and Benjamin Blake and his name's down at the bottom because what's the movie obviously outshined the book? Then we have a paperback version that I also have and the bottom corner is a DVD that I bought about five years ago online, so you never know what you're gonna find these days. It's Tyrone Power, it's a, Daryl Zanick was the director of that movie. The success of that book and movie allows them to buy a mansion in Augusta. Now we're back really in Georgia. So this is a mansion he named with beautiful gardens that he named Breitholm, which was the name of a place in the book Benjamin Blake. He prided himself on avoiding New York and Hollywood, that he only read poetry and biography, that he did not read anybody else's novels. He didn't wanna be corrupted by somebody else's work. And at this time he also said that he hoped to be able to write for another 20 years to give him a 50 year record of good living from the pen alone and a lifetime spent at no other gainful occupation. Now as a bestseller, selling author, the Yeovoa awarded him an honorary degree. He maintained ownership of seven gables on the other side of the border, evidently as a retreat with his male friends. It was interesting that a few years ago I wrote a blip for the Oregon Online Encyclopedia and I said something about him owning this home, Breitholm in Augusta, Georgia. And somebody who lives back there wrote to Portland State and said, no, that's wrong. That's incorrect information. And they did some research and told, because this guy said, my dad kept driving me past the seven gables and that's where he lived. Well, that was partly true, but this is the home that he claimed as his home for many years then because it was the more prestigious place. But the way they proved to him that this was Edison Marshall's home were these photographs that were on the Smithsonian site. It was kind of interesting and I have to confess I snitched this photo off the Smithsonian site to have a photo of Breitholm for you. But they were very proud of their home with its wonderful gardens. So taking advantage of his popularity, many of the books that he wrote in the 20s and 30s now are republished in the 40s because he's popular enough, he's got name familiarity that people will buy them. But the covers are much more, they're pulp magazines and paperbacks and the covers are much more lurid than the originals had been. He wrote a novel a year during the 40s. Some of them are Great Gatsby. It's cute, Great Gatsby. Great Smith, excuse me, that was a slip. The Upstart, Castle in the Swamp, Yankee Pasha, Gypsy Six Pints, The Infinite Woman and All Had Good Success. In the 1950s, excuse me, 1950s also found his new books Finding a Market through the Literary Book Club. I know I belong to the literary book guild way back in the 70s, order books by mail. I wonder if some of the rest of you've done that. Titles were Caravan to Xanadu, American Captain, The Gentleman, The Inevitable Hour, Princess Sophia, The Pagan King. The only non-fiction book that he wrote was The Heart of the Hunter in 1956. And each chapter in the book is a different area of the world that he had gone hunting in, different periods of his hunting life. And in the very beginning of the book was the little bit that pulled about him as a boy receiving his first rifle. An interview when it came out is that he lived two lives, that of a writing life and that of a big game hunting life. A little more exciting than that non-fiction book is our couple of books he wrote under a pseudonym, Hall Hunter. I've found only the Bengal Tiger, but in articles about him they always say he wrote under the name Hall Hunter, unless if he wrote a bunch of them. But I've only been able to find the one. More interesting, however, his great nephew, Tim Colvig, passed along to me the story that he'd gotten from his own father that Edison had written another book, The House Boy, a biracial story of forbidden love in the South. Notice up there it says her parents didn't realize what was happening. And this came out in 1947 as a hardcover and then this paperback copy that I've got at home came out in 1953. So House Boy was published under the name Walton Fairbank and just obviously too racy to put his own real name on it. His 1951 novel, The Viking, became an award-winning epic movie in 1958, starring Kurt Douglas, Janet Lay, and Tony Curtis. This is my go-to example when I try to explain to people who Edison Marshall is, that guy that lived in my house, because you can still see the Viking on TV once in a while. Somebody told me they watched it about a month ago. So the movie was one of the more popular epic movies of its day. Over his career he had five silent films and five talking sound movies based on his books from, and you see different numbers from 47 novels as often mentioned. Although it could be as many as 60 that I've also seen mentioned, probably depending on what list he was willing to put something on at any given time, what he was claiming as a novel and then maybe later didn't want to claim as a novel. Two letters at this time back to Medford Mail Tribune Robert Rohl, or publisher, excuse me, in 1953 and 54, show that he's still trying to prove himself to the folks back home. He wrote that he was flabbergasted, that he got a favorable, sincere review of American captain from young Ellen who would have been Eric Ellen, after he did not get a good one for the Viking. Sending one publicity photo, he adds that additional ones would cost them $2.00. And writing that some reviewers call him the best in his field. So he did not like being criticized for the Viking and it became very popular. American captain, I don't know how popular it was at the time, but he got a good review from Eric Ellen for it. 1959 holiday magazine ad, he was able to bank on his fortune with an advertisement for Puerto Rican rum, complete with hammock and palm trees. And I had meant to have this in my slideshow but I wanted to share this because it's very amusing in that he's holding a book and a pen and he's holding his drink and he's wearing nice slacks and he's got a hammock and palm trees behind him. So it just doesn't really quite come together as it really might in real life. As a veteran rum biber, I found the Puerto Rican variety warm, gentle and dry. And then he says, the beauty of Puerto Rico came as no surprise to me but the rum did. And then he goes on to say that at home they serve their guests in their home a rum highball recipe that he includes here. So if you want a rum, you can come up later if you want that recipe. But I just, another thing that I was able to find on eBay that I just found amusing because it just was a little, not was it dressed for the hammock and something's in that hammock tolling it down. I'd like to know what. So here we have Edison at home in 1965. This is related to that fame and fortune quote interview in Grip Magazine. Down in the bottom corner is a table, the cut line here, I don't know if you can read it, but it says that he's flanked by the rotating table of reference books that he, as he writes. So he's got this table that, well, he can just twirl it, you know. And here's his Google search up here, I think. All stacked up on his desk. So he wrote in that, he's quoted in this article as saying that, they're asking how much time he spends writing that he gets up and he writes from 9.30 to 12 in the morning, that he takes a break for a drink and lunch, that he naps for a couple hours, and then from four o'clock in the afternoon till midnight, he writes again, but he doesn't say that he gets any dinner or another drink, which I thought he should have a chance at. So many of his books during this period were translated into five to seven foreign languages. One of the books that I bought on eBay, I got from Australia and it was a book, they changed the title, they published it and they changed the title, but it was still one of the other books. That's why it's kind of confusing what he did or didn't write. And this is probably my favorite picture. This is in 1963, before I get to the photograph, he did not attend his Medford High School 50th class reunion, but he sent a long letter that was printed in the Tribune along with the reunion pictures. You know, they used to print the pictures of who came to the reunion and write a big story about who came and what interesting things they were doing. So in his case, it was like who didn't come to the reunion, still got a picture and his message to his class printed. And it's like to me, he was never one to use five words if he could work 15 into the story and his letters could go on and on. He alluded to working on an autobiography, but that's never been published. The photograph here is kind of cool in that he's obviously proud of all these books that he's lined up, and evidently this was taken on his 69th birthday. And he wrote this message to his sister, Star, that says, on my 69th birthday while meditating my works, I thought upon those who have made possible their performance, those in concert with me, and consider who gave me access to their thoughts and personalities. A few who presented me with brilliant ideas for novels and generous many who recognized the sincerity of my efforts and have not deprived me of their support. And then he wrote to my beloved sister, Star, Marshall Colvig, whose element is beauty. This is a nice little message to his sister on his his birthday though. He's sending her his picture for his birthday. He died in October 29th, 1967, and his obituary was published in the New York Times or New York newspapers and Washington DC papers from Augusta to Medford. And I'm sure he'd be pleased to know we're talking about him here today, all about his fame and fortune. Thank you. We're just about out of time, but if anybody has a Scott.