October 14, 2024 • 49 mins
At the height of the Great Depression, an oil mogul from LA decided to escape society with his mistress to create their own utopia on a faraway land. The problems started with other people following them there. My friend, Abbott Kahler, is my guest today. She used to write under the name: Karen Abbott. Abbott tells me the story at the center of her book: Eden Undone A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's kind of an adult Lord of the Flies, you know.
It really sort of devolves into a situation that's dangerous
for everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:46):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stores. At the height of the
Great Depression, an oil mogul from la decided to escape
(01:07):
society with his mistress to create their own utopia on
a far away land. The problems started when other people
followed them there. My friend Abbot Kaylor is my guest today.
She used to write under the name Karen Abbott. Abbot
tells me the story at the center of her book
Eden Undone, a true story of sex, murder and utopia
(01:27):
at the dawn of World War Two. Where did you
even find the story? I had never heard of any
of it. I had never heard of George Allen Hancock.
I had never heard of any of this. So this
came as a big surprise when I read the book.
Tell me a little bit about its origin story for you.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So I was actually researching a different book. I was
looking into world War two stuff, maybe fourteen years ago
or so twelve fourteen years ago, and I came across
a headline in a nineteen forty one newspaper, and I
actually wonder if I could read it to you, because
it is it is literally the most absurd and fantastic
(02:08):
passage I think I've ever read in a newspaper.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
We love that sort of thing on this show, so sure.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I mean, I hope you find it as titillating
as I did. But here it is. Quote was doctor
Ritter with his steel teeth poisoned in Paradise was Baroness Eloise,
known as Crazy Panties, who ruled the island with a
gun in love, murdered by one of her love slaves
after she had driven the other to his death. And
(02:35):
why is Frau Ritter going back to what she once
called Hell's Volcano, the mystery of the Galapagos Island, which
Germany covets to be solved at last. So I just
read that again and again, and I didn't know quite
what to focus on. Steel dentures, crazy panties, Hell's volcano,
driving the one lover to death while killing the other one. Yeah,
(02:57):
so I just was like, what the fuck is this story?
And I started digging. I forgot all about the World
War II project I've been looking into, and I was
My first order of business was to look up crazy panties.
I was like, if you are going to be called
crazy panties, by god.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
You better earn it.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You better earn that. And she, this woman earned it
and then some and I became fascinated by the story.
I pitched it to my publisher at the time. They
said no. I pitched it to my next publisher, they
said no. I pitched it to that publisher again they
said no, And finally finally I got a yes.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Oh good, thank you. Is the least interesting person the
Los Angeles oil tycoon who sort of uncovers all of
this whole. Is this the boring one out of everybody?
If we all have a boring character in our books.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I mean, I think that's fair to say, and which
is quite quite amazing, because Alan Hancock was a fascinating
man who anybody and who's in Los Angeles or people
saidamiliar with Los Angeles with no Hancock Park that's named
after him, the labrea' tarpits that was his backyard when
he was growing up. He was an overnight millionaire after
being a pretty poor, you know, young man growing up there.
(04:12):
You know what was fascinating about him and his colleagues collectively, though,
it was this sort of error in American history where
everybody was suffering from the depression. You know, this is
early this is nineteen thirty, and then people who were
not suffering from the depression one of their favorite things
to do is to take these really extravagant oceanic explorations in.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
The name of science.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And it was something that people were just starting to
get involved in terms of looking at exotic creatures and
the fauna and the flora of unexplored islands and bringing
those specimens back to the United States for further study.
In the footsteps of Darwin, of course, you know Darwin
started all this. It was reignited again by an author
named William Biebe who wrote a book about the Galapagos,
(04:55):
and people started picking up that interest again around this
time period, and it became really, really a popular thing
to do for these American millionaires in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So tell me where the story begins for you. Is
it with Hancock in la meeting with the Smithsonian scientists,
making this expedition to the Islands. Where does it really begin?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well to me, I mean I was first fascinated by
these German exiles, these people who in the late nineteen twenties,
when the Wimer Republic was just starting to falter, Hitler
was coming into power, chaos was starting to start in
Europe and in Germany in particular, these people decided to
try to escape their lives, escape civilization, and build a utopia.
(05:41):
And it began with a doctor named Frederick Ritter, who
is this really really fascinating character. I mean, he's kind
of a nineteen thirties like kipster in Cell who studied Nietscha.
You know, Virtuo signaled by pretending to be a vegetarian.
But meanwhile he's like eating meat all the time. He
fancied himself as very important philosopher. His big goal was
(06:02):
to go to a remote island and implement some of
his his his theories. He had a lot of theory
about the effect of sunlight on human skin and raw
food dieting. I mean, in a way, he was ahead
of his time, studying the sort of raw food dieting
and other sort of natural ways of living that you know,
I guess are commonplace today, but we're sort of revolutionary
(06:24):
at the time. And he, you know, this was his
idea to write about these philosophies and his experiments and
become a household name, become a famous philosopher in the
manner of nietzscha And he brings along with him a
woman who had been his patient in Berlin named Dorri Stratch.
She was suffering from multiple sclerosis, and you know, every
(06:46):
single doctor she had seen told her it was incurable.
You know, she has multiple scrosis, it's incurable. But Frederick
Grinnard decides to tell her no, no, no, no, no,
you are perfectly capable of curing your own multiple sclerosis.
You just have to want to cure it enough. You
have to the power is in your mind to cure
your multiple scoreses. And she kind of falls in love
(07:06):
with him, She falls for his whole thing. She decides
he's a genius. They're both going to leave their spouses
and run off to the Scalapagos Island together and try
to live out his grandiose dream. And she's going to
facilitate his writings and his philosophy and his experiments. And
in the meantime she gets to be has helped me
and his companion, and she can't think of a higher calling.
(07:28):
That's in the beginning. Things get a little bit diceier
as the story goes on.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Had Ridder done any real planning at all? I mean,
I hate to bring up boring things like sanitation or plumbing.
It no, okay, it's.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Actually fascinating what they did. So Ritter, if I could
refer back to that initial passage I write at the beginning,
with his steel teeth, doctor Ritter, with his steelt So
Frederick Gridder was so committed to the idea of life
on a remote island that he yanked out all of
his teeth and had them replaced by a set of
steel dentures. Because the idea was that he didn't want
(08:08):
to encounter any dental problems on the island. That was
his big nod to the gravity of what he was
about to embark on. He also had a philosophy. It
wasn't just about dental problems. He also had a philosophy
that if you got rid of your teeth, they're superfluous.
Your gums could be quote forrny enough to serve his teeth.
They could adapt. So it was kind of a human
(08:28):
evolution idea in his mind that our gums would just
become teeth in the absence of teeth. And so, you know,
what he failed to account for eventually was that his
gum shrank a bit and the dentires did not stay improperly.
So they're rattling around in his mouth a little bit.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
That's not sexy at all. Does she care? Does care?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Well? I think that Dory was having her own issues.
You know, she was experiencing dental problems, and her teeth
were sort of falling out, and he yanked a few
of them to the point where she became embarrassed. Once
these American explorers started encountering them, she became embarrassed. She
didn't want to smile. She didn't want to talk, she
didn't want to show her sheep. So they would actually
(09:07):
share the dentures at times. And I really don't think
there's a grosser phrase in the English language than shared
seal dentures, like I took pretty bad. It's pretty bad.
But that was the way that they approached that. And
you know, they did give Alay a lot of their possessions.
But as for that, you know, Frederick was actually a
kind of talented inventor. He was able to sort of
(09:30):
rag up a shower for them that came out of
the spring. He attached the cartridge and sort of like
a hose contraption, and he was actually able to make
a regular household. Floriana and the island that they went
to was an interesting choice because it's barren and descelin.
The Glacos Islands are not a very They're not really
this sort of thing you think of when you think
(09:50):
of tropical island. They're not these beautiful sandy beaches with
these lush landscapes and palm trees and beautiful bewater. It's
all lava rock, not a lot of fertile soil. Is
very dry, it's very barren if there is any soil
that's able to be cultivated, which they found. It was
up in the highlands where you get the sort of
missed from the mountains that are there, all the volcanic mountains.
(10:13):
You know, it's a volcanic area, so you get the
miss from that and sort of a spring that runs
from that. But the Floriana where they settled only had
one spring, so it was a very strategical location, which
also causes problems later on with the other settlers. Everybody
wanted close proximity to the spring.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Of course, now Ritter and Dory are both together, how
are other people showing up on this island? Is he
recruiting a lot of different people? Is he the leader
of this? Like who finds the island? And how does
this first sort of develop so that we have a
little bit of a civilization.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So Frederick's idea was that it was going to be
just him and Dory. It was going to be a
private utopia, just the two of them. They didn't want
any other company, or so fret Or claims. They just
wanted to sort of be by themselves and cultivate this
utopia on their own. What happens so the American Explorers
throw a wrench into that. There was a man named
Eugene MacDonald who actually found the Zenith radio. He was
(11:07):
a Chicago millionaire, and he also was sort of a playboy,
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Of a it's like a bad boy, yeah, a little
bad boy.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
He's a bit of a nineteen thirties bad boy. He
was a big drinker. He liked to shoot his gun indiscriminately.
He collected guns. He actually collected the gun reportedly that
that al Capone had used in the Balentine State massacres.
He was a sort of Chicago the Chicago bad playboy.
So he shows up in nineteen twenty nine, and it's
(11:34):
at a time period when Dory and Friedrich are having
a little bit of trouble. You know, they start out okay.
Friedrich's kind of a difficult character live was, to say
the least, which I get into. The relationship is sort
of up and down and up and down, and Dorry's
trying her best to keep the peace. Eugene McDonald shows
up and he's shocked to find people on this island.
He thought it was uninhabited. They talked to him. He
(11:56):
gives them scenes, He gives them the supplies, and he
tells them he'll be back, He'll stay in touch with them.
He's fascinated by the experiment they're doing. But achieve McDonald
goes back and sends out a wire to all the
newspaper across the country, across the world. I discovered Adam
and Eve on the island of Floriana. You know, I
discovered these two people. They are, you know, these two
(12:18):
eccentric Germans trying to create their life together on this island.
And wow, what a crazy thing I discovered. So that's
when the international publicity starts, much to Dori and Friedrich's
you know, dismay, and the word reaches Germany and another
family decides to come after that.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
So these are people from Germany who are fleeing. Are
they fleeing anything like any sort of like persecution having
to do with World War One? You know, World War
two coming up later.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah. So this second family, it's the Whitmer family. Like Friedrich,
Heinz Whitmer was a veteran of the Great War. Both
had post traumatic stress disorder, I think from their service
and Hines had worked for a high ranking official in
the Weimar Republicmer Republic was crumbling, and you know, his
boss was an avowed enemy of Hitler, so there was
some fear of retaliation for Hines, I think, in just
(13:13):
sort of a general sense that his political situation might
come to light and he might get in trouble. In
addition to that, he had taken up with a lover.
He also left his spouse, and she left her spouse
and they were together. And Hines had his son from
his first marriage, and this son was a teenage son, Harry,
who had been sickly since Burt and nearly blind. So
(13:34):
they couldn't afford a sanitarium. They couldn't afford a hospital,
so they decided that it might behoove the boy to
move to a more tropical climate and it might sort
of heal some of his ailments. So all of those
factors went into Hines thinking that moving to Floriana to
follow in the footsteps of doctor Ritter and Dory might
be a good idea.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So now we have two couples who have left all
of their spouses for each other, right, and then a
teenage boy who sounds like he could use some medical help. Yeah,
Eugene McDonald doesn't come back, does he? Does he? End
up shacking up there too.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
No, he SE's in touch with them. I think he
does return a second time, but he does not end
up None of the American explorers end up moving in.
They just keep coming back and reporting on the situation.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
They just ruined things, Yeah, they ruin things.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And then and then once things are really you know,
once the ship really hits the fan, they start digging
through the pieces and trying to figure out what happens.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Now, how do these two couples in this teenage boy?
How does everybody get along? I feel like this is
the second or third story I've done about a remote
island with people on it. And what I had learned
in the pattern was that everybody seems to kind of
pick up a role, and they do their they have
their own role, and when something happens to one person,
it sort of makes everything fall apart. It's amazing how
you can have such a small community and if you
(14:53):
remove one person, or if that person rebels against the community,
it can really devastate them. So how are these people
getting along for now?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, I mean, once Ritner and Dory found out that
Heinz Whitmerner's family were coming, I mean they were completely
angry about it. They were furious, really, they did not
want anyone else there. They were very disturbed by the
idea that Hines and his girlfriend Margaret Whitmer, you know,
the sort of common law spouses at that point. She
eventually came when they eventually moved to the Glaco. She
(15:23):
was pregnant with Heinz's child. So the immediate implication was that, oh,
doctor Ritter is going to be there to help with
the baby. He's going to help with the delivery, he's
going to help Margaret with her medical care. He's going
to make sure the baby is okay. And doctor Ritter
and Dorry both resented this, you know, they resented the imposition.
He didn't go there to practice as a doctor. He
didn't go there to serve, you know, he was getting
away from all of that. That's not what he was
(15:45):
there for. So things start off really rocky with them,
and it's kind of like, look, you you do your
thing over there, we'll do our thing over there, and
let's just try to coexist peacefully without really involving each other,
ourselves in each other's lives. That does start changing. Margaret
does give birth and she does have to call it
behind Printer Gritter and Frederick Gritter. You know, the avowed
(16:07):
vegetarian often asks Hymes for a cut of meat. He
always says the meat is for his chickens. He feeds
meat to his chickens. But he's always asking Himes for
a cut of meat. And it becomes a running joke
with Margaret Whitmer and heins Whitmer that Frederick is, you know,
the first thing from a vegetarian they could possibly be,
and they just laugh about him. It's kind of private
(16:27):
joke with them.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Are these five people prepared to live in the wilderness?
I watch alone? Have you seen a loan on History
Channel before? No? Oh my goodness. So they throw these
you know, these survivalists, most of them are professional survivalists
into like really remote areas in Canada with very few
supplies and they just have to last as long as
they can. You know, it's you and and against nature
(16:52):
and you have to have some skills. What is day
to day life for these people who I presume we're
not professional survivalists in any way? Are they hunting or
fishing or what?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah? I mean they're mostly hunting, especially Hines and Margaret
because they you know, they do eat meat. They hunt
a lot. Dori and Frederick have a garden. They sort
of start cultivating a garden that's alternately looming well and
dry and barren. You know, sort of the mercurial weather
down there just messes with the garden at times. But
(17:26):
they're able to cultivate a lot of a pretty healthy garden.
Mostly they eat a lot of eggs. They have chickens.
I'm sure Fredrick's you know, sneaking some meat on the side.
But they sort of, you know, figure out how to
make it work. It's backbreaking work building a house from scratch.
I talk a lot about how they did that, and
just weatherproofing against the rains that could come there. You know.
(17:47):
I went to visit the Galapagos Floriana Island in twenty
twenty two, and I visited the areas where they had lived,
and you know, it is still it is very rough terrain.
And I couldn't imagine how do you do and in
nineteen thirty without the benefit of any modern tools or
internet or access to immediate help, especially if you have
(18:07):
multiple scrosis. And Dory had sort of a limp leg
as an effective effect of multiple scruesis. Now she didn't
just roll over and die in the first couple of
weeks of exhaustion. I will never understand. I mean, the bravery. Say,
you know, the characters all are very flawed people, but say,
you know, you cannot dispute their bravery and just the
(18:29):
balls they had to really just make it go of
this and make it work well.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Margaret with a new baby and then this teenage son.
It just seems like the majority of the people need
some sort of medical regular you would think medical attention.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, I mean, and it's sort of just remarkable. You know,
they just make do you know, she feeds the baby
what she cultivates from the garden. She breastfeeds obviously until
she until she can't do it anymore. But they get desperate.
This is what makes it interesting in terms of the explorers.
You know, here are all people who said, we don't
want help from the outside. But onilst these explorers keep
(19:03):
coming and bringing seeds and bringing food and bringing preserves
and bringing milk and bringing this and that, they start
welcoming the explorers. They start welcoming them, and they start
competing for their extension and for their gifts. They're sort
of a mad scramble that starts and a competition among
all of these people that only and also causes a
lot of envy and anger in the community.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So I've had read about explorers coming from all over
the world and they're going to these islands where they
are quote unquote natives, and they're bringing all of these gifts.
Is that kind of what's happening here in a really
odd way with people affluent enough to be able to
live this sort of lifestyle. Are they what are they
bringing to them?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Oh? So it's mostly at Hancock. It's Alan Hancock, it's
Vincent Astor, it's Eg McDonald, it's all American. Anybody who's
visiting the Gladgos Islands at this period of time because
the Great Depression was on, was rich and they did bring,
you know, seeds and hands of food and milk and
sort of guns, ammunition tools, garden tools, anything that might
(20:04):
help facilitate life on the island for these people. And
it's a system that works very well, you know, until
Crazy Panty shows up. So she comes a little bit later,
and then you know, it prows another sort of element
into the competition for the explorers' gifts.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
So I was going to ask, what the next big
event is. Is crazy panties the next big event that
happens to this to the utopian island.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So crazy panties is the next big event? Crazy panties. Okay,
her real name is Antoinette. It's always been misreported as Eloise.
Her name was not Eloise. Her name was Antoinette. I
did a lot of research into her lineage. You know,
people also falsely reported that she's not a real baroness.
She actually was a real baroness. Came from a pretty
(20:52):
aristocratic family, a well connected family, wealthy family in Vienna.
So when this story happens, she is living in Paris
with a husband, but she also sort of is in
Paris culture at this time. You know, she's sort of
this sort of was described as orgiastic by one of
her contemporaries, and I think that was literal. There was
(21:14):
a lot of a lot of sex happening around the
baroness and she decides to you know, there's various sort
of stories about why she fled Paris. I talk about
them in the book. But she ends up leaving Paris
with two of her lovers that she was with at
the time. One was a business partner, kind of a
demoted lover. The other one was her preferred lover. There's
(21:36):
a hierarchy. There's a definite hierarchy that's happening.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Well, you're doomed if you're a demoted lover, I guess
in any situation.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
It was kind of like it was kind of like
the reverse Sister Wives. You know. It was like she
was the head of the family and she had various
lovers of importance and degrees. And she also brings along
a native Ecuadorian man who who had been living in
Paris and doing work for her. She brings him along
(22:03):
because of course he's going to be helpful in this situation.
He can help her her. Her plan is come to
the Floriana and make a hotel in the spirit of Miami.
She wants to turn Floriana into Miami for American tourists
and seduce American tourists and become a sort of, you know,
a well known person among Americans, possibly get to Hollywood.
(22:23):
But this is her goal. So you can see it's
immediately at odds with Frederick Ritter and with the winners,
who really just wanted to coexist peacefully on this island.
But she comes in and announces, Hey, I'm turning this
into Miami. I'm bringing on my head. I'm going to
seduce everybody. All the Americans are going to come and
love me. And she went for it. This woman, I mean,
(22:44):
in a way, she was this really kind of like Braisen.
She did not give a fox. She went for anything
she wanted. She just she just did not care what
anybody thought.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
But did she understand what rough living this would be
when she got did she understand there's no infrastructure? I mean,
she would have wanted indoor plumbing and stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
She realized that, you know, she was going to have
to build a hotel. She calls her hotel the Hacienda Paradiso,
and she leaves it in the hands of her ecutoring
contractor and her two lovers to build this hotel. You know,
it doesn't have any real modern conveniences. Of course, I
think anybody who was visiting Florian at this time knew
that they would, you know, be shitting in a hole somewhere.
(23:25):
There's not going to be any kind of you know,
luxurious bathroom set up. But it was it was, you know,
she ended up cultivating a nice garden she draped the
inside with the sort of exotic silks and rugs and
made a pretty picture out of it. She had a
very sort of picturesque boudoir that she liked to take
photos in. You know, there was all kinds of rumors.
(23:46):
One visitor called her hotel a quote festering sex complex,
So if that gives you an idea, but needless to say,
you know, she shows up and the first thing she
does is announced that she's going to live by the
Whigber's house, and she puts her feet in their drinking
water and their water supply, and she just basically from
the start has no problem antagonizing everybody, including Frederick Ridder,
(24:10):
including the Whitmers. She's immediately sort of establishing herself as
as a person who's going to do whatever she wants
and she doesn't care.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I was going to ask what the reaction was, are
either of these two men, the heads of these families
or whatever we're calling them, Are these men who have
ever had any kind of a pension for violence in
the past. I don't get a sense for what they
were like. If they were very volatile people.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, I think in the manner of Frederick Ridder, I
think he had after effects from his.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
War service, yeah, PTSD stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, And I think that there is a little bit
of violence left over from that. Although he you know,
he was kind of a very interesting he's a fascinating character,
but he's full of contradictions. And you know, as he
progressed himself to be a very peaceful person. In fact,
so peaceful ones he said, but he did not even
like to pull potatoes from the earth because it involved
(25:04):
yanking something from its roots. It was no too violent
an act for him, you know, but I think he was.
I think he was severely, severely disturbed by his experiences
in the war.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
So the baroness comes toning along this Ecuadorian contractor and
these two men who were her lovers, and she sets
up shop right next to the Whitmers. What happens next?
What's the big thing? They can't be happy about this,
and I'm sure are they arguing with her all the time?
How are they handling it?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
You know, it goes through period those where you know,
after Margaret has her baby, everybody tries to get along.
They're sort of a period of peace and magnanimous feeling,
you know, and sort of just let's all get along.
It really coincides with the visitors of the you know,
the American visits. You know, whenever an American shows up
with a yacht full of goodies, you know, competition starts again.
(25:55):
Is the baroness stealing things from the Whitmers? Is she
taking milk from the baby? Is she doing this? Is
she is she hoarding everything for herself? Or the Winnmer's hoarding?
What is Frederick Britters stealing? You know, there's all kinds
of accusations and suspicions that start festering because nobody trusts
each other, and it leads to a couple of accusations, fights, arguments,
(26:16):
and then a simmering down period because people, you know,
the escalation gets very dangerous and people keep pulling back,
and people keep pulling back, and then the next time
it happens, it just flares higher, and then people pulls back,
and then it flares higher. So it's just sort of
this continuous pattern of let's try to keep the peace.
Oh my god, the piece has got the piece is exploding.
We can't we can't sort of contain what's going to
(26:37):
happen here.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
What is the motivation of explorers like Eugene McDonald to
come back again and again. What are they getting out
of bringing gifts to these people? They're not journalists, what
are they getting out of it?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I think that it was sort of a point of pride.
I mean for Eugene McDonald, it was I discovered these people.
You know, it was that and also just curiosity. I mean,
these people were interested and ostensibly in the wildlife of
Floriana and the Galapagos, and what does it say, you know,
these human beings were the most exotic specimens of all
you know, look at these people. So they just became
(27:12):
like a circus curiosity that people wanted to keep track of.
And there were, you know, reports in the newspapers back
in the United States that I think were a kind
of welcome distraction from the bad news of the depression.
You know how dowur the thirties were, and it was
kind of became an aspirational thing. Couldn't we all just
leave our very difficult lives, especially at that time period
and build a new life on an island where we
(27:34):
didn't have such worries. We could live off the land,
we didn't have to worry about a paycheck. Money is
in money doesn't matter here, and so it sort of
became a fascination and a dream, and I think the
explorers fed into that. And in the case of instein
Ast and Hancock, they became very good friends with the exiles.
They became invested in their lives, and I was able
(27:56):
to cap into a bunch of archives that had never
been published or written about before they newly donated. You know,
Hancock became their closest confidant.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So you have these explorers kind of going back and
forth and the German exiles are competing for their attention.
How long does everything proceed on this island where everybody
is living not happily but just sort of their coexisting.
Is this years? How long does this last before the
next big event?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
There's a series of little earthquakes. I would say once
the Baroness arrives. There's never a moment of true peace.
There's just little little earthquakes that happen. There are incidents
that so disturbed Frederick and Hines that they try to
seek help from Macadorian officials and say, this woman is crazy,
this woman is crazy. We need your help, we need
your official intervention.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It's more serious than feed in the drinking water.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I assume then yes, I will say there's medical attention required.
But it's not only competition up among the settlers. Within
the baroness's own camp, she starts pitting her two lovers
against each other in ways that are increasingly disturbing. One
of them decides that, you know, he has to flee,
(29:06):
he has to seek refuge elsewhere. So it's kind of
like all of the chaos that's happening outside in the
real world. You know, she's managed to create a microcosm
of it on this little island.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Do you think had she not been introduced to this
so I talk about, you have a small civilization, and
he throws some one person in the mix, and look
how much it changes. Do you think that the Whitmer's
and Ritter and his girlfriend slash wife, would they have
been able to just sort of live their lives forever
it had the Baroness not been introduced to this little ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I will say this, The Whippers are still there. Whitmer
descendants are still on Floriana Island. Wow. I met Hines
and Margaret's daughter. She's in her eighties now, their daughter
is still alive. They run two hotels on that island.
So the Whitmers. The Whitmer sort of got the game right.
They knew how to play, they knew how to survive.
They're remarkable people, especially given Margaret, who I think is
(30:02):
kind of a low key mastermind of things. You know,
she always knew more than.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
What she let on.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
And this woman was just a badass. I mean she
went out and hunted wild wore on her own and
middle of the light the night, she gave birth to
a child alone in the middle of the night, without
any assistance. And they really were serious about it, and
I think they're the people who are most prepared and
therefore had the most success.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Well, the Baroness is there and things kind of get
ratcheted up. You know, you said that there's a series
of small earthquakes. What's kind of the next thing that
happens that you feel like shifts your narrative. I don't
know if it would be like the climax or what
you would want to call it.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, I would say two people go missing, that becomes
something that the explorers start investigating.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So what is motivating the explorers? They just want the headlines.
They like to be in the talk of the news
is that what it really is.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, I think at this point they're very invested in
these lives, you know, I think that there was a
genuine friendship.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Vincent asked her became such good friends with Dorian Frederick
that he would go visit them, and when other people came,
when other just random Americans would show up, Astor was
the one who would you know, lead the tour around
around Fredo, which was the name of their house. He
was invested in our lives, and Hancock, especially Hancock was
still very serious about collecting Glackago's specimens. You know, he
(31:19):
actually did do some good conservation efforts, but he always
made time to stop for Dorian Frederick, especially when two
of the exiles go missing. I think he feels responsible
and involved that he has to sort of take it
upon himself to investigate what was going on and be
a source of help and guidance and escape if need be.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Tell me the direction that we can go, so I
know it doesn't spoil too much of your book, but
that we can feel like we have like a sense
for where everything's going and how we can conclude. And
then I'm going to want to talk about of course,
like what the island's like today and how it's developed
and all of that stuff. So what do you think?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So I think that, you know, it turns to me
it's kind of an adult Lord of the Flies, you know.
It really sort of devolves into a situation that's dangerous
for everybody. It's desperate. I think they're in a desperate situation.
You know, if you just imagine two people are missing.
You know, in the case of Dory, who I would
say is one of my main narrators, you know, is
(32:14):
she protecting somebody who was involved in this?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Does she know this?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Does she know the extent of if Fredrick Gritter is involved?
She and Margaret wrote pretty amazing memoirs, and you read
them in hindsight, you know, from this distance, and you
wonder how much they kept out of their memoirs, how
much they really knew. And it's something that I grappled
with in the writing of this, because there are two
different versions of what happened, and I can't sit here
(32:40):
today and say this is true or this is true.
So I sort of had to present both and you know,
see what was most factual and present post versions and
maybe flow to theory or two, But there's no definitive
answers here. I definitely think Margaret Whitmer knew more than
what she led on without a doubt. So the men
did not write memoirs. Brederick did write a memoir. Yeah,
(33:00):
he read about more, but it's in German. I had
to have it translated, and it doesn't it's not as
not as much about his feelings as his accomplishments, which
seems pretty.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
It's on brand for somebody like that.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Pretty on brand exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, okay, so the book, the back of your book
talks about you know, them finding two mummified bodies, so
we know two people are dead, right, yes, okay, So
we have two people that eventually are going to be recovered,
and there's a kind of a it sounds like a
murder mystery. So ultimately we know that at least one
(33:35):
of the Whitmers survives and continues to be on the island.
How does this island develop after whatever happens happens here?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, if I could, you know, go back and just
talk about the history of Florien a little bit and
then go into how it is today. So Florida I
was always this fascinating history it's a smaller island in
the glac Goes. It's in the southern part of the islands.
It had this dark history. It was it was the
glock of his first penal colony. It was where they
shipped all their prisoners. The first and known inhabitant was
(34:06):
this pirate named Patrick Watkins, who was sort of notorious
for terrorizing anybody who would come by. He lived in
the caves. There were these caves that people move into
when they first go into the island, and it's always,
you know, it's always rumored the Patrick Watkin's ghost is there.
Native Ecuadorians are very afraid of Floriana at night, at
least back in that time here in the nineteen thirties,
(34:26):
they did not like to go thereafter dark because it's
sort of full of lore. It was ruled for a
time by a dictator who was very vicious to his people.
He was eventually overthrown and murdered because there was a
coupe and it just sort of anything about this island.
There was a lot of dark death lore and just
(34:47):
sort of unsavory characters. That reputation carries over today a
little bit. You know, when Ecuadorians talk about Floriana. They
now give tours about this history and sort of talk
about that and give tour about where Patrick Watkins had
lived and sort of all of the people's since who
had come. You know, there was also a group of
(35:08):
Norwegians who tried to build a colony there before, right
before the Germans and the Ritters and Dory came over,
and they failed spractacularly. So it was kind of when
when Doriy and Frederick showed up there, they were trying
to do something in a lasting way that nobody had
been able to do. You know, the Norwegians did not
last very long at all, so you know, they arrived
there right in the tail of their failed predecessors, and
(35:31):
that was something that very much colored their initial, at
least Doriy's initial perception of the island. She's always talking
about how foreboding it is. Everywhere she looks, she sees
an oma of something evil happening. You know, Usually a
narrative nonfiction, you know, the writer has to sort of
create foreshadowing and the sense of foreboding if something's dark
is about to happen. But there was so much foreboding
(35:52):
on her part that my editor was like I like
that all of those foreboting is coming from the character,
not from you. But even it's too much, you got
to dial it back because she just everywhere she looked,
she saw something evil in this island. And I think
that when worrying today, are sort of really proud of
the history, at least of the people I talk to,
the wonderful people I talked to when I went there.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Did either of these two women who use their memoirs,
did either of them ever turn to their partners and say, Okay,
I'm done, I'm clocking out of this, let's go back home.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
There was talk about Dorry occasionally wanted to say that
she wanted to go home, and then she would be
defying and say, I'm not leaving. I even if I
die here, this is my destiny. It's going to be
my destiny to die with Frederick. It's going to be
my destiny to die getting his important work out into
the world. So Dory definitely wavered. And you can understand
once you read more into her relationship with Frederick and
(36:44):
how valuable that could be, you understand why Dorry sort
of had some ideas about getting the hell out of there.
Once in a while, Margaret that family was more stable.
I think that they were just sort of like if
you could just find like a normal, normal family die
And I think that they were the perfect family to
(37:04):
really give that a go, because they thrive there. The
Whitmers thrive there, and you know, it takes a certain
level of pragmatism to do that, and I think that
they were just built for it.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Was this murder mystery of yours. Is this the biggest
event that ends up happening in the history of this island?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I think it is. I think it's safe to say.
You know, when anybody talks about flour around today, it's
usually the foremost event that comes up in people's minds.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
So what happens after the event, you know, where you
have the explorers going and investigating what ends up happening
with the island? Does somebody buy it? Is it developed
by the Whitmers and more people come and now it's
the size of Puerto Rico or something? Now would tell
me about it?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Now? Yeah, No, it's a good question. It was completely
uninhabited when Dori and Frederick showed up. There were boats
that would come by, there were people who will come
and do fishing, enterprises. Once in a while, there was
a man who would ferry people from the mainland of
Ecuador to the islands. You know, so there are people
here and there, but they were the only people living
there for until the Whitmer showed up. After all of
(38:09):
this happened, you know, the Whitmer stayed there. There was
another very prominent family called the Cruise family. They are like,
you know, the Floriana family. I think you could say
they own a lot of the land up in the
highlands where where a lot of this took place. Wonderful people,
really big family. I think there's about four hundred people
who live there now. The restaurants, the situation is very interesting.
(38:31):
If you want to go eat there, you have to
call the ahead of time. They don't just open for service.
You have to say, I would like dinner reservation at
this time, and then they go. You like, the only
people in the dinner. They'll cook just for you. You know.
It's still kind of a difficult life. It's still sort
of remote. They still have delivery issues, they have Wi
Fi issues. When I went there, I you know, I
could go days at a time without connecting anywhere. But
(38:53):
it's it's a I mean, it's an absolutely stunning island,
and the people are amazing. I think I met every
every member of the cruise family when I was there,
and they're all they're all really wonderful. But it's a
thriving island now. It thrives on tourism. There's a lot
of conservation efforts going on that they're all very proud of.
During the time in my book, the glavibus tortoise was
(39:14):
extinct on Floriana. They had been long extinct actually, and
they're trying to do all of these repopulation efforts and
conservation efforts in terms of bringing back dangered species.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
So when Hines and Margaret's daughter passes away, will she
be the last of that family on the island.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
No, she has two daughters. Yeah, so they are running
two hotels on the island, and so there are still
Whitmer's there.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
What did she have to say about everything that happened
that's the focus of your book. Did she have an
opinion about any of it?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Well, it's funny you asked that. You know, she would
in her later years invite journalists to come over, you know,
for them a glass of orange wine, maybe accept a
gift of fifty dollars or something, and she would talk
about the old days, and she would talk about the
Baroness and her of the Baroness, and she would talk
about Dory and her bressions of Dory and Ritter. But
she would never she would never talk about what she
(40:07):
thinks happened. She would say in Spanish, and I'm not
going My Spanish is too or for me to say
it without being completely embarrassed. A closed mouth amidst no flies.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
She was fond of saying okay.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
And so of course she knews more than what she
what she led on, more than she ever talked about
or wrote about. But she she never spilled anything. And
I think Hancock was the other person who knew everything also,
and he wrote I found in the archives. He wrote
that he was never going to you know, he was
going to take that to the grave with him and
(40:41):
he did.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
I did one season of my show and it was
based on a family feud that happened in the mid
to late eighteen hundreds in Virginia between two families that
were connected through marriage. And I spoke to both sides
of the family and they were happy to talk. And
you know this ended in a terrible tragedy. But I
was trying to get a hold of one woman who
(41:05):
was in her eighties or nineties, and she said, absolutely,
I'm not talking about any of this. And you know,
I was going through another family member and I said, uh, okay,
tell me what's happening, and she just said, my parents
had never said talk about this ever. And I was thinking,
this happened in like eighteen sixty. This is so long ago.
It does not matter to people. Sometimes it does not matter.
(41:27):
I mean, that happened a long day, and your story
is a little more contemporary than mine. But I think
that when things happen in your family like that, that
clearly shifts the trajectory of your family and makes you
kind of look at the people you know, who you
who were around you differently than Yeah, I guess you
clam up, but she stayed. That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah. I also think it was sort of she enjoyed
being a mystery. She enjoyed it, you know, And if
she's filled all her secrets, what's the motive for anybody
to come and talk or heredy lore. She really I
think she really enjoyed sort of being the last one
standing and she was the last one standing. And I
think it was a point of pride for her, and
I think she earned it. I think Margaret, Margaret deserved that.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Did Harry end up staying on the island too, or
did any of the other family members end up staying
later on Harry?
Speaker 2 (42:17):
You know, again, this feeds into also the later part
of the Floriana lore. How are you had to guide
to a tragic voting accident? Lot of Margaret's son in
laws died in a mysterious accident. There's all kinds of
mysterious deaths happening. People vanished, you know, long in the seventies,
or a couple other American tourists spanished on Floriana. There's
(42:38):
like a bunch of sort of weird disappearances on Floriana
like decades after this. You know, it all feeds into
the mystique and the sort of dark lore of Floriana.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
What will it be about your book that resonates with
the modern reader? What are they going to read and
just say, gosh that this part could have happened today
besides crazy panties.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Oh, I think crazy Fanny's gonna happen today.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
I don't know. That's what I mean. I mean, aside
from crazy pancia. Oh right, what do you think the
book says? I mean, what is it about the society
that makes people say, wow, this is really actually this
reminds me of this or that.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
I wrote part of this book sating COVID during a
period when we were extremely self isolated. Of course, you know,
they were self isolated by choice and we were not.
But you can see how it does start playing tricks
on your brain. You know, there was a there was
a corrosive effect that can happen when when you're in
a predicament like that. But to me also, I thought everybody,
(43:34):
you know, it's timeless and universal, the desire that we
can flee the chaos and challenges of our daily life
and go somewhere simpler. But you know, we we cannot
escape the Tyrian of our own nature. Humans cannot escape
the Turian of our own nature. And you know, uh,
seeking utopia is always going to be a doomed quest.
We are not capable of creating utopia because what was
(43:56):
a hell? As other people and I just feel like
that that sort of a universal and timeless message. Who
ever thought about getting away from it? All will read
this and see what happens when you get away from
it all.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah, be careful what you wish for, you know, I
tell my teenage daughters all the time. You can only
control yourself. You can't control other people. You can only
control your own actions and reactions. I think this is
a great illustration of that. It's the best laid plans.
You come here. You've got Frederick and Dorry who were
just there and could have lived a perfectly happy little life,
(44:29):
you know, on this island.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I don't could anybody be happy with Frederick?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
I don't know. No, No, you're right. I know you
said that they had were a volatile relationship, but you
know there would be less intrusion, right, And I'm sure
they wished for the days when it was just the Whitmers.
They're annoying them when the Baroness shows up. But it's
amazing the chaos that one person can add to the story.
So I thought about isolation when I was reading about
(44:55):
it too. And you know, the isolation that we feel
now was with social media is helpful, but at the
time same time it can make you feel isolated. Yeah,
So that idea of living off the grid is very
interesting for me. And then thinking about this story in
the way that you've described it, boy, it doesn't take
much for it to really turn into a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
So you know, I've read you know, your books for
a long time, and the common thread with you that
I don't read much with other nonfiction writers is that
you have universally very passionate characters. The last story the
man from was Chicago. Is that what it was? Now
I'm trying to think of that story.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Well, he was born in Chicago, but he was a
Cincinnati bootlegger.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Bootlegger, Yeah, And I mean just like murdering someone in
the middle of a park, and these are people who
have so much pent up rage or passion or angst
or something, and you just don't get that in a
lot of nonfiction books. I think from deep history, I
think you gravitate towards that, and certainly you gravitate towards
controversial but very fiery, very intriguing women. I know, women
(46:01):
tend to really be central characters for you. And this
doesn't sound like it was an exception. It sounds like
this was just falls right into your wheelhouse.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, and I and you're correct about
all those things, and I would add also, I think
there's a theme of self reinvention. I'm fascinated by the
idea of people sort of trying to start over to
and having varying degrees of success with that, but the
idea that you can and I think also that's universal.
Everybody at one time or another thinks they can they
(46:30):
can reinvent themselves in some capacity. It's so funny. I
finished this book and I'm like, where do I go
from here? Like, I don't like, you know, it's like
I can't find anything that I'm as passionate about. I'm hoping,
I'm hoping it comes, but right now I'm just like,
how do I top crazy Panties?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I don't know, you can't or the demoted lover, who
I want to know more about. I don't want to
know the main pick. I want to know who the
demoted lover was.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
I think I should just call them that demoted lover.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
There you go, crazy fantasy and demotive lever. So it
sounds like there's a movie that's coming out about the
same subject from Ron Howard, which is amazing. Tell me
what you know about this?
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Well it is. I can't wait to watch it. It's
premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. It's called Eden,
and it stars Jude Law as Frederick Gritter. It stars
Sidney Sweeney as Margaret Whitmer, Vanessa Kirby as Story Strausch,
and added to Armis is the Baroness. So it should
be incredible.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
And I think the big thing people need to know
is there's a huge difference between Hollywood and the real story.
So if you want to get a good sense for
the differences in sort of the poetic license that an
amazing director like Ron Howard took on this, it would
be a great comparison to read your book and see
the movie both. So I hope that's what people are
(47:49):
going to do.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, and go to my book and look at the
pictures and see the glow up. The glow up that
the real people get with these Hollywood stars is quite amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
What the hell the hell that all these people went
through and put each other through. Don't you think they
deserve a Hollywood glow up with Jude Law?
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Absolutely, I think Frederi would be very very pleased.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Actually, it's gonna be hard to beat a bunch of
hot people on an island together trying to kill each
other with crazy panties exactly.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I really want to see if Ron Howard put crazy
panties in the script, if that those words, actually, if
you're in a script, it'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Okay, thank you, I appreciate this's great.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Thank you so much, Cape.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
This was fun. If you love historical true crime stories,
check out the audio versions of my books The Ghost Club,
All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget.
(48:51):
There are twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast,
Tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll
back and give them a listen if you haven't already.
This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer
is Alexis a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
This episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis heath is
(49:13):
our composer, artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark,
Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram
at tenfold More Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words
Pod
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's kind of an adult Lord of the Flies, you know.
It really sort of devolves into a situation that's dangerous
for everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:46):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stores. At the height of the
Great Depression, an oil mogul from la decided to escape
(01:07):
society with his mistress to create their own utopia on
a far away land. The problems started when other people
followed them there. My friend Abbot Kaylor is my guest today.
She used to write under the name Karen Abbott. Abbot
tells me the story at the center of her book
Eden Undone, a true story of sex, murder and utopia
(01:27):
at the dawn of World War Two. Where did you
even find the story? I had never heard of any
of it. I had never heard of George Allen Hancock.
I had never heard of any of this. So this
came as a big surprise when I read the book.
Tell me a little bit about its origin story for you.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So I was actually researching a different book. I was
looking into world War two stuff, maybe fourteen years ago
or so twelve fourteen years ago, and I came across
a headline in a nineteen forty one newspaper, and I
actually wonder if I could read it to you, because
it is it is literally the most absurd and fantastic
(02:08):
passage I think I've ever read in a newspaper.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
We love that sort of thing on this show, so sure.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I mean, I hope you find it as titillating
as I did. But here it is. Quote was doctor
Ritter with his steel teeth poisoned in Paradise was Baroness Eloise,
known as Crazy Panties, who ruled the island with a
gun in love, murdered by one of her love slaves
after she had driven the other to his death. And
(02:35):
why is Frau Ritter going back to what she once
called Hell's Volcano, the mystery of the Galapagos Island, which
Germany covets to be solved at last. So I just
read that again and again, and I didn't know quite
what to focus on. Steel dentures, crazy panties, Hell's volcano,
driving the one lover to death while killing the other one. Yeah,
(02:57):
so I just was like, what the fuck is this story?
And I started digging. I forgot all about the World
War II project I've been looking into, and I was
My first order of business was to look up crazy panties.
I was like, if you are going to be called
crazy panties, by god.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
You better earn it.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You better earn that. And she, this woman earned it
and then some and I became fascinated by the story.
I pitched it to my publisher at the time. They
said no. I pitched it to my next publisher, they
said no. I pitched it to that publisher again they
said no, And finally finally I got a yes.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Oh good, thank you. Is the least interesting person the
Los Angeles oil tycoon who sort of uncovers all of
this whole. Is this the boring one out of everybody?
If we all have a boring character in our books.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I mean, I think that's fair to say, and which
is quite quite amazing, because Alan Hancock was a fascinating
man who anybody and who's in Los Angeles or people
saidamiliar with Los Angeles with no Hancock Park that's named
after him, the labrea' tarpits that was his backyard when
he was growing up. He was an overnight millionaire after
being a pretty poor, you know, young man growing up there.
(04:12):
You know what was fascinating about him and his colleagues collectively, though,
it was this sort of error in American history where
everybody was suffering from the depression. You know, this is
early this is nineteen thirty, and then people who were
not suffering from the depression one of their favorite things
to do is to take these really extravagant oceanic explorations in.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
The name of science.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And it was something that people were just starting to
get involved in terms of looking at exotic creatures and
the fauna and the flora of unexplored islands and bringing
those specimens back to the United States for further study.
In the footsteps of Darwin, of course, you know Darwin
started all this. It was reignited again by an author
named William Biebe who wrote a book about the Galapagos,
(04:55):
and people started picking up that interest again around this
time period, and it became really, really a popular thing
to do for these American millionaires in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So tell me where the story begins for you. Is
it with Hancock in la meeting with the Smithsonian scientists,
making this expedition to the Islands. Where does it really begin?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well to me, I mean I was first fascinated by
these German exiles, these people who in the late nineteen twenties,
when the Wimer Republic was just starting to falter, Hitler
was coming into power, chaos was starting to start in
Europe and in Germany in particular, these people decided to
try to escape their lives, escape civilization, and build a utopia.
(05:41):
And it began with a doctor named Frederick Ritter, who
is this really really fascinating character. I mean, he's kind
of a nineteen thirties like kipster in Cell who studied Nietscha.
You know, Virtuo signaled by pretending to be a vegetarian.
But meanwhile he's like eating meat all the time. He
fancied himself as very important philosopher. His big goal was
(06:02):
to go to a remote island and implement some of
his his his theories. He had a lot of theory
about the effect of sunlight on human skin and raw
food dieting. I mean, in a way, he was ahead
of his time, studying the sort of raw food dieting
and other sort of natural ways of living that you know,
I guess are commonplace today, but we're sort of revolutionary
(06:24):
at the time. And he, you know, this was his
idea to write about these philosophies and his experiments and
become a household name, become a famous philosopher in the
manner of nietzscha And he brings along with him a
woman who had been his patient in Berlin named Dorri Stratch.
She was suffering from multiple sclerosis, and you know, every
(06:46):
single doctor she had seen told her it was incurable.
You know, she has multiple scrosis, it's incurable. But Frederick
Grinnard decides to tell her no, no, no, no, no,
you are perfectly capable of curing your own multiple sclerosis.
You just have to want to cure it enough. You
have to the power is in your mind to cure
your multiple scoreses. And she kind of falls in love
(07:06):
with him, She falls for his whole thing. She decides
he's a genius. They're both going to leave their spouses
and run off to the Scalapagos Island together and try
to live out his grandiose dream. And she's going to
facilitate his writings and his philosophy and his experiments. And
in the meantime she gets to be has helped me
and his companion, and she can't think of a higher calling.
(07:28):
That's in the beginning. Things get a little bit diceier
as the story goes on.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Had Ridder done any real planning at all? I mean,
I hate to bring up boring things like sanitation or plumbing.
It no, okay, it's.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Actually fascinating what they did. So Ritter, if I could
refer back to that initial passage I write at the beginning,
with his steel teeth, doctor Ritter, with his steelt So
Frederick Gridder was so committed to the idea of life
on a remote island that he yanked out all of
his teeth and had them replaced by a set of
steel dentures. Because the idea was that he didn't want
(08:08):
to encounter any dental problems on the island. That was
his big nod to the gravity of what he was
about to embark on. He also had a philosophy. It
wasn't just about dental problems. He also had a philosophy
that if you got rid of your teeth, they're superfluous.
Your gums could be quote forrny enough to serve his teeth.
They could adapt. So it was kind of a human
(08:28):
evolution idea in his mind that our gums would just
become teeth in the absence of teeth. And so, you know,
what he failed to account for eventually was that his
gum shrank a bit and the dentires did not stay improperly.
So they're rattling around in his mouth a little bit.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
That's not sexy at all. Does she care? Does care?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Well? I think that Dory was having her own issues.
You know, she was experiencing dental problems, and her teeth
were sort of falling out, and he yanked a few
of them to the point where she became embarrassed. Once
these American explorers started encountering them, she became embarrassed. She
didn't want to smile. She didn't want to talk, she
didn't want to show her sheep. So they would actually
(09:07):
share the dentures at times. And I really don't think
there's a grosser phrase in the English language than shared
seal dentures, like I took pretty bad. It's pretty bad.
But that was the way that they approached that. And
you know, they did give Alay a lot of their possessions.
But as for that, you know, Frederick was actually a
kind of talented inventor. He was able to sort of
(09:30):
rag up a shower for them that came out of
the spring. He attached the cartridge and sort of like
a hose contraption, and he was actually able to make
a regular household. Floriana and the island that they went
to was an interesting choice because it's barren and descelin.
The Glacos Islands are not a very They're not really
this sort of thing you think of when you think
(09:50):
of tropical island. They're not these beautiful sandy beaches with
these lush landscapes and palm trees and beautiful bewater. It's
all lava rock, not a lot of fertile soil. Is
very dry, it's very barren if there is any soil
that's able to be cultivated, which they found. It was
up in the highlands where you get the sort of
missed from the mountains that are there, all the volcanic mountains.
(10:13):
You know, it's a volcanic area, so you get the
miss from that and sort of a spring that runs
from that. But the Floriana where they settled only had
one spring, so it was a very strategical location, which
also causes problems later on with the other settlers. Everybody
wanted close proximity to the spring.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Of course, now Ritter and Dory are both together, how
are other people showing up on this island? Is he
recruiting a lot of different people? Is he the leader
of this? Like who finds the island? And how does
this first sort of develop so that we have a
little bit of a civilization.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So Frederick's idea was that it was going to be
just him and Dory. It was going to be a
private utopia, just the two of them. They didn't want
any other company, or so fret Or claims. They just
wanted to sort of be by themselves and cultivate this
utopia on their own. What happens so the American Explorers
throw a wrench into that. There was a man named
Eugene MacDonald who actually found the Zenith radio. He was
(11:07):
a Chicago millionaire, and he also was sort of a playboy,
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Of a it's like a bad boy, yeah, a little
bad boy.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
He's a bit of a nineteen thirties bad boy. He
was a big drinker. He liked to shoot his gun indiscriminately.
He collected guns. He actually collected the gun reportedly that
that al Capone had used in the Balentine State massacres.
He was a sort of Chicago the Chicago bad playboy.
So he shows up in nineteen twenty nine, and it's
(11:34):
at a time period when Dory and Friedrich are having
a little bit of trouble. You know, they start out okay.
Friedrich's kind of a difficult character live was, to say
the least, which I get into. The relationship is sort
of up and down and up and down, and Dorry's
trying her best to keep the peace. Eugene McDonald shows
up and he's shocked to find people on this island.
He thought it was uninhabited. They talked to him. He
(11:56):
gives them scenes, He gives them the supplies, and he
tells them he'll be back, He'll stay in touch with them.
He's fascinated by the experiment they're doing. But achieve McDonald
goes back and sends out a wire to all the
newspaper across the country, across the world. I discovered Adam
and Eve on the island of Floriana. You know, I
discovered these two people. They are, you know, these two
(12:18):
eccentric Germans trying to create their life together on this island.
And wow, what a crazy thing I discovered. So that's
when the international publicity starts, much to Dori and Friedrich's
you know, dismay, and the word reaches Germany and another
family decides to come after that.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
So these are people from Germany who are fleeing. Are
they fleeing anything like any sort of like persecution having
to do with World War One? You know, World War
two coming up later.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah. So this second family, it's the Whitmer family. Like Friedrich,
Heinz Whitmer was a veteran of the Great War. Both
had post traumatic stress disorder, I think from their service
and Hines had worked for a high ranking official in
the Weimar Republicmer Republic was crumbling, and you know, his
boss was an avowed enemy of Hitler, so there was
some fear of retaliation for Hines, I think, in just
(13:13):
sort of a general sense that his political situation might
come to light and he might get in trouble. In
addition to that, he had taken up with a lover.
He also left his spouse, and she left her spouse
and they were together. And Hines had his son from
his first marriage, and this son was a teenage son, Harry,
who had been sickly since Burt and nearly blind. So
(13:34):
they couldn't afford a sanitarium. They couldn't afford a hospital,
so they decided that it might behoove the boy to
move to a more tropical climate and it might sort
of heal some of his ailments. So all of those
factors went into Hines thinking that moving to Floriana to
follow in the footsteps of doctor Ritter and Dory might
be a good idea.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So now we have two couples who have left all
of their spouses for each other, right, and then a
teenage boy who sounds like he could use some medical help. Yeah,
Eugene McDonald doesn't come back, does he? Does he? End
up shacking up there too.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
No, he SE's in touch with them. I think he
does return a second time, but he does not end
up None of the American explorers end up moving in.
They just keep coming back and reporting on the situation.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
They just ruined things, Yeah, they ruin things.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And then and then once things are really you know,
once the ship really hits the fan, they start digging
through the pieces and trying to figure out what happens.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Now, how do these two couples in this teenage boy?
How does everybody get along? I feel like this is
the second or third story I've done about a remote
island with people on it. And what I had learned
in the pattern was that everybody seems to kind of
pick up a role, and they do their they have
their own role, and when something happens to one person,
it sort of makes everything fall apart. It's amazing how
you can have such a small community and if you
(14:53):
remove one person, or if that person rebels against the community,
it can really devastate them. So how are these people
getting along for now?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, I mean, once Ritner and Dory found out that
Heinz Whitmerner's family were coming, I mean they were completely
angry about it. They were furious, really, they did not
want anyone else there. They were very disturbed by the
idea that Hines and his girlfriend Margaret Whitmer, you know,
the sort of common law spouses at that point. She
eventually came when they eventually moved to the Glaco. She
(15:23):
was pregnant with Heinz's child. So the immediate implication was that, oh,
doctor Ritter is going to be there to help with
the baby. He's going to help with the delivery, he's
going to help Margaret with her medical care. He's going
to make sure the baby is okay. And doctor Ritter
and Dorry both resented this, you know, they resented the imposition.
He didn't go there to practice as a doctor. He
didn't go there to serve, you know, he was getting
away from all of that. That's not what he was
(15:45):
there for. So things start off really rocky with them,
and it's kind of like, look, you you do your
thing over there, we'll do our thing over there, and
let's just try to coexist peacefully without really involving each other,
ourselves in each other's lives. That does start changing. Margaret
does give birth and she does have to call it
behind Printer Gritter and Frederick Gritter. You know, the avowed
(16:07):
vegetarian often asks Hymes for a cut of meat. He
always says the meat is for his chickens. He feeds
meat to his chickens. But he's always asking Himes for
a cut of meat. And it becomes a running joke
with Margaret Whitmer and heins Whitmer that Frederick is, you know,
the first thing from a vegetarian they could possibly be,
and they just laugh about him. It's kind of private
(16:27):
joke with them.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Are these five people prepared to live in the wilderness?
I watch alone? Have you seen a loan on History
Channel before? No? Oh my goodness. So they throw these
you know, these survivalists, most of them are professional survivalists
into like really remote areas in Canada with very few
supplies and they just have to last as long as
they can. You know, it's you and and against nature
(16:52):
and you have to have some skills. What is day
to day life for these people who I presume we're
not professional survivalists in any way? Are they hunting or
fishing or what?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah? I mean they're mostly hunting, especially Hines and Margaret
because they you know, they do eat meat. They hunt
a lot. Dori and Frederick have a garden. They sort
of start cultivating a garden that's alternately looming well and
dry and barren. You know, sort of the mercurial weather
down there just messes with the garden at times. But
(17:26):
they're able to cultivate a lot of a pretty healthy garden.
Mostly they eat a lot of eggs. They have chickens.
I'm sure Fredrick's you know, sneaking some meat on the side.
But they sort of, you know, figure out how to
make it work. It's backbreaking work building a house from scratch.
I talk a lot about how they did that, and
just weatherproofing against the rains that could come there. You know.
(17:47):
I went to visit the Galapagos Floriana Island in twenty
twenty two, and I visited the areas where they had lived,
and you know, it is still it is very rough terrain.
And I couldn't imagine how do you do and in
nineteen thirty without the benefit of any modern tools or
internet or access to immediate help, especially if you have
(18:07):
multiple scrosis. And Dory had sort of a limp leg
as an effective effect of multiple scruesis. Now she didn't
just roll over and die in the first couple of
weeks of exhaustion. I will never understand. I mean, the bravery. Say,
you know, the characters all are very flawed people, but say,
you know, you cannot dispute their bravery and just the
(18:29):
balls they had to really just make it go of
this and make it work well.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Margaret with a new baby and then this teenage son.
It just seems like the majority of the people need
some sort of medical regular you would think medical attention.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, I mean, and it's sort of just remarkable. You know,
they just make do you know, she feeds the baby
what she cultivates from the garden. She breastfeeds obviously until
she until she can't do it anymore. But they get desperate.
This is what makes it interesting in terms of the explorers.
You know, here are all people who said, we don't
want help from the outside. But onilst these explorers keep
(19:03):
coming and bringing seeds and bringing food and bringing preserves
and bringing milk and bringing this and that, they start
welcoming the explorers. They start welcoming them, and they start
competing for their extension and for their gifts. They're sort
of a mad scramble that starts and a competition among
all of these people that only and also causes a
lot of envy and anger in the community.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So I've had read about explorers coming from all over
the world and they're going to these islands where they
are quote unquote natives, and they're bringing all of these gifts.
Is that kind of what's happening here in a really
odd way with people affluent enough to be able to
live this sort of lifestyle. Are they what are they
bringing to them?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Oh? So it's mostly at Hancock. It's Alan Hancock, it's
Vincent Astor, it's Eg McDonald, it's all American. Anybody who's
visiting the Gladgos Islands at this period of time because
the Great Depression was on, was rich and they did bring,
you know, seeds and hands of food and milk and
sort of guns, ammunition tools, garden tools, anything that might
(20:04):
help facilitate life on the island for these people. And
it's a system that works very well, you know, until
Crazy Panty shows up. So she comes a little bit later,
and then you know, it prows another sort of element
into the competition for the explorers' gifts.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
So I was going to ask, what the next big
event is. Is crazy panties the next big event that
happens to this to the utopian island.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So crazy panties is the next big event? Crazy panties. Okay,
her real name is Antoinette. It's always been misreported as Eloise.
Her name was not Eloise. Her name was Antoinette. I
did a lot of research into her lineage. You know,
people also falsely reported that she's not a real baroness.
She actually was a real baroness. Came from a pretty
(20:52):
aristocratic family, a well connected family, wealthy family in Vienna.
So when this story happens, she is living in Paris
with a husband, but she also sort of is in
Paris culture at this time. You know, she's sort of
this sort of was described as orgiastic by one of
her contemporaries, and I think that was literal. There was
(21:14):
a lot of a lot of sex happening around the
baroness and she decides to you know, there's various sort
of stories about why she fled Paris. I talk about
them in the book. But she ends up leaving Paris
with two of her lovers that she was with at
the time. One was a business partner, kind of a
demoted lover. The other one was her preferred lover. There's
(21:36):
a hierarchy. There's a definite hierarchy that's happening.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Well, you're doomed if you're a demoted lover, I guess
in any situation.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
It was kind of like it was kind of like
the reverse Sister Wives. You know. It was like she
was the head of the family and she had various
lovers of importance and degrees. And she also brings along
a native Ecuadorian man who who had been living in
Paris and doing work for her. She brings him along
(22:03):
because of course he's going to be helpful in this situation.
He can help her her. Her plan is come to
the Floriana and make a hotel in the spirit of Miami.
She wants to turn Floriana into Miami for American tourists
and seduce American tourists and become a sort of, you know,
a well known person among Americans, possibly get to Hollywood.
(22:23):
But this is her goal. So you can see it's
immediately at odds with Frederick Ritter and with the winners,
who really just wanted to coexist peacefully on this island.
But she comes in and announces, Hey, I'm turning this
into Miami. I'm bringing on my head. I'm going to
seduce everybody. All the Americans are going to come and
love me. And she went for it. This woman, I mean,
(22:44):
in a way, she was this really kind of like Braisen.
She did not give a fox. She went for anything
she wanted. She just she just did not care what
anybody thought.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
But did she understand what rough living this would be
when she got did she understand there's no infrastructure? I mean,
she would have wanted indoor plumbing and stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
She realized that, you know, she was going to have
to build a hotel. She calls her hotel the Hacienda Paradiso,
and she leaves it in the hands of her ecutoring
contractor and her two lovers to build this hotel. You know,
it doesn't have any real modern conveniences. Of course, I
think anybody who was visiting Florian at this time knew
that they would, you know, be shitting in a hole somewhere.
(23:25):
There's not going to be any kind of you know,
luxurious bathroom set up. But it was it was, you know,
she ended up cultivating a nice garden she draped the
inside with the sort of exotic silks and rugs and
made a pretty picture out of it. She had a
very sort of picturesque boudoir that she liked to take
photos in. You know, there was all kinds of rumors.
(23:46):
One visitor called her hotel a quote festering sex complex,
So if that gives you an idea, but needless to say,
you know, she shows up and the first thing she
does is announced that she's going to live by the
Whigber's house, and she puts her feet in their drinking
water and their water supply, and she just basically from
the start has no problem antagonizing everybody, including Frederick Ridder,
(24:10):
including the Whitmers. She's immediately sort of establishing herself as
as a person who's going to do whatever she wants
and she doesn't care.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I was going to ask what the reaction was, are
either of these two men, the heads of these families
or whatever we're calling them, Are these men who have
ever had any kind of a pension for violence in
the past. I don't get a sense for what they
were like. If they were very volatile people.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, I think in the manner of Frederick Ridder, I
think he had after effects from his.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
War service, yeah, PTSD stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, And I think that there is a little bit
of violence left over from that. Although he you know,
he was kind of a very interesting he's a fascinating character,
but he's full of contradictions. And you know, as he
progressed himself to be a very peaceful person. In fact,
so peaceful ones he said, but he did not even
like to pull potatoes from the earth because it involved
(25:04):
yanking something from its roots. It was no too violent
an act for him, you know, but I think he was.
I think he was severely, severely disturbed by his experiences
in the war.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
So the baroness comes toning along this Ecuadorian contractor and
these two men who were her lovers, and she sets
up shop right next to the Whitmers. What happens next?
What's the big thing? They can't be happy about this,
and I'm sure are they arguing with her all the time?
How are they handling it?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
You know, it goes through period those where you know,
after Margaret has her baby, everybody tries to get along.
They're sort of a period of peace and magnanimous feeling,
you know, and sort of just let's all get along.
It really coincides with the visitors of the you know,
the American visits. You know, whenever an American shows up
with a yacht full of goodies, you know, competition starts again.
(25:55):
Is the baroness stealing things from the Whitmers? Is she
taking milk from the baby? Is she doing this? Is
she is she hoarding everything for herself? Or the Winnmer's hoarding?
What is Frederick Britters stealing? You know, there's all kinds
of accusations and suspicions that start festering because nobody trusts
each other, and it leads to a couple of accusations, fights, arguments,
(26:16):
and then a simmering down period because people, you know,
the escalation gets very dangerous and people keep pulling back,
and people keep pulling back, and then the next time
it happens, it just flares higher, and then people pulls back,
and then it flares higher. So it's just sort of
this continuous pattern of let's try to keep the peace.
Oh my god, the piece has got the piece is exploding.
We can't we can't sort of contain what's going to
(26:37):
happen here.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
What is the motivation of explorers like Eugene McDonald to
come back again and again. What are they getting out
of bringing gifts to these people? They're not journalists, what
are they getting out of it?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I think that it was sort of a point of pride.
I mean for Eugene McDonald, it was I discovered these people.
You know, it was that and also just curiosity. I mean,
these people were interested and ostensibly in the wildlife of
Floriana and the Galapagos, and what does it say, you know,
these human beings were the most exotic specimens of all
you know, look at these people. So they just became
(27:12):
like a circus curiosity that people wanted to keep track of.
And there were, you know, reports in the newspapers back
in the United States that I think were a kind
of welcome distraction from the bad news of the depression.
You know how dowur the thirties were, and it was
kind of became an aspirational thing. Couldn't we all just
leave our very difficult lives, especially at that time period
and build a new life on an island where we
(27:34):
didn't have such worries. We could live off the land,
we didn't have to worry about a paycheck. Money is
in money doesn't matter here, and so it sort of
became a fascination and a dream, and I think the
explorers fed into that. And in the case of instein
Ast and Hancock, they became very good friends with the exiles.
They became invested in their lives, and I was able
(27:56):
to cap into a bunch of archives that had never
been published or written about before they newly donated. You know,
Hancock became their closest confidant.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So you have these explorers kind of going back and
forth and the German exiles are competing for their attention.
How long does everything proceed on this island where everybody
is living not happily but just sort of their coexisting.
Is this years? How long does this last before the
next big event?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
There's a series of little earthquakes. I would say once
the Baroness arrives. There's never a moment of true peace.
There's just little little earthquakes that happen. There are incidents
that so disturbed Frederick and Hines that they try to
seek help from Macadorian officials and say, this woman is crazy,
this woman is crazy. We need your help, we need
your official intervention.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It's more serious than feed in the drinking water.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I assume then yes, I will say there's medical attention required.
But it's not only competition up among the settlers. Within
the baroness's own camp, she starts pitting her two lovers
against each other in ways that are increasingly disturbing. One
of them decides that, you know, he has to flee,
(29:06):
he has to seek refuge elsewhere. So it's kind of
like all of the chaos that's happening outside in the
real world. You know, she's managed to create a microcosm
of it on this little island.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Do you think had she not been introduced to this
so I talk about, you have a small civilization, and
he throws some one person in the mix, and look
how much it changes. Do you think that the Whitmer's
and Ritter and his girlfriend slash wife, would they have
been able to just sort of live their lives forever
it had the Baroness not been introduced to this little ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I will say this, The Whippers are still there. Whitmer
descendants are still on Floriana Island. Wow. I met Hines
and Margaret's daughter. She's in her eighties now, their daughter
is still alive. They run two hotels on that island.
So the Whitmers. The Whitmer sort of got the game right.
They knew how to play, they knew how to survive.
They're remarkable people, especially given Margaret, who I think is
(30:02):
kind of a low key mastermind of things. You know,
she always knew more than.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
What she let on.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
And this woman was just a badass. I mean she
went out and hunted wild wore on her own and
middle of the light the night, she gave birth to
a child alone in the middle of the night, without
any assistance. And they really were serious about it, and
I think they're the people who are most prepared and
therefore had the most success.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Well, the Baroness is there and things kind of get
ratcheted up. You know, you said that there's a series
of small earthquakes. What's kind of the next thing that
happens that you feel like shifts your narrative. I don't
know if it would be like the climax or what
you would want to call it.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, I would say two people go missing, that becomes
something that the explorers start investigating.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So what is motivating the explorers? They just want the headlines.
They like to be in the talk of the news
is that what it really is.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, I think at this point they're very invested in
these lives, you know, I think that there was a
genuine friendship.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Vincent asked her became such good friends with Dorian Frederick
that he would go visit them, and when other people came,
when other just random Americans would show up, Astor was
the one who would you know, lead the tour around
around Fredo, which was the name of their house. He
was invested in our lives, and Hancock, especially Hancock was
still very serious about collecting Glackago's specimens. You know, he
(31:19):
actually did do some good conservation efforts, but he always
made time to stop for Dorian Frederick, especially when two
of the exiles go missing. I think he feels responsible
and involved that he has to sort of take it
upon himself to investigate what was going on and be
a source of help and guidance and escape if need be.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Tell me the direction that we can go, so I
know it doesn't spoil too much of your book, but
that we can feel like we have like a sense
for where everything's going and how we can conclude. And
then I'm going to want to talk about of course,
like what the island's like today and how it's developed
and all of that stuff. So what do you think?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So I think that, you know, it turns to me
it's kind of an adult Lord of the Flies, you know.
It really sort of devolves into a situation that's dangerous
for everybody. It's desperate. I think they're in a desperate situation.
You know, if you just imagine two people are missing.
You know, in the case of Dory, who I would
say is one of my main narrators, you know, is
(32:14):
she protecting somebody who was involved in this?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Does she know this?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Does she know the extent of if Fredrick Gritter is involved?
She and Margaret wrote pretty amazing memoirs, and you read
them in hindsight, you know, from this distance, and you
wonder how much they kept out of their memoirs, how
much they really knew. And it's something that I grappled
with in the writing of this, because there are two
different versions of what happened, and I can't sit here
(32:40):
today and say this is true or this is true.
So I sort of had to present both and you know,
see what was most factual and present post versions and
maybe flow to theory or two, But there's no definitive
answers here. I definitely think Margaret Whitmer knew more than
what she led on without a doubt. So the men
did not write memoirs. Brederick did write a memoir. Yeah,
(33:00):
he read about more, but it's in German. I had
to have it translated, and it doesn't it's not as
not as much about his feelings as his accomplishments, which
seems pretty.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
It's on brand for somebody like that.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Pretty on brand exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, okay, so the book, the back of your book
talks about you know, them finding two mummified bodies, so
we know two people are dead, right, yes, okay, So
we have two people that eventually are going to be recovered,
and there's a kind of a it sounds like a
murder mystery. So ultimately we know that at least one
(33:35):
of the Whitmers survives and continues to be on the island.
How does this island develop after whatever happens happens here?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, if I could, you know, go back and just
talk about the history of Florien a little bit and
then go into how it is today. So Florida I
was always this fascinating history it's a smaller island in
the glac Goes. It's in the southern part of the islands.
It had this dark history. It was it was the
glock of his first penal colony. It was where they
shipped all their prisoners. The first and known inhabitant was
(34:06):
this pirate named Patrick Watkins, who was sort of notorious
for terrorizing anybody who would come by. He lived in
the caves. There were these caves that people move into
when they first go into the island, and it's always,
you know, it's always rumored the Patrick Watkin's ghost is there.
Native Ecuadorians are very afraid of Floriana at night, at
least back in that time here in the nineteen thirties,
(34:26):
they did not like to go thereafter dark because it's
sort of full of lore. It was ruled for a
time by a dictator who was very vicious to his people.
He was eventually overthrown and murdered because there was a
coupe and it just sort of anything about this island.
There was a lot of dark death lore and just
(34:47):
sort of unsavory characters. That reputation carries over today a
little bit. You know, when Ecuadorians talk about Floriana. They
now give tours about this history and sort of talk
about that and give tour about where Patrick Watkins had
lived and sort of all of the people's since who
had come. You know, there was also a group of
(35:08):
Norwegians who tried to build a colony there before, right
before the Germans and the Ritters and Dory came over,
and they failed spractacularly. So it was kind of when
when Doriy and Frederick showed up there, they were trying
to do something in a lasting way that nobody had
been able to do. You know, the Norwegians did not
last very long at all, so you know, they arrived
there right in the tail of their failed predecessors, and
(35:31):
that was something that very much colored their initial, at
least Doriy's initial perception of the island. She's always talking
about how foreboding it is. Everywhere she looks, she sees
an oma of something evil happening. You know, Usually a
narrative nonfiction, you know, the writer has to sort of
create foreshadowing and the sense of foreboding if something's dark
is about to happen. But there was so much foreboding
(35:52):
on her part that my editor was like I like
that all of those foreboting is coming from the character,
not from you. But even it's too much, you got
to dial it back because she just everywhere she looked,
she saw something evil in this island. And I think
that when worrying today, are sort of really proud of
the history, at least of the people I talk to,
the wonderful people I talked to when I went there.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Did either of these two women who use their memoirs,
did either of them ever turn to their partners and say, Okay,
I'm done, I'm clocking out of this, let's go back home.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
There was talk about Dorry occasionally wanted to say that
she wanted to go home, and then she would be
defying and say, I'm not leaving. I even if I
die here, this is my destiny. It's going to be
my destiny to die with Frederick. It's going to be
my destiny to die getting his important work out into
the world. So Dory definitely wavered. And you can understand
once you read more into her relationship with Frederick and
(36:44):
how valuable that could be, you understand why Dorry sort
of had some ideas about getting the hell out of there.
Once in a while, Margaret that family was more stable.
I think that they were just sort of like if
you could just find like a normal, normal family die
And I think that they were the perfect family to
(37:04):
really give that a go, because they thrive there. The
Whitmers thrive there, and you know, it takes a certain
level of pragmatism to do that, and I think that
they were just built for it.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Was this murder mystery of yours. Is this the biggest
event that ends up happening in the history of this island?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I think it is. I think it's safe to say.
You know, when anybody talks about flour around today, it's
usually the foremost event that comes up in people's minds.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
So what happens after the event, you know, where you
have the explorers going and investigating what ends up happening
with the island? Does somebody buy it? Is it developed
by the Whitmers and more people come and now it's
the size of Puerto Rico or something? Now would tell
me about it?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Now? Yeah, No, it's a good question. It was completely
uninhabited when Dori and Frederick showed up. There were boats
that would come by, there were people who will come
and do fishing, enterprises. Once in a while, there was
a man who would ferry people from the mainland of
Ecuador to the islands. You know, so there are people
here and there, but they were the only people living
there for until the Whitmer showed up. After all of
(38:09):
this happened, you know, the Whitmer stayed there. There was
another very prominent family called the Cruise family. They are like,
you know, the Floriana family. I think you could say
they own a lot of the land up in the
highlands where where a lot of this took place. Wonderful people,
really big family. I think there's about four hundred people
who live there now. The restaurants, the situation is very interesting.
(38:31):
If you want to go eat there, you have to
call the ahead of time. They don't just open for service.
You have to say, I would like dinner reservation at
this time, and then they go. You like, the only
people in the dinner. They'll cook just for you. You know.
It's still kind of a difficult life. It's still sort
of remote. They still have delivery issues, they have Wi
Fi issues. When I went there, I you know, I
could go days at a time without connecting anywhere. But
(38:53):
it's it's a I mean, it's an absolutely stunning island,
and the people are amazing. I think I met every
every member of the cruise family when I was there,
and they're all they're all really wonderful. But it's a
thriving island now. It thrives on tourism. There's a lot
of conservation efforts going on that they're all very proud of.
During the time in my book, the glavibus tortoise was
(39:14):
extinct on Floriana. They had been long extinct actually, and
they're trying to do all of these repopulation efforts and
conservation efforts in terms of bringing back dangered species.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
So when Hines and Margaret's daughter passes away, will she
be the last of that family on the island.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
No, she has two daughters. Yeah, so they are running
two hotels on the island, and so there are still
Whitmer's there.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
What did she have to say about everything that happened
that's the focus of your book. Did she have an
opinion about any of it?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Well, it's funny you asked that. You know, she would
in her later years invite journalists to come over, you know,
for them a glass of orange wine, maybe accept a
gift of fifty dollars or something, and she would talk
about the old days, and she would talk about the
Baroness and her of the Baroness, and she would talk
about Dory and her bressions of Dory and Ritter. But
she would never she would never talk about what she
(40:07):
thinks happened. She would say in Spanish, and I'm not
going My Spanish is too or for me to say
it without being completely embarrassed. A closed mouth amidst no flies.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
She was fond of saying okay.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
And so of course she knews more than what she
what she led on, more than she ever talked about
or wrote about. But she she never spilled anything. And
I think Hancock was the other person who knew everything also,
and he wrote I found in the archives. He wrote
that he was never going to you know, he was
going to take that to the grave with him and
(40:41):
he did.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
I did one season of my show and it was
based on a family feud that happened in the mid
to late eighteen hundreds in Virginia between two families that
were connected through marriage. And I spoke to both sides
of the family and they were happy to talk. And
you know this ended in a terrible tragedy. But I
was trying to get a hold of one woman who
(41:05):
was in her eighties or nineties, and she said, absolutely,
I'm not talking about any of this. And you know,
I was going through another family member and I said, uh, okay,
tell me what's happening, and she just said, my parents
had never said talk about this ever. And I was thinking,
this happened in like eighteen sixty. This is so long ago.
It does not matter to people. Sometimes it does not matter.
(41:27):
I mean, that happened a long day, and your story
is a little more contemporary than mine. But I think
that when things happen in your family like that, that
clearly shifts the trajectory of your family and makes you
kind of look at the people you know, who you
who were around you differently than Yeah, I guess you
clam up, but she stayed. That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah. I also think it was sort of she enjoyed
being a mystery. She enjoyed it, you know, And if
she's filled all her secrets, what's the motive for anybody
to come and talk or heredy lore. She really I
think she really enjoyed sort of being the last one
standing and she was the last one standing. And I
think it was a point of pride for her, and
I think she earned it. I think Margaret, Margaret deserved that.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Did Harry end up staying on the island too, or
did any of the other family members end up staying
later on Harry?
Speaker 2 (42:17):
You know, again, this feeds into also the later part
of the Floriana lore. How are you had to guide
to a tragic voting accident? Lot of Margaret's son in
laws died in a mysterious accident. There's all kinds of
mysterious deaths happening. People vanished, you know, long in the seventies,
or a couple other American tourists spanished on Floriana. There's
(42:38):
like a bunch of sort of weird disappearances on Floriana
like decades after this. You know, it all feeds into
the mystique and the sort of dark lore of Floriana.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
What will it be about your book that resonates with
the modern reader? What are they going to read and
just say, gosh that this part could have happened today
besides crazy panties.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Oh, I think crazy Fanny's gonna happen today.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
I don't know. That's what I mean. I mean, aside
from crazy pancia. Oh right, what do you think the
book says? I mean, what is it about the society
that makes people say, wow, this is really actually this
reminds me of this or that.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
I wrote part of this book sating COVID during a
period when we were extremely self isolated. Of course, you know,
they were self isolated by choice and we were not.
But you can see how it does start playing tricks
on your brain. You know, there was a there was
a corrosive effect that can happen when when you're in
a predicament like that. But to me also, I thought everybody,
(43:34):
you know, it's timeless and universal, the desire that we
can flee the chaos and challenges of our daily life
and go somewhere simpler. But you know, we we cannot
escape the Tyrian of our own nature. Humans cannot escape
the Turian of our own nature. And you know, uh,
seeking utopia is always going to be a doomed quest.
We are not capable of creating utopia because what was
(43:56):
a hell? As other people and I just feel like
that that sort of a universal and timeless message. Who
ever thought about getting away from it? All will read
this and see what happens when you get away from
it all.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah, be careful what you wish for, you know, I
tell my teenage daughters all the time. You can only
control yourself. You can't control other people. You can only
control your own actions and reactions. I think this is
a great illustration of that. It's the best laid plans.
You come here. You've got Frederick and Dorry who were
just there and could have lived a perfectly happy little life,
(44:29):
you know, on this island.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I don't could anybody be happy with Frederick?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
I don't know. No, No, you're right. I know you
said that they had were a volatile relationship, but you
know there would be less intrusion, right, And I'm sure
they wished for the days when it was just the Whitmers.
They're annoying them when the Baroness shows up. But it's
amazing the chaos that one person can add to the story.
So I thought about isolation when I was reading about
(44:55):
it too. And you know, the isolation that we feel
now was with social media is helpful, but at the
time same time it can make you feel isolated. Yeah,
So that idea of living off the grid is very
interesting for me. And then thinking about this story in
the way that you've described it, boy, it doesn't take
much for it to really turn into a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
So you know, I've read you know, your books for
a long time, and the common thread with you that
I don't read much with other nonfiction writers is that
you have universally very passionate characters. The last story the
man from was Chicago. Is that what it was? Now
I'm trying to think of that story.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Well, he was born in Chicago, but he was a
Cincinnati bootlegger.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Bootlegger, Yeah, And I mean just like murdering someone in
the middle of a park, and these are people who
have so much pent up rage or passion or angst
or something, and you just don't get that in a
lot of nonfiction books. I think from deep history, I
think you gravitate towards that, and certainly you gravitate towards
controversial but very fiery, very intriguing women. I know, women
(46:01):
tend to really be central characters for you. And this
doesn't sound like it was an exception. It sounds like
this was just falls right into your wheelhouse.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, and I and you're correct about
all those things, and I would add also, I think
there's a theme of self reinvention. I'm fascinated by the
idea of people sort of trying to start over to
and having varying degrees of success with that, but the
idea that you can and I think also that's universal.
Everybody at one time or another thinks they can they
(46:30):
can reinvent themselves in some capacity. It's so funny. I
finished this book and I'm like, where do I go
from here? Like, I don't like, you know, it's like
I can't find anything that I'm as passionate about. I'm hoping,
I'm hoping it comes, but right now I'm just like,
how do I top crazy Panties?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I don't know, you can't or the demoted lover, who
I want to know more about. I don't want to
know the main pick. I want to know who the
demoted lover was.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
I think I should just call them that demoted lover.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
There you go, crazy fantasy and demotive lever. So it
sounds like there's a movie that's coming out about the
same subject from Ron Howard, which is amazing. Tell me
what you know about this?
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Well it is. I can't wait to watch it. It's
premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. It's called Eden,
and it stars Jude Law as Frederick Gritter. It stars
Sidney Sweeney as Margaret Whitmer, Vanessa Kirby as Story Strausch,
and added to Armis is the Baroness. So it should
be incredible.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
And I think the big thing people need to know
is there's a huge difference between Hollywood and the real story.
So if you want to get a good sense for
the differences in sort of the poetic license that an
amazing director like Ron Howard took on this, it would
be a great comparison to read your book and see
the movie both. So I hope that's what people are
(47:49):
going to do.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, and go to my book and look at the
pictures and see the glow up. The glow up that
the real people get with these Hollywood stars is quite amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
What the hell the hell that all these people went
through and put each other through. Don't you think they
deserve a Hollywood glow up with Jude Law?
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Absolutely, I think Frederi would be very very pleased.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Actually, it's gonna be hard to beat a bunch of
hot people on an island together trying to kill each
other with crazy panties exactly.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I really want to see if Ron Howard put crazy
panties in the script, if that those words, actually, if
you're in a script, it'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Okay, thank you, I appreciate this's great.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Thank you so much, Cape.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
This was fun. If you love historical true crime stories,
check out the audio versions of my books The Ghost Club,
All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget.
(48:51):
There are twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast,
Tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll
back and give them a listen if you haven't already.
This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer
is Alexis a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
This episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis heath is
(49:13):
our composer, artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark,
Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram
at tenfold More Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words
Pod
Host
Kate Winkler Dawson
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