Ripley: The Tale of Amelie Welles Pumpelly, Part 2

The Pumpelly family 1914 Left to right  Nursemaid, little Amelie, Mrs Pumpelly,
Raphael Pumpelly II; Ralph Pumpelly III  nursemaid and Ripley.

To read Part 1, go here. Amelie Welles Pumpelly was born on May 10, 1910 in New York City. The
oldest child of Raphael Welles Pumpelly and Amelie Sybil Huntington Ripley, she led a charmed young life until the separation and divorce trial of her parents in 1925.

UPDATE: My thanks to Amelie and John Henry Bates' daughter, Grace Ann, for clarifications to this article.

Raphael and his wife were incredible extravagant and they managed to get themselves into a lot of

John's brother Ad's Worker's Theatre
Publicity, 1933

hot water financially beginning in 1918. Amelie's mother reportedly gave a lot of money to what was termed a
"sect" out of her personal money, helping lead to their financial straights (she was Christian Scientist). Raphael and his sister Margaret were members of the Baha'i faith.

Raphael ended up with custody of his three children after a strong case was made that Mrs. Pumpelly had neither the knowledge or wherewithal to manage them. Raphael had been struck penniless after the divorce trial and led the children to their next stop. In 1925, he moved "into a cave he and Page (his former business partner) constructed 20 years earlier on Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. They survived by gathering fruits and nuts and trapping small game." Raphael went in got a job within a year and rebuilt his family's fortunes as a stockbroker.

Amelie Pumpelly's involvement in the Baha'i faith led to her meeting of John Henry Bates. Bates, an African-American, was the son of  Addison Bates, a porter, and Grace Brown. John's father died when the seven children were still young, sometime after 1910.  His father's people had been slaves in Dinwiddie, Virginia. John's brother, Addison, Jr. "Ad" was a noted carpenter of beautiful furniture, dancer, choreographer, artist, CPUSA-led union activist, and key player in the Harlem Renaissance. He also owned his own gallery in Harlem.

John Bates photo by Gordon Parks, Life Magazine, Aug 25, 1952

John boxed in the late 1920s and early 1930s under the name "Brooklyn Johnny Bates." According to Grace Ann Bates, "My father became a carpenter because his boxing career ended after he was in a car accident and had to have his jaw wired. He with his brothers Ad and Lenard had a very successful business in furniture and cabinet design using fine woods."

I would guess when the two married, it shocked society, but not those who followed the Baha'i faith's belief in the "oneness of the human race." They were married in Manhattan on August 1, 1935.

Grace Ann Bates said, "...mother did graphic designs for posters for the labor union. She was an artist-painter. It was at the end of the Harlem Renaissance that they met so many African American artist and writers were their friends."

They counted among their friends the likes of author Ralph Ellison. On one of the early visits of many to the family farm in Waitsville, Vermont, Ellison was inspired for the first time with the thought, "I am an invisible man." He began writing the first draft of his book during that visit. Regardless of their political affiliation, they continued practicing their faith, first in Haiti, where they attempted to build fellowship and then, in the late 1940s, to Mexico City, Mexico. According to the Baha'i newsletters I went through, it seems the pair worked well together on their mission and in life.  And such a different existence from family empire-building great grandfather WY Ripley's life. I wonder what he would have thought of it all.

In 1951, while living in Mexico City, Amelie died of a coronary thrombosis at the age of  41. She was buried in Panteon Jardin de Mexico Cemetery. Along with John, four daughters survived her.

John returned to Harlem after Amelie's death. He continued his friendship with Ralph Ellison, who at last had published his classic piece of literature, Invisible Man, and won a US National Book Award for Fiction. In the August 25, 1952 issue of  Life Magazine, John Bates was the model for the Gordon Parks photo essay on the Invisible Man (pp 9-11). I believe John died in 1975 in New York.

Death of American Abroad
Amelie Welles Pumpelly Bates
03 Nov 1951
Mexico City, Mexico

Ripley: The Tale of Amelie Welles Pumpelly, Part 1

Raphael, Amelie, and Ripley Pumpelly

This is not a complete story - nor does it even begin to touch on what I suspect was a fascinating and non-conforming life, but I wanted to get it started before I forget many of the details. I would love to hear from one of her surviving children - I understand there is at least one daughter still around.

UPDATE: Thanks to the kindness of Amelie and John Henry Bates' daughter, Grace Ann, for clarifications to this piece.

RIPLEY > William > RIPLEY, John > RIPLEY, Joshua > RIPLEY, Joshua II > RIPLEY, Joshua > RIPLEY, Nathaniel > RIPLEY, William Young > RIPLEY, Edward "Ned" Hastings, BG > RIPLEY, Amelie "Sybil" Huntington m. PUMPELLY, Raphael Welles >  PUMPELLY, Amelie Welles

William Young Ripley, of Rutland, Vermont, was a major player. He owned a huge marble business and had interests in numerous business ventures including banking. He had a slew of highly successful children, who in addition to having their own skills and talents, also had the money behind the Ripley name to clear their path in life. WY Ripley's youngest son, Ned, was described by one source as far more whimsical than his serious brother William, but he too was successful. During the Civil War, he quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a Brigadier General and making a mark quite impressive.

After the war, he returned to Rutland to assist in the operation of the marble quarry business, but his father died and it was eventually sold. Ned moved to NYC, still unmarried, though quite eligible and handsome. He moved among the highest echelons of New York society and finally married Amelie Dyckman Van Doren, a member of an old and wealthy Dutch-American family at the ripe old age of 39.

Raphael II & father Raphael Pumpelly

Ned spent the next decades in major building and construction projects and founded a US-Brazil steamship line and traveled frequently to South America. Some of these projects flopped and some were successful, but it helped his wife's family was able to back some of his ventures. In some quarters, it was suspected that he did not always act in good faith.

His family - his wife "Minnie" (they did like their nicknames), and daughters, Alice "Ahlo" and Amelie "Sibyl" lived the good life in Manhattan all through Ned's financial ups and downs. One of the things he inherited from his father, was the family farm in Mendon, a bit east of Rutland along the Woodstock highway. It was there he also built cottages for his daughters to entertain and practice keeping house. They would use this farm as a getaway spot during their lives and it would play a role in his granddaughter Amelie's life as well.

His daughters, Ahlo and Sibyl, managed to get engaged about the same time and had a grand, Manhattan double wedding. Ahlo's groom was Alexander Ogden Jones, son of Mahlon Ogden Jones and Vera de Trofimoff, the Princess de Trofimoff of Russia. Alexander was an artist, farmer, and held a Ph. B from Yale and resided at 74 Park Ave. After their marriage, in 1920, he purchased the orchard and vineyard and pecan groves at Niagara, in Pinehurst, North Carolina, in the Sandhills, where they spent part of their time each year.

Sibyl's choice in spouse also had a lot of cachet. Raphael Pumpelly II was the son of Professor Raphael Pumpelly and Eliza Frances Shepard. Professor Pumpelly was a noted geologist who graduated in 1859 from the Royal School of Mines in Freiburg, Germany. He began his career in directing Arizona silver mine operations and worked as a consultant for the government of Japan. He spent much of his life traveling the world, working for various governments and business entities on various mining issues. He became the first Professor of Mining at Harvard. They resided in Newport when in country.

Samarkand farm

Raphael Wells Pumpelly finished three years at Harvard prior to traveling with his father on an archaeological expedition to Central Asia in Samarcand.  He was of a quite handsome and striking stature. As a child, he had traveled extensively in Europe and Asia with his father.  After his marriage, they also purchased land in the Sandhills, like brother-in-law Ogden Jones, and he hoped to settle down to life as a gentleman farmer after his marriage. He partnered with an old Harvard chum to buy 500 acres near Eagle Springs in 1910 and he later bought his chum out of his share. By 1913, the couple had three children, Amelie, the purpose of this story, born in 1910, Raphael Ripley Pumpelly (1911-2006), and Ripley Huntington Pumpelly (1913-1967). Raphael lived it up big, even in the Sandhills of Eagle Spring, North Carolina, building a beautiful mansion he named Samarkand manor (named for the country he visited as a boy which so intrigued him).  This account of the divorce proceedings stated:

"However, years of lavishness sapped the farm’s entire earnings. By 1918, two years of failed peach crops, coupled with the collapse of both the peach and real estate markets crippled the Pumpellys financially, driving them deeper into debt. Samarkand Manor, a correctional facility for troubled women, was erected on 300 acres of land sold by Pumpelly to the state that year.

Life at home proved not so peachy. The Pumpelly divorce, described as a “carnival of sensationalism,” provided nearly as much entertainment as the parties. Curious neighbors heard Amelie’s sworn accounts of the “torrid affair” with his children's tutor. Pumpelly submitted this sad account to a Harvard alumni publication 25 years after graduating: “My wife is gone, my house is empty, my property ransacked, and I have endured two years’ war with my most intimate friend and former partner.” Pumpelly, accompanied by his three children, moved in 1925 into a cave he and Page constructed 20 years earlier on Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. They survived by gathering fruits and nuts and trapping small game.

Pumpelly, after bathing in the stream and donning his suit, caught the train to New York City where he applied for work. After a year in the cave, he found employment as a stockbroker, soon became the third highest producer in the nation and made a second fortune. Years later, his children remembered that wild year as the best of their young lives. The Samarcand property eventually passed to J.D. Parker, a wine maker and dairy farmer. He and his family occupied the space until his incarceration for tax evasion in 1955."

The Pilot, LLC, 2013  

The divorce itself was not actually finalized until 1942 in Dade County, Florida - how that happened, I will probably never figure out.

Name: Amelia R Pumpelly

Gender: Female

Spouse's Name: Raphael W Pumpelly

Divorce Date: 1942

Divorce Place: Dade, Florida, USA

Certificate Number: 9803

Perhaps it was her time living in the cave that gave young Amelie a different perspective on life that would guide her through the rest of her life. For whatever reason, she took a vastly different path, which I'll cover next in Ripley: The Tale of Amelie Ripley, Part 2.