Chapter 15: The Price of Silence
And The Cost of Keeping a Secret
Call Me A Bastard is a weekly serialized book that tells the true and scandalous story of Aimee Henry and Mary Martha Parker. Subscribe today, and we’ll deliver Call Me a Bastard and a bunch of other fantastic free content to your email each week!
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Release Date: October 1, 2024
The crash of the stock market on Black Tuesday marked the beginning of what would be called the Great Depression, but the real devastation unfolded as banks failed, unemployment skyrocketed, and industries collapsed. Between 1929 and 1931, approximately 9,000 banks failed, and industrial output was cut in half, leaving an estimated 15 million Americans suddenly unemployed.
Aimee was one of the lucky ones who had a job. At some point prior to April 14 of 1930, she’d moved from Brooklyn, NY to Falls Church, VA, where, according to the 1930 federal census, she was living alone in a rented home on New York Avenue, and working as an unregistered private nurse. 1
Despite the shared custody agreement, Aimee’s 16-year-old son, John JR, was living some 2,600 miles away with his father, stepmother, and stepbrother in Fontana, CA. How their relationship had weathered the previous two years — and the publicity of Aimee's court cases against both John and Mary Martha, is unknown. 2
As for Mary Martha, she spent much of the Great Depression traveling with Berdetha Lammiman, a private nurse and companion who had replaced Amelia Wright sometime before 1920. The two women made five trips to Europe between May 1929 and March of 1933.
All outward appearances seemed to suggest that neither the stock market crash, the Great Depression, nor the ongoing lawsuit and associated bad press it had generated had ruffled the society matron's feathers.
As often happens, however, appearances were deceiving.
By mid-October of 1929, Aimee's request for a declaratory judgment had been granted, and a trial date was pending in the Supreme Court of New York. There would be no more delays, dismissals, or appeals.
Truth comes out, and the time had come.
Mary Martha must have known she would lose and be forced to recognize Aimee as her lawful daughter in open court. And the thought of doing that must have been unbearable.
For four decades, Mary Martha had done everything in her power to protect the Parker name and fortune from the stain of her sin and ensure that the living proof of that sin never knew who she was or where she belonged.
She had abandoned Aimee as a newborn in New Brunswick, had sent her to live with strangers in Baltimore, and then hidden her away in boarding schools in Boston, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut for more than a decade. And when those efforts had fallen short, and Aimee had started asking questions, Mary Martha had told her she was an illegitimate orphan, had tried to have her committed and locked away in an insane asylum, and had paid John to keep his silence.
Yet Aimee had persevered. And the threat she represented had grown.
On October 25, 1930 — one day before the start of the lawsuit which would, if successful, force Mary Martha to provide Aimee with a birth certificate and admit maternity — Harland Tibbetts presented Aimee and her attorney with a secret money-for-dismissal offer. 3
Representing it as a way to "avoid the expenses and annoyances involved in the trial and possible appeals" and to "obviate any further litigation or other difficulties between the parties and their personal representatives," the offer was a cold and calculated reminder of Mary Martha's forty-year campaign to control, isolate and silence Aimee — and to make sure she never experienced the sense of belonging or family Mary Martha herself enjoyed and took for granted.
Nowhere in the 2,642-word agreement did Mary Martha affirm she was Aimee's mother. In fact, the agreement contained multiple denials of any "relationship between the parties of the first and second parts," meaning Mary Martha and Aimee, and prohibited Aimee from claiming any part of any estate or fund or really anything at all which used the terms "heir", "next of kin", "child", "daughter", "issue" or "any other of the similar terms which indicate a relationship to the party of the first part, or to any other of the ancestors of the party of the first part."
It went so far as to state that Aimee must "never publicly or privately assert or claim the relationship of daughter" to Mary Martha — under penalty.
And then it went even further:
Aimee must never "molest, harass or annoy" Mary Martha, nor "do any act or thing which may directly or indirectly tend to disturb, annoy or embarrass" her — again, under grave penalty.
The message was clear and achingly familiar — Aimee was nothing to Mary Martha. There was no relationship — there never had been and never would be. As far as Mary Martha was concerned, there was no place for Aimee in the Parker family or the Parker family tree. And, most significantly, in her mother's life.
Once that message was firmly re-established, Mary Martha did what she'd done since Aimee's birth in 1891; she attempted to bully and buy her way out of trouble.
If Aimee would agree to dismiss the court case and never institute any action or proceeding in any court in any jurisdiction against Mary Martha for any purpose whatsoever, Mary Martha would give Aimee an annual payment of $1,000 — the present-day equivalent of about $16,000 — for the rest of her life, pay off her attorney fees and give her $6,000 — again, an amount equal to about $91,000 in 2024 — to purchase a home in the Washington, DC area.
And Mary Martha would amend her will, giving Aimee sixty percent of one-third of the generational wealth passed down to Mary Martha from her grandfather, James the Elder, and her father, Richard.
But only the generational wealth from those two.
Aimee would be required to "surrender, release, relinquish and renounce" all rights and claims to any generational wealth passed down to Mary Martha through her mother's family — the Purnell and Thorndike side.
There was no place for Aimee in those family trees, either.
In fact, Mary Martha made it clear there was no place for Aimee in any family tree — to get any of Mary Martha's money — the direct payments as well as any inheritance — Aimee would also need to give up all rights and claims to "any other will or other estate, to the extent that any such right or claim might be predicted upon any relationship between the parties of the first and second parts."
It's unclear if the payments promised to Aimee in the October 1930 agreement were to be above and beyond what Mary Martha had already been paying or pledged to pay Aimee, as revealed in attorney William Jerome's ominous letter of September of 1928. 4
As a reminder, in that letter, Mary Martha had also threatened to "wholly discontinue any allowance heretofore made to Mrs. Morecroft" and "immediately revoke such provisions of her will" if Aimee went ahead with the case to compel Mary Martha to provide her with a birth certificate.
But Aimee had gone ahead, and as the case neared its inevitable conclusion — a legally binding declarative judgment that would compel Mary Martha to admit she was Aimee's mother and execute a birth certificate stating as much — Mary Martha had become even more desperate to put an end to the case, the accusations, the speculation, and the scandal.
But now, she didn't just want the case dismissed; she wanted it erased from the reach of history. And she said as much.
In exchange for the allowance, house, legal fees, and bequeathments, Mary Martha demanded that Aimee and her attorney withdraw the summons and complaint from the official court files and "deliver the original of the summons and complaint, the original and all copies of the stipulation dated October 25, 1930, all original affidavits, records and other documents in their possession or under their control tending to establish the alleged relationship between the parties of the said action" to Mary Martha's attorney.” 5
As long as Mary Martha upheld her end of the agreement, the documents would be destroyed upon her death, and all records of the case — and proof of Aimee's claim that she was Mary Martha's daughter — would disappear.
Except they wouldn't.
Nearly all of Aimee's heartbreakingly detailed sworn statement had been published in newspapers throughout 1928 and 1929, as had many of the affidavits — in fact, Aimee had given exclusive interviews to several media organizations that had syndicated those stories to newspapers across America and even abroad.
The content of the legal complaint had appeared in newspaper articles, and much of Mary Martha's response to that complaint had also been published — sometimes word for word.
So, what was Mary Martha afraid of?
Had Aimee and her attorneys discovered even more damning evidence on their fact-finding mission to New Brunswick? Were there, in fact, other witnesses whose affidavits had been held back from reporters? Could other documents or records potentially be uncovered?
It's obvious Mary Martha was hiding more than just the facts of Aimee's birth — they were already out there for all the world to see. So again, what was Mary Martha afraid of, and what other secrets was she hiding?
And how far would she go to make sure she kept them?
Copyright 2024 Lori Olson White
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Chapter End Notes
1 Year: 1930; Census Place: Falls Church, Fairfax, Virginia; Page: 10B; Enumeration District: 0009; FHL microfilm: 2342176.
2 Year: 1930; Census Place: Palisades, Bergen, New Jersey; Page: 14A; Enumeration District: 0081; FHL microfilm: 2341047
3 Will of Mary Martha Parker Taylor, Port Chester, NY. Exhibit D, P. Massachusetts, Essex County, Probate Records; Author: Massachusetts. Supreme Judicial Court (Essex County)(1947).
4 “Astonishing Secrets Behind the Morecroft Fight for Millions — and the Bar Sinister; Sworn Statement of the Dainty Divorcee that She is the Natural Daughter of Rich “400” Widow, Whose Vast Estates She Would Share after Harrowing Experiences in Schools, Hospitals and Sanitariums while Kept in the Dark”, Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN November 25, 1928.
5 Will of Mary Martha Parker Taylor, Port Chester, NY. Exhibit D, P. Massachusetts, Essex County, Probate Records; Author: Massachusetts. Supreme Judicial Court (Essex County)(1947).
I want to know the secret!
omg...at this point, I am glad that I "discovered" this story in November. I get to "binge read" it. I would hate to be waiting now for the next installment!