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DOROTHY DIX (Mrs. Elizabeth Merriwether Gilmer)
NE is not long in the presence of
this magnetic little Southern jour
nalist, before he is conscious of be
ing under the spell of a forceful
individuality. She is a quick think
er. and knows how to tell what she
thinks. She has. the vivacity of
her French descent on the mater-
O
—J nal side, and the sterling qualities
of the Scotch, on the paternal, while her soft
voice, and gentle manners, proclaim her from
the land of the oleander.
The Merriwethers, direct decendants from
the House of Douglasses, came from Virginia
to Southern Kentucky in 1809, and purchased
twelve thousand acres of fine farming land,
most of which, by law of entailment, remains in
the family.
Two years ago, representatives of this dis
tinguished family, scattered all over the Union,
celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of
the coming of their ancestors to Kentucky, in a
great family reunion, held at Dunbar’s Cave, a
picturesque summer resort, near Clarksville,
Tennessee. While Kentucky claims the na
tivity of Dorothy Dix, the writer has reliable
information giving the honor to Tennessee.
Her father, Wm. Douglass Merriwether, owned
an interest in a large landed estate, intersected
by the State line; it was the ancestral home,
inherited from his father, Charles Merriwether,
and called “Woodstock,” known far and wide
as the home of famous horses. A few weeks
before the birth of little Elizabeth, her parents
moved temporarily to a comfortable tenement
house on the Tennessee side, in order that the
old homestead on the Kentucky side, undergo
necessary repairs. So we see that our great
Southern journalist, Dorothy Dix, was born in
an overseer’s house in Tennessee! Her early
educational training was received at the Fe
male Academy, Clarksville, Tennessee, near her
home. It was here, when only twelve years old,
that she manifested rare literary talent in her
contributions to a little school journal. Her
education was completed at Hollin’s Institute,
Virginia. At eighteen, she was married to Mr.
Gilmer, and soon after her marriage, she and
her husband visited a summer resort near New
Orleans. It so happened that they occupied a
cottage adjoining that of Mrs. E. I. Nicholson,
the talented proprietress of the New Orleans
Picayune. The congenial tastes of the two la
dies, drew them often together, and soon Mrs.
Gilmer confided to her new friend, her burning
desire to write. Mrs. Nicholson encouraged her
to obey “the voice imperative.” by soliciting
short articles from her pen, for the Picayune.
Major Burbank, a brilliant newspaper man.
who had gone from the East to New Orleans,
took great interest in her talent, and to her
four years training under him, Dorothy Dix
thinks she owes much of her success as a news
paper woman After working five years for the
Picayune, Mr Hearst was attracted by her
writings, and made her a paying offer, which
she accepted. In an article to the Picayune a
few years ago, she said : “I may as well con
fess in the beginning, that I am a woman born
out of my time. I should have been the chate
laine of a medieval castle, and sat with jingling
keys at my belt, happy, and contented, while 1
spun and broidered among my handmaidens.
A few centuries of time, and much lack of
money prevented me from enjoying that de
lightful lot in life. Instead of it, my fate has
made me a twentieth century newspaper wo
man. who spends her time spinning stories for
publication, instead of linen for clothing, and
so broidering the commonplace incidents of
every-day existence with the flowers of fancy,
that they will entertain and direct the reading
public.”
After spending two years in New York, with
Mr. Hearst, her heart went back to Dixie, so
by mutual agreement it was arranged for her
to make her permanent home in New Orleans,
The Golden Age for February 23, 1911.
Sy HARRIET PARKS HILLER.
and when there was urgent demand for her
services in New York she could go there, on
short notice.
In speaking of her life, while rotating be
tween the two cities so widely different, she
said: “In New Orleans, I meditate on the des
tinies of the domestic state, on the ten com
mandments of love, on frowsiness, on frumps,
and not to be of them; while in New York,
my work, and thoughts are of battle, murder
and sudden death.”
Three vears ago, following her efficient re.p
ortorial work on the famous Thaw trial, Mr.
Hearst decided it was best for her to remain in
New York, and as an inducement to that end,
increased her salary from ten thousand to thir
teen thousand dollars per annum. When inter
viewed as to the origin of her pen name, she
said: “I always liked the dignity of the old-time
names, especially that of Dorothy. The hus
band of my Black Mammy was called Dick,
but his dusky dame had an amusing way of
calling him ‘Dix.’ I had already chosen Dor
othy; Dix was euphonious, so I annexed it.
Nearly everybody calls her “Dorothy Dix,”
even near friends, and relatives, but on visiting
cards, cards of invitation, etc., she is always
known as Mrs. Elizabeth Merriwether Gilmer.
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I DOROTHY DIX |
The Facile Southern Writer f
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In her early newspaper reading, she was a close
student of Henry Watterson, and Jenny June,
She greatly admired them as writers, and long
ed to approach them in mental vigor, A short
time before Mrs. Cooly ( Jenny June ) died, Dor
othy Dix met her in New York, and told her
of how she had always looked upon her as her
newspaper foster mother, to which the distin
guished writer replied “I belong to the nine
teenth century, you to the twentieth, I give
you my mantle." It was a fine compliment
that Dorothy Dix has always cherished as a
stimulus to her best literary effort. The diver
sity of her talent is remarkable. She can dash
off a short story full of womanly tenderness,
and ere the ink is dry on its pages, report a
sensational murder trial so thrilling with hu
man interest that it awakens a world of read
ers. She writes analytical detective stories that
will make Conan Doyle look to his laurels.
Dorothy Dix has always been an early riser;
she is in her study dictating to her stenogra
pher at 9 a. m., every day, except Sunday. She
considers it her chief mission in journalism to
write something that will benefit women. These
articles she writes five times a week. On this
subject she says: “Women have been angels
four centuries too long, and it is now time for
them to come down to hard pan, and be sensi-
ble, useful human beings. Shake themselves
up, and get busy at something practical!” That
she practices what she preaches, will be seen
from the way she has appropriated a portion of
her handsome salary toward the building of a
pretty cottage home in New Orleans. She is a
domestic woman, whose heart is around her
hearthstone. It has been the desire of her life
to have a home.that would breathe her own per
sonality, and she has it, in the cottage with
its spacious piazzas, and sunlit rooms. After
the building came the furnishing. She did not
feel able to order her beds, chairs, tables, etc.,
en masse, after the idle rich. They must be
acquired one, by one. In a newspaper letter,
she described her unique plan of furnishing
her house, as follows: “In my dilemma I hit
upon the happy expedient of buying each in
dividual piece of furniture not with mere mon
ey, but with some special article that I sat up
nights to write, or did on high days, or holi
days, and then to make the connection definite,
and complete, I fastened the article itself upon
the bottom, or on the back of the piece of fur
niture it purchased. Thus a chair to me, is
not a mere chair upon which to sit; it is the
story, or sketch, or even perchance, a poem,
or joke, that is a never-ending source of de
lightful memories and associations. When one
sets up one’s Lares and Penates, the first thing
required is naturally a place to sleep, and so I
started my furnishing with a bedroom. Mine
is a charming affair; a long room ending in a
bow window that opens upon a palm embow
ered garden. The walls of the room are sage
green, with a ceiling of drooping pink roses,
and the room is hygienically furnished with a
green matting, a brass bedstead, a big mahog
any dresser, and willow chairs cushioned with
creton, that repeats the roses of the ceiling.
Nothing uncommon in that, but think not, O
prosperous reader, that I bought these bour
geois articles at one fell swoop; far from it;
they represent three stories that adorned the
patent insides of many a country paper. Neat
ly gummed to the back of the dresser, is the
romance of a persecuted young maiden, who
went through three thousand words of heart
ache before she was finally restored, in the last
paragraph, to her lover’s arms; while should
you turn up the excellent mattresses on the
brass bedstead, you would find a thrilling ac
count of a heroic fireman, who saved an entire
family from the flames, and then went back
after the house cat. all in order that I might
have a brass bedstead.” She goes on, this de
lightfully original little journalist, to describe
her library, drawing room, dining room, etc.,
after the same unique manner as her bedroom,
and concludes by saying: “The possibilities of
such a scheme of furnishing, is of course limit
less, but there is one drawback to it, it piques
curiosity, and provokes a tendency in my guests
to peer behind bureaus, and under tables, and
turn up the cushions of chairs, and corners of
mattresses, all of which every good housekeep
er knows should be sternly discouraged.” It
is said that Dorothy Dix would be an humor
ist except that half the time she sees the se
rious side of things, and falls to sympathizing
with people, and giving them good advice. She
has been a member of the Missionary Baptist
church since her thirteenth year, and it is said
of her. that she never permits anything to con
flict with her religious duties. It was her in
tention t<> spend last summer in Europe, but
owing to the cholera epidemic which prevailed
in portions of Italy, she deferred the trip, and
in its stead, she and her husband, made an
auto tour of the New England States.
Despite the fact that Dorothy Dix has at
tained distinction in the field of letters, she is
exceedingly modest, and seemingly unconscious
of her rare gift as a writer; and while to the
reading world she appears to have reached the
zenith of journalistic fame, she seems to think
her literary career has just begun.
