When Averell Harriman and the Union Pacific Railroad opened the Sun Valley ski resort outside of Ketchum, Idaho, in 1936, one of the very first guests to visit and ski was Clara Spiegel of Chicago, Illinois. The wife of mail-order magnate Frederick W. Spiegel, Clara was precisely the kind of visitor the resort hoped to attract: wealthy, outdoorsy, and socially well-connected. To establish its reputation as a destination for the smart set, the resort courted celebrities. Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper were among the early visitors who put Sun Valley on the map; so did bandleader Glenn Miller and Olympic skater Sonja Heine, who starred together in the 20th Century-Fox film,
Clara Elizabeth Gatzert Spiegel was born on December 6, 1904, in her parents' home at 4915 Washington Park Court on the south side of Chicago. Her father, August Gatzert, born in Germany, was a clothing manufacturer, active in industry groups and the Chicago Association of Commerce; her mother, Isabel Rosalie Florsheim, was a Chicago native whose father, Simon Florsheim, was a corset manufacturer. He also was born in Germany. Clara's aunt Dolly (her mother's sister) lived on the same block on Washington Park Court; grandfather Simon and grandmother Elizabeth Florsheim lived on the next street over. The Gatzerts were more far-flung; her grandmother Gatzert and an aunt still lived in Germany, and another aunt in Paris. Her parents spoke English, German, and French, and Clara learned each of those languages as a child. (Clara Spiegel's autobiographical writings (Box 1, Folders 2-5) and archivist's research (Box 1, Folder 0)).
Young Clara grew up with an older brother, Walter, and a governess, Maria Antonia Paulina Plaff, who lived with the family in a room adjacent to Clara's. To Clara, she was a beloved figure, known as "Fraulein." The household also included a waitress, a cook, a housemaid, and a houseman. Although her family moved away to a larger home when she was only six, Clara Spiegel retained vivid memories of Washington Place Court. She remembered the gypsy vans that plied the alleys, as well as the lamp lighter, the scissors sharpener, and the organ grinder and his monkey, who would dance for a penny. She remembered her neighborhood as one of brick and grey stone houses, "of nameless architectural styles which like their owners were pleasant, unobtrusive, and unpretentious." "Beyond the sidewalks on each side [of the street] were ten-foot strips of lawn running to the curbs and spaced with shade trees which in summer umbrella'd the walks and porches from the direct sun. It was over the tops of these trees that I saw Halley's Comet for the first time, held up in my father's arms as he pointed out the star and its brilliant long, wide tail... 'One only sees this once in a life-time,' he told my brother and me, 'so remember it well.' He did not know nor suspect that 75 years later I would see it again from very far away..." ("Bequest," 1st draft, pp. 5-6 (Box 1, Folder 4)).
Washington Park Court, as Clara remembered it, was ethnically and religiously diverse. "There were Irish Catholics and German Jews and French Protestants and mostly Anglo-Saxons of whatever religion. It was a typical upper middle class, upper middle income, upper middle culture residential area where the inhabitants were neighborly neighbors and acquaintances but not necessarily friends" ("Bequest," 2nd draft, pp. 4-5 (Box 1, Folder 3)). The Gatzerts were of Jewish origin, but if religion played a large role in their lives, it is not reflected in Clara Spiegel's writings. She did write in general terms on the discrimination Jews faced in Chicago high society ("a conglomeration of the newly-rich") in the years before World War I: "No Jew, however cultured or however rich, was ever considered for a position on a museum or orchestral board. No Jew, however good a horseman, was ever considered for membership in the local hunts or the local polo clubs. Jewish young women were not nominated for membership in the local Junior League, much less invited to join it. And no Jew's name ever appeared in that new and formidably ludicrous publication known as the Social Register" ("Story about E.R." written in blank book (
Clara attended the Faulkner School, a private school for girls in Chicago, from kindergarten through high school. She also attended ballet school and rode with her father every day before breakfast, conspiring with him to keep from her mother any news of the many times she was thrown from the horse. When it came time to go to college, she journeyed East to enroll in Vassar College in New York. She studied at Vassar just one year before returning to Chicago, where, on December 1, 1923, a few days shy of her nineteenth birthday, she married Frederick W. Spiegel. Together they settled into a home in Glencoe, Illinois, one of Chicago's North Shore suburbs. Frederick Spiegel was an executive with his family's mail-order business, Spiegel, Inc.; during World War I he had driven ambulances with Ernest Hemingway in Italy and was counted among the novelist's personal friends. Clara Spiegel settled into a life centered on her home, charity and community work, a busy social life with her husband, and eventually, their children. The Spiegels had two sons, Andrew and William. Much of their early social life centered on the Lake Shore Country Club, a Jewish country club in Glencoe. Clara served on the committee that organized the club's annual musical skit in 1925 and chaired the committee in 1926. The printed program for "The Lake Shore Worries of 1926" credits her as one of three writers of the music and lyrics; Frederick was the stage manager. She also took up fox hunting and apache dancing. (For these and other reminiscences of her childhood and young adulthood, see chapter one of her African safari memoir, One Woman Safari (Box 34, Folder 1). Information on Frederick Spiegel's friendship with Ernest Hemingway is found in Carlos Baker,
In 1928 the Spiegels went on a two-month cruise to the Mediterranean. They sailed first to Spain, then on to Morocco, Italy, and France. "We rediscovered Europe, quite on our own, very young, green and enthralled with everything we saw and did. We found we could break the rather rigid mold in which we had been raised and expose ourselves to ways of life as foreign to us as the countries and the people" (One Woman Safari, page 4 (Box 34, Folder 1)). The letters Clara wrote home describing Vigo, Rabat, Rome, and other places they visited are among the earliest writings represented in her papers. Her developing literary style is evident even in these letters, and they represent the first of a lifetime's worth of letters and journals chronicling her travels.
During the 1930s, Clara began collaborating with Jane Mayer, a friend and classmate from her Vassar days who lived about a mile away from her, to write stories. During the summer of 1932, at Jane's home in Glencoe, they completed an eighty-nine page typescript entitled "Guardian of the North," an adventure-romance set in the Canadian wilderness. It was published in
It was the appearance of their first novel,
Spiegel and Mayer followed up on the success of their first novel with three more,
Locales familiar to Spiegel and Mayer figure prominently in their writings. Part of their first novel,
On one extended visit in to Sun Valley and Ketchum in 1939, Clara Spiegel became better acquainted with her husband's friend Ernest Hemingway, who was there to hunt, fish, and finish up his novel of the Spanish Civil War,
In 1949, Clara and Frederick Spiegel divorced. She maintained an apartment in Chicago for many years, but spent more and more of her time away. In 1952 she purchased two lots on the corner of Sixth and Walnut Streets in Ketchum, where she built a house of her own. She immersed herself in the social, recreational, and philanthropic life of the Ketchum-Sun Valley community. She hunted, fished, rode horses, and skied; she entertained several nights a week; she devoted herself to community causes, notably the Ketchum Community Library and the Ballet Foundation. The town's lack of a library was a drawback to many of its newer residents who were drawn there by the resort lifestyle but felt culturally isolated in the small mountain town without a bookstore or library. The story goes that in September 1954, on the seventh green of the Sun Valley golf course, Clara Spiegel and two friends resolved to create a library (Wendolyn Spence Holland,
Spiegel's absence from Chicago most of the time brought an effective end to her literary collaboration with Jane Mayer.
Clara Spiegel made her first visit to sub-Saharan Africa in 1957. In Tanganyika she reconnected with Patrick Hemingway, whom she had known when he was a child but had not seen for many years. He lived there as a big game hunter and guide, and in September 1960 Spiegel returned for a month-long safari with him, his wife, their infant daughter, and a twelve-man crew of native trackers and bearers. This was the first of several safaris she took in the 1960s, and she decorated her Ketchum home with her big game trophies. She chronicled her African experiences in a manuscript she entitled "One-Woman Safari" and wrote several articles about them, two of which were published, one in the
Spiegel traveled widely in the 1970s and 80s, visiting friends and exotic locales, and documenting her travels in her journals and personal scrapbooks. In 1981 she made her first visit to New Zealand, which, after Chicago and Idaho, became a third home for her. She returned every winter (summer there), spending at least a month, and often more, based in Queenstown, where she fished for trout, attended horse shows, and visited and entertained New Zealand friends. She was in New Zealand in 1986 when she saw Halley's Comet for the second time in her life ( "Bequest," 1st draft, page 6 (Box 1, Folder 4)). Her fishing exploits were chronicled in the January 1993 issue of the New Zealand publication
Only when she hit 90 did Clara Spiegel begin to slow down. Even so, she continued her visits to New Zealand until 1996 and was still seen fishing in the streams around Ketchum. In July of 1996 she was a panelist at a Hemingway conference at Sun Valley sponsored by the Hemingway Society and the University of Idaho. She was one of the speakers at a panel entitled "Remembering Hemingway," where she contradicted her fellow panelists who said Ernest Hemingway was at heart a shy man. "I'm afraid I disagree with the other authorities," she said. "He had a great sense of personal dignity. He was not shy" ("Fond Memories,"
Clara Spiegel died at the Wood River Medical Center in Ketchum on October 20, 1997, at the age of 92, just a few months after the death of her younger son William. "She was unbelievable," remarked her son Andrew to the
The great strength of the collection is in Clara Spiegel's writings in published, draft, and journal form. Her voluminous handwritten journals (Boxes 38-45) contain autobiographical reflections, literary passages she later incorporated into stories and novels, and, particularly from the late 1950s onward, detailed chronicles of her travels around the world, including her African safaris. The collection also contains typescripts of published and unpublished works, both those written with Jane Mayer (Series 2) and those she wrote herself (Series 3), as well as published versions of many of them. Spiegel compiled scrapbooks of reviews and publicity relating to the novels she wrote with Jane Mayer; they document well the widespread popularity the novels achieved.
Clara Spiegel's personal papers (Series 1) include more autobiographical writings (in draft form), several magazine and journal articles about her, typescripts of speeches, study notes, personal scrapbooks, hostess and guest books from Ketchum, memorabilia from her life and philanthropic activities in Idaho, and clippings relating to friends. Clara Spiegel's speeches, dating mainly from the 1940s and 50s, usually address the history of her literary collaboration with Jane Mayer. Her personal scrapbooks, covering the decade 1974-1984, contain snapshots, event programs, and greeting cards, documenting her social life and many personal connections in Ketchum and elsewhere when she was in her 70s.
There is not a lot of correspondence in the collection; the major body of correspondence being the travel letters she wrote home in 1928, 1934, 1935, and 1935 from Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean (Box 37). A few letters relating to specific writing projects are scattered among her literary papers, but aside from them, the only other correspondence files in the collection are some miscellaneous letters in Box 1, the cards Clara Spiegel received during the last few years of her life (Box 5), cards affixed in her scrapbooks (Boxes 11-21), and letters she wrote arranging her 1969 African safari (Box 46, Folders 7 and 8).
Information about Clara Spiegel's friendship with Ernest Hemingway is fairly sparse; it is mainly in the form of a few scattered recollections she offered in magazine and newspaper articles. There are three exceptions. Her hostess books (Boxes 7 and 8) contain a record of Hemingway's visits to her home in the 1950s and early 60s; a long letter of editorial advice to a friend (Box 32, Folder 2) recounts some advice Hemingway once gave her; and a
Also included with the collection are photos and printed matter. Forms part of the Idaho Writers Archive.
Clara Spiegel's papers are divided into six series: 1. Personal papers, 2. Clare Jaynes literary papers, 3. Clara Spiegel literary papers, 4. Journals and travel writings, 5. Photographs, and 6. Printed matter. One folder of archivist's research materials on the Gatzert family has been appended to the collection (Box 1, Folder 0).
Collection is available for research.
Literary rights and copyright remain with the donor and her heirs.
Gift of Mrs. Spiegel's son, Andrew Spiegel, 1999.
[item description], Clara Spiegel Papers, Box [number] Folder [number], Boise State University Special Collections and Archives.
The short file of correspondence (in Box 1), together with the cards and letters she received during the last few years of her life (Box 5) document Clara Spiegel's wide-ranging social connections. Among the prominent names represented are Jack, Gregory, and Patrick Hemingway, Pamela and Averill Harriman, Jimmy Stewart, musician Peter Duchin, writers Ridley Pearson and Barnaby Conrad, and Teresa Heinz and John Kerry (owners of a vacation home in Ketchum). Spiegel also kept in contact with early Sun Valley ski instructors Leif Odmark and Konrad Staudinger as well as her 1969 safari guide, Count F. Meran. Her correspondence with outfitter Denis Zaphiro reveals that even at age 86, she was considering another safari to Africa (Box 1, Folder 31).
Clara Spiegel's autobiographical writings in Box 1 are supplemented by reminiscences of her childhood and young adulthood found in chapter 1 of her unpublished manuscript entitled "One Woman Safari" (Box 34, Folder 1), occasional autobiographical reflections scattered throughout her journals (Series 4, Boxes 38-45), and by biographical detail in the articles written about her and the talks she gave to women's clubs and writers' forums (Box 1). Many of the letters of condolence sent to her family at her death (Box 4) contain recollections and tributes to her. Her personal scrapbooks, bulging with captioned snapshots, event programs, and other memorabilia for the years 1974-1984 (Boxes 11-21) reveal in great detail the social life of Spiegel and her set in Ketchum during those years. Earlier scrapbooks have been retained by the family.
From the time she moved to Idaho in the early 1950s, Clara Spiegel kept meticulous records of her many dinner parties, more than one a week during her heyday. In her hostess books (Boxes 7-9) she recorded the names of her guests, the seating arrangement at the dinner table, and the menu. Shortly after Ernest and Mary Hemingway arrived in Ketchum in October 1958, she hosted a dinner party in their honor. The menu that evening included green turtle soup, steak, broccoli polonaise, a lettuce salad, meringue with frozen strawberries, and wine (October 9, 1958). Ernest Hemingway sat at the head of the table, with Clara at his left. The other dinner guests were Hemingway's old Ketchum pals Don Anderson, Lloyd and Tillie Arnold, Forest MacMullan, and Taylor Williams, and the Hemingways' cross-country travel companions, Betty and Otto Bruce. Clara Spiegel appended this remark to the record of the dinner: "Ernest does not eat any meat fats or dairy products nor egg yolks, or vinegar."
This series contains reviews, stories, and novels, in draft and published form that Clara Spiegel wrote with Jane Mayer under the joint pseudonym Clare Jaynes. Also included are some business papers and scrapbooks of reviews and other publicity for their novels. A detailed plot outline and character development for an unpublished novel called "Craig Huston" (Box 24, Folder 1) illustrates the work Spiegel and Mayer did before actually writing their novels; unfortunately no such documents for their published works survive.
This series includes stories and articles, in typescript and published form, written by Clara Spiegel; typescripts of two unpublished nonfiction works, an African safari memoir (One Woman Safari, or One Woman's Meat) and a cookbook (The Indolent Gourmet); and drafts and synopses of movie proposals and unpublished novels (some written with Fred Iselin), most of which were set in resort locations. With the exception of some writings inspired by her Red Cross work (Box 30, Folder 22) and skits written (collaboratively) for the Lake Shore Country Club in the 1920s (Box 32, Folders 5 and 6), most of these writings date from the 1950s onward. In her long letter of editorial advice to Barney ---, evidently prepared after reading a manuscript of his World War II memoirs (Box 32, Folder 2), she recounts Hemingway's writing advice to her ("Make it, don't say it"). Many of her stories and articles (Box 30) relate to her African hunting trips. One (The Most Exclusive Club in the World, in Box 30, Folder 15) tells the story of a rafting trip down the Salmon River in Idaho. Chapter one of One Woman Safari contains several pages of reminiscences of her childhood and young adulthood (Box 34, Folder 1).
Clara Spiegel and her husband took several trans-Atlantic cruises to the Mediterranean in the 1920s and 30s. The scrapbooks she compiled for each of them are nostalgic reminders of a mode of grand travel that has almost passed from the scene. The scrapbooks contain photos of the ships, fellow passengers, and sights they saw; programs, tickets, and other tourist souvenirs; and detailed letters Spiegel wrote home chronicling her experiences. The letters offer the earliest descriptive narrative in the collection, as well as occasional commentary on her shipmates. All of the letters from the scrapbooks have been photocopied and are assembled in a chronological sequence in Box 37.
Spiegel's numbered journals begin in 1936. Until the 1950s, she used the journals (which she numbered herself) to record autobiographical reflections, musings on life and society, passages for novels and stories, and occasional travel notes. From the 1950s onward, they are more and more travel-oriented, and by the 1970s they are almost exclusively so. Spiegel had typewritten transcripts prepared for the journals of her 1969 African safari and her 1981 South Pacific tour. She inserted photos at the appropriate places and placed the transcripts in notebooks (Boxes 47 to 49).
Appended toward the end of this series is a box of associated travel papers, mostly business and logistical in nature (Box 46), though the folders for her 1969 African trip contain several detailed letters to her safari guide, Count F. Meran, outlining her hopes and expectations for the trip. "I have a great lion which I shot with Patrick [Hemingway] in 1962, so I don't want another one," she wrote, but she did ask for herring, sardines, sausage, and powdered soups for their lunches, dry white wines to accompany their dinners, and above all a chemical toilet. "My guns will come with me as I like to practice with them until the last moment..." (August 10, 1968). As the trip drew nigh she also supplied an extensive liquor list (March 19, 1969), adding she did not drink juices for breakfast "but like enough tomato juice for Bloody Marys, if I want them in the evening" (March 19, 1969). Also present are instructions for the taxidermists for preparation of her trophies (Box 46, Folder 7).
Until the early 1980s, Clara Spiegel documented her travels and social life by assembling scrapbooks in which she placed hundreds of captioned snapshots. Those scrapbooks are located in Series 1. With very few exceptions (notably the Africa photos), the photos in this series are loose snapshots that date from the mid 1980s to 1997, the last dozen years of Clara Spiegel's life, after she stopped assembling those scrapbooks. They reveal that she was an active traveler and angler to the end. Some of these snapshots are grouped by trip and destination; others are in no order at all. Many have captions on the back; many do not. The photos in Box 50 have been numbered; some are portrait-like snapshots of Spiegel and family members; a few others (Photos 1001-1010) are professionally-photographed 8x10 prints.
This series consists of miscellaneous postcards and travel brochures collected by Clara Spiegel in Australia, New Zealand, and China (1980s-1990s), Shell and Mobil road maps of East Africa (1960s), and route maps for Pan Am and BOAC (1950s); together with complete issues of magazines featuring her writings (under both her own name and the pseudonym Clare Jaynes), magazines she collected with articles about Ernest Hemingway, and a few other magazines she saved on topics of personal interest.