Walker Winslow correspondence

Abstract: This collection of papers largely consists of handwritten and typed correspondence between Walker Winslow (also under the name Harold Maine) and his third wife, Edna Mansley Winslow, the bulk of which dates from 1948-1951. The letters can be chatty and newsy, providing details about each of their daily lives and activities, what they were reading or music they were listening to, their work (his writing and therapy, her writing and painting), and other related topics. The letters could also be very self-reflective and analytical regarding their relationship to each other, discussing their sexuality and concepts of fidelity, relationships with others, their health and various injuries and illnesses they each had, money, their mutual loneliness, Edna's drinking, and other topics. Some of the letters were written while Winslow was working at and writing in Topeka. They were also written while the Winslows lived separately in Santa Fe, New Mexico; various parts of California (especially Big Sur or Oakland); various parts of New York (especially Rochester and New York City); and in Kansas. The letters document the rise and fall of their brief and intense relationship.

Also in the materials are a few of Winslow's typed manuscripts and poems, many with copy-editing marks and annotations or corrections, including a copy of If a Man Be Mad, as well as two published versions of the book (one in French). There is also correspondence with friends and relatives of Winslow and/or Edna; Winslow family photographs; some sketches Edna drew, with her handwritten notes on the back, perhaps for letters to Winslow; a letter of recommendation from 1889 for Winslow's father; and extensive correspondence between Winslow and Dr. Karl Menninger. Some of this correspondence regards articles and the book Winslow wrote about the Menninger Clinic; there are also interview notes and transcripts from interviews Winslow conducted with Dr. C.F. Menninger. Topics of Winslow's writings include Henry Miller, psychiatry and life in asylums, and the Synanon Foundation.

Summary: This handwritten and typed correspondence is between Walker Winslow (also under the name Harold Maine) and his third wife, Edna Manley Winslow. The letters can be chatty and newsy, providing details about each of their daily lives and activities, what they were reading or music to which they were listening, their work (his writing and therapy, her writing and painting), and other related topics. The letters can be very self-reflective and analytical regarding their relationship to each other, relationships with others, their health and various injuries and illnesses they each had, money, their mutual loneliness, Edna's drinking, and other topics. There is also correspondence with friends and relatives of Winslow and/or Edna, Winslow family photographs, some sketches Edna drew, and extensive correspondence between Winslow and Dr. Karl Menninger. Walker Winslow was the author of "The Menninger Story" and "If A Man Be Mad." Some of the letters were written while Winslow was working at and writing in Topeka, Kansas. They were also written while the Winslows lived separately in Santa Fe, New Mexico; various parts of California (especially Big Sur or Oakland); various parts of New York (especially Rochester and New York City); and in Kansas. The letters document the rise and fall of their brief and intense relationship. Given the nature of some of the content, several pieces of correspondence have not been made available on Kansas Memory, but they are still available to researchers.

Biog. Sketch (Full): Walker Winslow was born 2 February 1905 in Idaho. His father died when he was very young, and his mother soon after remarried. Winslow did not get along with his stepfather and so left home when still a teenager, joining the army.

He was an alcoholic before he was 18 years old, and while in the army Winslow began reading and writing. He started with poetry and progressed to writing fictional and non-fictional pieces, both article-length and book-length. He married a woman named Helen, but the marriage did not last; he was also married to a woman named Katherine. He worked as a cook and doing other odd jobs, living a largely transient life, and he spent some time in mental asylums due to his alcoholism. The conditions he saw in these institutions led him to sober himself up and take on jobs as a mental ward attendant, including with the United States Veterans Administration.

Because of seeing these institutions from both sides, Winslow--under the pseudonym Harold Maine--wrote a book entitled If a Man Be Mad, which won critical acclaim. In the late 1940s he married Edna Manley, born in 1908 and recently divorced from writer Ludwig Lewisohn; Edna was also of a literary and artistic bent. Winslow and Manley did not live together very often during their marriage.

After Winslow and Edna married, Winslow lived in Topeka, Kansas for a while, working as a lay therapist with alcoholics at the Menninger Clinic (he probably also worked with the Winter VA Hospital in Topeka). A friend of Karl Menninger's, Winslow in 1956 published a book about the Menningers entitled The Menninger Story, focusing on C.F. Menninger and the beginnings of the clinic.

Winslow's and Edna's marriage did not last long; they were divorced by the mid-1950s and had already separated a few years before that. Edna married a third time, to Guy Shepley-Shepley, and moved to Europe; she died in England in January 1985. Winslow moved to California and became involved in the Synanon Foundation in the early 1960s, a group working for the rehabilitation of drug addicts.

Walker Winslow died, presumably of pneumonia, in California in 1969.

Associated materials: Ludwig Lewisohn papers, Special Collections, College of Charleston Library.

General Note: Some content in the husband's and wife's letters is explicit.