Diana of the Dunes Read online

  The Indiana dunes region has long been a place for sojourners desiring escape, nourishment through introspection or a richer, more deliberate experience among the bounties of nature. Alice merely joined the ranks of those who sought sanctuary there, though for others at the time this usually meant weekend retreats; the clamor for year-round living would come later. For myriad reasons, and perhaps no reason in particular, her story became more pressing than that of any other intrepid dunes character. Other inhabitants were mostly forgotten old men, those with fizzled lives who found the life of a hermit more than satisfying. Although historian Earl H. Reed tramped among the dunes to interview them and capture their stories and dialect in books, none of these characters experienced the intense scrutiny that Alice suffered at the typewriters of so many prolific reporters. When they weren’t calling her a goddess, they treated her like a sideshow performer, a mystifying and curious misfit. Based largely on details provided in the earliest newspaper accounts, Alice has since become the subject of history-book chapters, newsletter and magazine articles, plays, poems, songs and an art show. The names of local businesses, a town festival, a street, vacation homes—even the naming of a sand dune2—have paid homage to Diana of the Dunes. Ghost stories, each with invented details and all claiming reports of Diana “sightings,” are published in print and online.

  Although given other nicknames by reporters and townspeople—for example, Nymph O’ the Dunes—Diana of the Dunes instantly took hold when it was suggested by a Chicago newspaper in the days just after her discovery. Alice might even have considered it a compliment, if not for the notoriety it attracted. Headlines rarely featured her given name. Diana of the Dunes, on the other hand, frequently found its way into bold type. In preliminary searches, it seemed a Chicago journalist first called her Diana of the Dunes. A November 1916 newspaper headline blared, “‘Nymph’ Alice Now a ‘Diana’”; below it, in the article’s second paragraph, she was compared to mythological Diana, the Roman huntress. The writer noted that she was a better shot with her rifle than most local men—especially when it came to duck hunting.“This strange woman is recognized here as a veritable Diana. Nimrods who returned with one lone duck as a result of a hunt in the dune observed with envy a score on the line at Miss Alice’s windowless cabin.”3

  In fact, an Indiana newspaper originated the nickname Diana of the Dunes in a headline during the first week of her discovery; the headline ran above a story that was reprinted from a Chicago newspaper that, for all practical purposes, may be lost to history.4 In any case, the name Diana immediately took hold, proclaiming Alice’s new, and lasting, identity. As if to be certain, modern-day supporters inscribed “Diana of the Dunes” on Alice’s headstone—above “Alice Gray Wilson.” The stone was laid many years after her death.

  Alice came by the last name of Wilson in the last few years of her life, during which she lived with a man who called himself Paul Wilson. His given name was Paul Eisenblatter; it is unclear why or when he adopted the alias, but he used it consistently both throughout the time he knew Alice and ever afterward. The couple first claimed to be married but later acknowledged they were not. A search of legal records verifies the latter, though there is a lingering question as to the possibility of common-law marriage. As an indication that the nickname Diana had permeated Alice’s life, in every news story that quoted Paul he referred to her as Diana—not Alice. Paul had clearly adopted the nickname and likely used it with Alice’s blessing.

  In an early interview, granted nine months after Alice’s arrival in the sand hills, a Chicago reporter quoted Alice as saying that the life of a wage earner in the city was akin to “slavery.”5 To escape the inequality and incivility of the work world and probably, too, to escape a difficult love relationship in the city, she sought a solitary life in the Indiana dunes—her inspiration derived from a poem by Lord Byron titled “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” in which he wrote the line, “In solitude, where we are least alone.” Many have assumed that Alice never achieved such serene seclusion.

  During her years in the Indiana dunes—the final ten years of her life—neighbors and reporters alike took copious and creative notes, assigning traits and activities to Alice, both true and false, which are still reflected in prevailing stories. The most popular is that she bathed naked in Lake Michigan (as soon as the ice began breaking up, so some of her contemporaries reported, although Alice denied this) and did so often, running a length of beach to dry her body. Other familiar details: Alice, with weathered skin and a rather indistinct frame, seriously studied dunes flora, read voraciously and wrote manuscripts that she kept private; some of her writings were later stolen, others lost to time—a partial diary survives and is appended. She fished and bought salt, bread and other staples in town. Suspected of stealing food and blankets when times were hard, people also said she borrowed sturdier shelter from vacationers who owned property in the dunes while those owners were away. She walked endlessly, dressed simply in makeshift skirts or khaki pants, talked softly and boldly quoted poetry to intruding reporters. Alice displayed a congenial manner in good company—a fiery venom when threatened. Infrequent visitors sat outside her first patchwork shack, which she named Driftwood, and never glimpsed the interior.

  In her second shanty home, Wren’s Nest, Alice lived with Wilson, the man who had changed his name and invented most of his past; a man who would cast murder, thievery and injury into Alice’s life. On the other hand, he offered security, companionship, adventure, a strong back and—some may doubt this—love.

  Various “facts” about Alice are diluted, misconstrued or contrived. Newspaper stories published during her residence in the dunes provide the only original, although not always truthful, accounts of her life. In later years, many more articles followed, but those newspaper stories generated little, if any, new information. No serious research intended as a biographical sketch of Alice Gray is yet in print. This is not to say such research has not been undertaken. On the contrary, local librarians are quick to point out that Diana of the Dunes is a favorite research subject at the reference desk. Library folders all along Lake Michigan’s southern shores, from Chicago throughout northwest Indiana, are either bulging with news clippings, oral histories, unattributed notes and unanswered questions about Diana of the Dunes or pitifully lacking in significant mention—folders named for her but nearly empty. There is no comprehensive source; her story stretches as widely as the Indiana dunes themselves and is equally complex. Available details are often second- or third-hand information. Careful scrutiny reveals misinformation in even the most reliable of sources.

  Seeded by those early reporters, Alice’s tale rooted quickly and deeply in regional history, blossoming as legends do. Even today, her story continues to sprout wild, hybrid shoots of both truth and rumor. For nearly a century, Diana of the Dunes stories have endured through ongoing spates of interpretive hearsay and creative storytelling.

  However, what is lost in historical translation is worth recovering here, because in the story of Alice Gray the truth can hold its own against any fabrication. Tales of Diana of the Dunes, and the authentic story of Alice Gray, are timeless, provocative and inspiring. Since newly uncovered facts are in hand, it is time to set straight—as much as possible—the story of Alice Gray.

  The legend of Diana of the Dunes still leaves much to the imagination, which contributes to its long-standing popularity. Even after years of focused research, important gaps of time and circumstance are yet unexplained, underlying motives remain muddy and photographs fade in long-forgotten albums. It is hoped that this book will cause new information to rise to the surface, especially in regard to old photographs of Alice. The few images we do have are poor quality copies because the originals are lost, or—like the one featured on the front cover of this book—they are something of a misrepresentation; she was hardly the type to dress up, but while the outfit is an anomaly, the photograph provides the clearest portrait of Alice.

  In any case, Dia
na of the Dunes is bound to continue drifting through the currents of local lore. Without fail, and as it should be, each generation yields new storytellers and new listeners to reaffirm the timelessness of Alice Gray’s remarkable story.

  Ghost Story:

  Diana of the Dunes

  Most people first hear about Diana of the Dunes through some variation of a ghost story. The ghost story presented here is adapted from several versions printed in books and online. In telling these tales, the popular mythology about Diana of the Dunes is perpetuated, but most of the facts regarding Alice Gray’s life are either exaggerated or completely fabricated. In the chapters following, such distortions are revealed and set right, as much as possible.

  A woman dressed in a long, flowing, white gown is often seen at night, drifting through the pine trees at the top of a sand ridge or floating just above the surface of Lake Michigan at water’s edge—but then she quickly disappears. The shadowy figure is thought to be the ghost of Diana of the Dunes, a woman who lived long ago in the Indiana sand hills.

  Diana of the Dunes was discovered in the summer of 1916, when a lone fisherman trolling along the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan spied a young, beautiful woman splashing naked through the waves. After swimming, she danced like a nymph on the beach to dry off. Startled and aflutter, the angler told his wife, who shared the gossip with friends and neighbors. The story traveled swiftly through the region. Soon other fishermen, their curiosity piqued about the mermaid, began to drop their lines along the shore near her shack hoping to see the mystical creature. Newspaper reporters ventured from Chicago to pounce on the story. They called her Diana of the Dunes, a strange hermit girl who lived in an abandoned fisherman’s shack and spoke to no one.

  Diana of the Dunes was, in fact, Alice Mabel Gray, the daughter of a successful Chicago physician. She was well educated, cultured and had traveled the world, but she chose to live by herself in the dunes, an area she had often visited as a child.

  What mysterious circumstance propelled her to lead such a lonely life? It was rumored that she ran to the wilderness of the dunes to escape a tragic love affair. But the harder she fought for her privacy, the more reporters hounded her.

  Along the way, Diana married Paul Wilson, who was a giant of a man. He had a reputation as a rough drifter and a petty thief. When a grisly murder took place near their shack, Paul was the prime suspect, but his guilt was never proved.

  Paul often treated Diana badly. She died in 1925 from uremia, brought on by stomach injuries later found to be the result of a beating at his hand, just after she had given birth to their second daughter.

  Before she died, Diana asked Paul to cremate her body and cast her ashes to the north wind from Mount Tom, the tallest dune in the region. He refused, and she was buried in a potter’s field in Gary, Indiana.

  Paul was later shot trying to escape from a California prison, where he was serving a sentence for auto theft.

  Did Diana ever find the solitude she sought? Maybe not while she was living, but perhaps in death Diana is finally able to wander peacefully among her beloved dunes.

  Chicago Childhood

  One of the more important of these was the Beers family who located here after

  leaving their native New England. They were, in fact, part of that important

  migration of Yankees to Chicago which had so much influence on the cultural and

  economic life of the early city.6

  —Chicago: City of Neighborhoods

  The 1880s through early 1900s was an exciting and volatile time in the history of Chicago. One of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions, a burgeoning Chicago then ran second only to New York in population. Marked by bold infrastructure progress and landmark efforts to advance social justice, the turn-of-the-century years featured rapid-fire events and banner headlines.

  Southwest of the city, a working-class community was just becoming established. In its earliest days, what is now the McKinley Park neighborhood was once, briefly, called Canalport. The locale’s terrain was primarily prairie and swamps. When most of the area was annexed by Chicago in 1863, however, developers awoke to its potential.

  Even so, the most dramatic growth for the community occurred after the infamous Chicago fire of 1871. Factories and steel mills, twenty-seven brickyards, realestate companies and immigrants poured into the area. Block after block of “workmen’s cottages” popped up, the houses closely situated and lined up like dutiful sentinels. A historic survey noted “ready jobs in these local factories encouraged continued residential growth. North of 35th, land was subdivided and platted for cottages much like the one remaining at 3445 S. Hermitage.”7

  A modern-day photograph of the house where Alice Gray and her family lived. The house is located in what is now McKinley Park. Courtesy of Josh Mendoza.

  In that particular house, 3445 South Hermitage (although the street was then called Bloom), Alice Mabel Gray—who would one day become known as Diana of the Dunes—was born on March 25, 1881, the fifth of six children.8 Her parents were Ambrose and Sallie Gray. Alice’s sisters, Leonora and Nannie, were much older than Alice—fourteen and eleven—while her brothers, Hugh and Harry, were nine and four. The youngest Gray child, Chester, was born three weeks before Alice’s second birthday.

  Following the lead of other family members who had migrated earlier from Fairfield, Connecticut, the Grays moved to the Chicago region in 1873, arriving just two years after the Chicago fire. They came from Bean Blossom, in Brown County, Indiana. Alice’s uncle, Samuel Beers, married Emily Gray, sister of Ambrose. He paid for the Grays’ new, single-story home. At least for a few years, until the older girls were married, the small, frame house—measuring less than one thousand square feet—must have been quite busy with six children underfoot.

  Beers continued to own it until 1900, when he sold it to Sarah Gray, a second sister of Ambrose (she sold it out of the family seventeen years later).

  THE NEIGHBORHOOD

  During the thirty years the Grays occupied this address, the community was tightly woven. Doctors, relatives, future relatives and neighbors—some of whom later appear as official witnesses to Gray family documents and petitions—all lived or worked within a few blocks. Along with Alice’s extended family, large numbers of Germans, Irish, Swedes, English and other ethnic groups settled the area.

  Samuel Beers was one of four Beers brothers, at least two of whom lived within a block or two of the Grays. According to the Beers’s family records, in the mid-1800s, their father, Simeon Beers, purchased five hundred acres of land in south Chicago and established a cattle ranch and farm. McKinley Park historians claim he sold the property for housing developments; family genealogists say the property sold for expansion of the stockyards. Given the acreage and the proximity of the meatpacking industry to employee housing, it may well have become both business and residential property.

  In any case, local historians honor the Beers family as founders of McKinley Park.

  Alice’s neighborhood closely bordered Chicago’s Back of the Yards and Bridgeport areas, where stockyards and meat packaging sites stretched for city blocks on end. The stench from the stockyards, which began permeating daily life fifteen years before Alice was born, proved a constant annoyance to those who lived anywhere near it. The Illinois Labor History Society describes the adjacent industry this way:

  On the South Side of Chicago, from 39th Street to 47th Street, and from Halsted to Ashland Ave., was the largest livestock market and meat processing center in the world. Approximately one mile square, it served the nation’s great meat packing companies and many smaller ones located in the surrounding area. The “stockyards smell,” which the breezes spread for many miles into residential areas, near and far, could be obnoxious; but people said the smell meant work.9

  The stockyards produced hazardous living conditions for myriad reasons, but one in particular ran along the eastern boundary of Alice’s neighborhood. A southern branch of the Chicago River became
a dumping ground—an open sewer—for waste from the stockyards and other local industries, including steel foundries and brickyards. It earned a legendary reputation as Bubbly Creek due to spontaneous, gaseous eruptions from the thick, murky water.

  In the decade leading up to 1900, the streets of Alice’s neighborhood, which had been dirt, were packed down with rock, and sewers were installed.

  McKinley Park earned its name following the dedication of a new park that debuted in 1901. It was named for President William McKinley, who was assassinated just before it opened.

  SCHOOLS

  Both families, the Beerses and the Grays, originated in Fairfield, Connecticut. They continued to live near each other in Chicago, which meant the young cousins attended grammar and high schools together. Indications are that noneof Alice’s sisters or brothers furthered their studies at the university level, although at least one of her female cousins, Lila E. Beers, graduated from Vassar College and medical school. She was the daughter of Samuel Beers.

  Alice likely spent her grammar-school years at Brighton (later renamed Longfellow) School, located at the corner of West Thirty-fifth and Winchester Streets. Built in 1880, it is considered one of Chicago’s oldest public schools. Mentions of Alice’s later, voracious penchant for reading and borrowing library books are consistent throughout her dunes history. In that case, it seems fitting that after long and repeated demands from the modern community, a McKinley Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library finally opened in 1995 on the site where Alice’s former grammar school once stood; the school was razed to make way for the new facility.