We have all heard of child prodigies. Mozart was the most obvious one but I would also include Blaise Pascal, Chopin, Rabindranath Tagore, Thomas Chatterton, Alexander Pope and our old friend Arthur Rimbaud to name just a few. But how many of us have heard of Barbara Newhall Follett who was probably the most mysterious of them all?
Whereas on occasions, you can find copies of the various works of the above in the Arcade, it is unlikely that you would find either of the two books that Barbara published in her lifetime within its walls. I first came across her story over forty years ago and it has haunted me ever since.
Barbara was born on the 4th of March 1914 and was the daughter of Wilson Follett the famous critic and editor (he was responsible for editing the works of the brilliant Stephen Craneafter his early death). She showed an extraordinary writing talent at a very young age and published her first novel, TheHouse Without Windows in 1927. I have never read this novel, but contemporary reviews were excellent and she was soon being heralded as the next great American novelist. She followed this up with The Voyage of the Norman D when she was fourteen but then soon after her young world caved in on her.
Her much loved father ran off with a younger woman and this destroyed Barbara. She wrote, My dreams are going through their death flurries. I thought they were all safely buried, but sometimes they stir in their grave, making my heartstrings twinge. I mean no particular dream, you understand, but the whole radiant flock of them together — with their rainbow wings, iridescent, bright, soaring, glorious, sublime. They are dying before the steel javelins and arrows of a world of Time and Money.What made things worse was that her father did not leave his family well provided for and they fell on hard times (as thousands did) as the Great Depression tightened its grip.
By the age of sixteen, Barbara was working as a secretary in New York. She had not discarded writing totally and had written both Lost Island and Travels Without a Donkey (think of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey if you get my drift). In 1933, Barbara who had travelled extensively with her mother, (this had not helped their finances at all and they returned to the USA with even more money problems) met and married a Nickerson Rogers and the happy couple travelled throughout the USA and Europe before eventually settling down in Brookline Massachusetts. But soon afterwards Barbara began to suspect that her husband was being unfaithful to her. She became depressed and on the 7th of December 1939 she left their apartment after an argument with only thirty dollars and a notebook in her pocket. She was never seen again and this is where things get a little strange as her husband did not inform the police of her disappearance for two weeks (had this happened before I ask?).
Four months later (yes four months), he requested that a missing person’s bulletin be issued but this was done so under Barbara’s married name which meant that the media did not pick up on it (which might have helped in the search for her). The usual searches were instigated but these drew no conclusions and it was not until 1952 that her mother again prompted the authorities to reopen the case when she realised that her son-in-law had made very little effort to find Barbara (it was obvious that she was suspicious of him).
Fourteen years later in 1966, Barbara’s mother published a study on her daughter and the media suddenly realised that the missing Barbara Rogers was actually the childhood prodigy, Barbara Newhall Follett who had been so celebrated forty years earlier. Like all media stories, it fizzed for a while and then faded.
I could put forward a few guesses about what happened to Barbara. She might have committed suicide or just met the wrong type of person after she left her apartment and had been murdered. But whilst theorising, one must take into account that Barbara was well travelled and she might have staged her disappearance just to run away from everything. Had the pressure of her husbands supposed infidelity mirrored that of her father’s which hurt her so much a few years previously?
Her writings often deal with escape so in theory she might have just escaped to travel and start a new life. I could go on for ages so could we all, but do you realise that Barbara might even still be alive (aged104) and living under an assumed identity somewhere or the other. What happened to Barbara Newhall Follett is likely to remain a mystery until somebody conclusively solves it. I personally think that she was either murdered or committed suicide but that is my guess for what it is worth. This said, she did leave a legacy behind and the internet has a great deal of fascinating material about her As I have noted, I have never found any of her works at the Arcade but the most obscure things show up from time to time so who knows.
We have all heard of child prodigies. Mozart was the most obvious one but I would also include Blaise Pascal, Chopin, Rabindranath Tagore, Thomas Chatterton, Alexander Pope and our old friend Arthur Rimbaud to name just a few. But how many of us have heard of Barbara Newhall Follett who was probably the most mysterious of them all?
Fourteen years later in 1966, Barbara’s mother published a study on her daughter and the media suddenly realised that the missing Barbara Rogers was actually the childhood prodigy, Barbara Newhall Follett who had been so celebrated forty years earlier. Like all media stories, it fizzed for a while and then faded.
Her writings often deal with escape so in theory she might have just escaped to travel and start a new life. I could go on for ages so could we all, but do you realise that Barbara might even still be alive (aged 104) and living under an assumed identity somewhere or the other. What happened to Barbara Newhall Follett is likely to remain a mystery until somebody conclusively solves it. I personally think that she was either murdered or committed suicide but that is my guess for what it is worth. This said, she did leave a legacy behind and the internet has a great deal of fascinating material about her As I have noted, I have never found any of her works at the Arcade but the most obscure things show up from time to time so who knows.