Donald and Howard Wandrei Timeline

There isn’t much out there on the Wandrei brothers.  Here’s a rough, ever-evolving and increasingly accurate timeline of their lives.  Thanks to Dwayne Olson for helping us piece a lot of these details together.

	Donald	Howard
April 20, 1908	Born Donald Albert Wandrei
		Born Howard Elmer Wandrei	Sept. 24, 1909
1924	Attends University of Minnesota, starts writing in ’26.  A big deal on the U of M campus, “a man about town” as Dwayne put it.  While in school he was a contributor to the Minnesota Quarterly and a member of the editorial board of the Minnesota Daily.
		Attends University of Minnesota	1926
1927	The Red Brain sold to Weird Tales.
1928	Ecstacy & Other Poems published his senior year.  With this collection of poems, Donald is praised as a great young poet and is even compared favorably to Percy Bysshe Shelley. Graduates with a B.A. in English prose.	During his sophomore year of college (age 19), Howard was a leader of burglary ring called The Thrill Bandits.  They would rob well-to-do people for the fun of it.  Howard was one of two ‘adults’, the rest were younger teenagers.  On Dec 28th they robbed MN supreme court justice’s house.  He had dated a girl that was staying there and the burglars cut up all her clothes.  That evidence pointed to Howard.  On Jan. 12th he was sentenced.	1928
		While in prison, Howard began writing and drawing.  His hand was extremely tight, controlled and fine.  His notebooks were well-worn and filled with incredibly small print (something commonly developed by people writing in institutions), lists, drawings and sketches. Also, the work charged to inmates at St. Cloud Reformatory was to make the clothing for the entire prison system.
1928	Moves to NYC, worked as advertising manager for publishing firm.  Begins correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft.
1929	Begins writing The Invisible Sun, an experimental autobiography. Moves back to MN, starts graduate work at U of M.
		Released from St. Cloud.	1930
1931	Brothers collaborate on Dark Odyssey.
1932	Returns to New York, works as public relations executive.	Finishes B.A. degree from U of M.	1932
	Writes for Weird Tales, others.	Moves to NYC and begins writing for pulp magazines.	1933
		Married to Connie Colestock.	1936
1939	Donald co-founded Arkham publishing with August Derleth mainly to preserve the fiction of Lovecraft.
		Daughter Suzanne born.	1941
1942	Drafted into the army during WWII.  He served under Patton until the end of the war.  He was in France in 1944.  There is a picture of him with a pile of Nazi gold.  Supposedly a great deal of interesting things happened during the war.  Donald would not talk about the war. NOTE: Winter 1944-45 saw the Battle of the Bulge, the single highest largest loss of life to the Americans in WWII with 19,000 dead.  This was also one of the worst winters on record in Europe.	Writes for Spicy Mystery (mystery stories with more explicit sexual content) and other magazines from Trojan Publications.  Howard frequently used pseudonyms.  For his spicy works he would often borrow from real life people, events, and situations. NOTE: Offices of Trojan were in the Flatiron Building in Manhattan.  They published everything from Broadway musicals, strange fiction and flat out porn.
	After the Weird Tales serial closed up he proceeded to write detective stories and FROST.  Around this time he was trying to write Broadway scripts.
1942	Their father dies while Donald is in Europe.	Howard had a closer relationship with their father than Donald did.
		Howard was mixed in with the “Trojan Scandal.”  Members of Trojan Publishing would write checks for stories that were never written, cash the checks, pocketing the money, and never send out the W-2 forms (W2 is what the company reports to the government, W4 is what an individual files).  Over 100k was taken in this manner.  Trojan advanced money to Howard from time to time.   His wife was also advanced money – due to relations with the editor of Trojan by the name of __________. NOTE: Trojan Publications published (among many other things) The Shadow, the Lone Ranger, an odd assortment of comics that would form the core of DC Comics and pornography.  It also operated as Trojan Publishing Corporation.  Try as I might, I haven’t been able to dig up anything about the scandal, but every book collector I’ve seen who’s commented on Trojan has mentioned how they would do anything to make a buck, and there was not a single publishing trend that they didn’t exploit.
1945	Returns to MN after release from army.	Moved back to St. Paul	1945
		Divorced.  Both he and his wife (and it seems everyone else in his life at this time) were having affairs.  His marriage was plagued by drinking and drugs.  There was a protracted custody battle.  He moved briefly back to MN and sublet his apartment to Morten Weisman who was the head of Superman at the time.  It’s rumored Orson Wells had lived in the NY apartment before them.	1946
		Moved back to NYC briefly.
1947	Moved back to NYC.
1950	Moved to Hollywood where he attempted screen writing.  During this year and a half Howard and Donald wrote extensively to each other, the letters of which would become the unpublished “Circle of Pyramids.”  Hollywood did not work out for Donald.
1952	Moved back to St. Paul for good. The Decline of Donald  – Post WW2 Donald did not write as much.  Going out to Hollywood and not making it, going out to NY and not making it.  Donald was aware of the shift in Science Fiction going from Fiction to Science.  Donald, a fiction writer, tried to adapt to other styles, but ultimately failed.	Howard suffered a nervous breakdown after moving back to Minnesota after the Trojan scandal and was hospitalized/institutionalized (?) for a few days.  Howard lived in MN from that point on.
	While Donald was in Los Angeles, the brothers had a lot of correspondence talking about art and theory.  These letters would ultimately become the “lost story” Circle of Pyramids.
	Moved back to the house on Portland.
	While living in MN together, Donald and Howard made trips out to California and Texas.	The brothers only directly collaborated on two pieces of writing – two plays.  Someone (Daily Pascum?) found one that he wanted to turn into a musical.  There was some shopping around but when ownership disputes arose the project was scrapped.  According to Dwayne the best play they crafted was entitled “Come to Life.”  This play involved a mannequin coming to life, like the movie Mannequin.  Dwayne has this play that he’ll photocopy for us.
		Wilton Matthews (from Trojan) was released from Sing Sing and somehow ended up staying on their couch for a while.  Howard was trying to get Matthews a job at Brown and Bigenworth (sp) but cut off the relationship when Matthews stole his wallet.	1952
		1954 to 1956 saw Howard’s health decline to the point where he died.  Dwayne recalled the fine/small paintings and writing of Howard; joking that this was clearly the reason his eyes had gone bad later in life.	1954
		Howard – kept a ledger of ALL his expenses.  Every receipt.  These receipts were saved in the house – when he died Donald kept them.
		Died at age 46 in St. Paul.	Sept. 5, 1956
	Donald assumed he would take over when Derleth died.  But Arkham’s lawyer later screwed him over.  The lawyer held a large collection of Donald’s important documents, letters, some of Howard’s art and so on until the suit was over.  This lasted 15 years.  The final accounting of this legal mess wasn’t finished until just before Donald died.  In his letters from this time, Donald tended to drop hints that something was going on.  By the end he was seen as rather crazy and very paranoid.  Adding to his paranoia, Kirby Murray (later manager for Stephen King) sold stories of Don’s without his permission.
	A hoarder later in life.  In 1986 or 1987, Dwayne recalled encountering a TV in Don’s house that was broken, not having worked in 15 years.  He recalled piles of stuff lying around.  Boxes of sculptures by Clark Ashton Smith (Dwayne repeatedly mentioned boxes of sculptures), rare books, scripts, manuscripts.  One example Dwayne mentioned was Donald holding onto 100 copies of his own book when only 300 had been printed.  Donald was cheap.  He would buy food on sale in large quantities and then let it spoil.  He would save the plastic off meat wrappers – hanging them up to dry.  But had money later in life.  He supported artists like Smith.  Buying sculptures that would be shipped to him in boxes – but were never opened up, adding to the clutter.
Oct. 15, 1987	Died at age 79 in St. Paul.

Donald – Was quiet, “tight-lipped”, but still the “center of attention” at parties.  “He held his cards close to his chest.”  At his core Donald was proud, closed mouth, a bit of a playboy, and never came too close to marrying.  The closest he came was a particular woman who he became close with during his college years, they went their ways and she married Donald’s hated enemy, later in life she got a divorce, and she and Donald almost got together again.

Howard – Would babble and talk on and on.  He was known to have written very long letters – one being 80 pages long.  He would write stories, rewrite, and rewrite again.  But at parties, he would sit in the corner and smirk.  He had a sense of “bemused detachment”.  Howard was a more entertaining letter writer.  At his core Howard was more pulled back than Donald.

FAMILY

Father, Albert C. Wandrei – Held an important position at West Publishing.

Mother, Jeannette Adelaide Wandrei – Lived at 1152 Portland their entire life.  Failing health later in life, Donald became her caretaker.  She died in 1972.

Jeannette Alberta Wandrei – Didn’t do much.  Diabetic.  Large.  Health problems.  Never really left the house.  Lived at 1152 Portland her entire life except for a short period during WWII when she had a job as a secretary.  Likely mental problems.  She had failing health late in life and also died in 1972.

David Wandrei – Adopted brother, actually a cousin.  Was detached from the family.  Called “The best of the Wandrei brothers,” Howard and Donald would exclaim “He’s not a Wandrei!”  This is the family branch of Rachel Wandrei (manager of Barbette – connection to Andrew & Ryan).

OTHERS

The Wandrei brothers had connections.  They knew everyone.  They also had enemies.

Virignia Erdman knew the brothers since college and later in life had some connections to the University of MN, where she and Donald/Howard collaborated on a story that was never finished because of suspected government wire-tapping during the height of the Red Scare.

Clark Ashton Smith – Friend of Donald’s, sculptor, writer.  Later in life, Donald would buy his sculptures.  Smith would ship them to the house on Portland where they would remain in their package, unopened.

John W Campbell – The editor of Astounding Tales enacted the change of Sci-Fi from fiction to science.  He and Donald knew each other but didn’t interact – assumed they didn’t like each other.  Campbell wouldn’t publish Donald’s writing, but did publish some of Howard’s.

Recommended Donald Wandrei reading:

• Colossus – Sandbox has two copies.
• Sanctitiy & Sin – Poetry collection.  Sandbox has a copy.
• Dead Titans, Waken! – Uncorrected, unpublished proof.  Sandbox has a copy.
• Others?

Recommended Howard Wandrei reading:

• The Last Pin – Sandbox has a copy.
• The Eerie Mr. Murphy – Contains an art section in the back. Sandbox has a copy.
• Time Burial – Contains a biography by D.O.  Sandbox has a copy.
• Mysteries of the Time and Spirit

Additional Resources:

• Fegodan & Bremer Publishing – a local twin cities publisher, published a handful of Wandrei materials
• Temple University, Philadelphia – has a lot of correspondence
• Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison – has a lot of Donald letters and both brothers’ correspondence with August Derelth