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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly

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Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V.

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Speaker 2: Wilson. So this episode started when I was just, you know,

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Speaker 2: scrolling on my phone as you do, and I came

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Speaker 2: across a video about hobby tunnelers that was made by

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Speaker 2: Connor Cleary. If you don't know him, Clary is a

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Speaker 2: potter who is also a marvelous dry wit, and he

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Speaker 2: comments on various cultural and historical things in his videos.

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Speaker 2: You can find him on TikTok and Instagram, and I

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Speaker 2: just find him hilarious. But in this hobby tunneling video

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Speaker 2: that he made, which was prompted by a current case

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Speaker 2: involving a woman who has been tunneling out a bunker

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Speaker 2: under her house and has documented all of it on TikTok,

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Speaker 2: he mentioned Harrison Dyer as a famous case of a

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Speaker 2: hobby tunneler, and so I was like, hmm, And when

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Speaker 2: I looked up Harrison Dyer, there was just so much

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Speaker 2: other stuff that I was like, I am fully enthralled

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Speaker 2: with this and I want to spend a lot of

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Speaker 2: time with it, because there's science there's contentious issues with

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Speaker 2: other scientists, there's bigamy, there's a lot of drama without

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Speaker 2: the tunneling, and then there's also tunneling. Like just one

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Speaker 2: of the headlines that I found right away when I

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Speaker 2: was looking at newspaper archives was one that read Harrison G.

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Speaker 2: Dyer said to be greatest living authority on bugs is

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Speaker 2: in court and that was a divorce case. There are

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Speaker 2: so much more about him. There is a really good

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Speaker 2: biography of Harrison Dyer that was written by Mark Epstein,

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Speaker 2: who is also an entomologist, as Dyer was. That came

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Speaker 2: out in twenty sixteen, and Epstein at one point in

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Speaker 2: an interview said, quote, you could choose just one aspect

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Speaker 2: and easily write a book the size of mine.

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Speaker 1: And he is so right. But we're going to try

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Speaker 1: to talk about it in broader strokes, and there's a

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Speaker 1: ton of stuff that got shunted to the behind the

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Speaker 1: scenes notes. That book, incidentally, in case you want to

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Speaker 1: look for it and get a much more robust version

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Speaker 1: of this story, is called Smiths and Mosquitoes, The Eccentric

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Speaker 1: Life of Harrison G. Dyer. If you are a library user,

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Speaker 1: you might want to look at the library. It is

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Speaker 1: kind of expensive at this point, like it didn't get

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Speaker 1: it doesn't appear to have gotten a paperback edition, and

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Speaker 1: so it's only the hardcover and sometimes those are hard

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Speaker 1: to find secondhand and they're still pretty pricey. And then

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Speaker 1: the actual new ones are like seventy dollars or something.

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Speaker 2: They're a lot I think it's also from an academic press,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of times those are a bit more

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Speaker 2: expensive too. Yes, even the digital version is pricey. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: So get thee to your local library.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And if your local public library is like, I don't

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Speaker 2: know what you're talking about, see if you're part of

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Speaker 2: a network that also includes a couple university libraries, and

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Speaker 2: sometimes you can get it that way.

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Speaker 1: Yes, get that inner library loan going.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So.

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Speaker 2: Harrison Gray Dyer Junior was born February fourteenth, eighteen sixty six,

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Speaker 2: in New York City. His mother was Eleanora Rosella Hannam Dyer,

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Speaker 2: and his father, Harrison Dyer Senior, was a scientist. Dyer

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Speaker 2: Senior had done well for himself. He almost beat Samuel

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Speaker 2: Morse to the patent for the telegraph. He made his

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Speaker 2: money patenting various die formulas. So young Harrison was born

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Speaker 2: into a financially pretty comfortable life. Harrison Senior died when

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Speaker 2: Dyer was still a boy. Though he and his sister

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Speaker 2: Pearl grew up among spiritualists, Eleanora and her sisters were

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Speaker 2: all believers. A woman named Lucy Hudson also lived with them.

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Speaker 2: Lucy was a homeopath. She was described as an ant

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Speaker 2: in this family's structure, but she doesn't really seem to

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Speaker 2: have been a blood relative.

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Speaker 1: When Harrison Senior died, the family was living in Rhinebeck,

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Speaker 1: New York, and as a young boy, Harrison Junior would

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Speaker 1: hike in the woods near the Hudson River and catalog

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Speaker 1: insects and other interesting things that he saw in nature.

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Speaker 1: He was a collector from the beginning, and his sister

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Speaker 1: often went with him, and these preliminary notes would expand

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Speaker 1: once he returned home, and he would often add sketches

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Speaker 1: as well, and sometimes watercolors. From those earliest days, he

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Speaker 1: was especially interested in moths and their caterpillars. And then

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Speaker 1: the family moved to Boston, where Dyer attended the Roxbury

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Speaker 1: Latin School, which is a private school for boys that

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Speaker 1: was founded in sixteen forty five and still exists. He

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Speaker 1: moved on from there to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

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Speaker 1: and he got a bachelor's degree in chemistry there. When

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Speaker 1: Dyer was twenty two, his mother, Eleanora, died and Harrison

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Speaker 1: had inherited a very nice fortune.

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Speaker 2: In the fall of eighteen eighty nine, Dyer got married

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Speaker 2: to Zella Peabody. Zella was a music teacher from Los Angeles.

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Speaker 2: We don't know how the two of them met, but

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Speaker 2: it's believed they were both living in Boston at the time.

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Speaker 2: Zella had moved to Los Angeles in eighteen eighty SI

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Speaker 2: and then started sending Harrison these Lepidopteris specimens from out

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Speaker 2: on the West Coast. A lot of these she had

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Speaker 2: raised herself from caterpillars. While Dyer was in the middle

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Speaker 2: of an eight month collecting trip in Colorado, he went

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Speaker 2: to Los Angeles for their wedding. The Dyer's honeymoon was

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Speaker 2: a specimen collecting trip. I love all of this. Unfortunately

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Speaker 2: it does not it's so charming.

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Speaker 1: Don't get attached.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not predicting a happy and compatible marriage for them.

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Speaker 2: This couple had two children. There was a son named

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Speaker 2: Otis and a daughter named Dorothy.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety, Dyer published his first scientific paper titled

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Speaker 1: the Number of Molts of Lepidopteris Larvae. This paper, published

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Speaker 1: in Psyche, a journal of entomology, opens by noting other

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Speaker 1: papers that had been published and that quote it is

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Speaker 1: evident from a perusal of them that considerable confusion exists

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Speaker 1: as to the number of molts of certain species. Dyer's

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Speaker 1: approach to counting molts involved measuring the width of the

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Speaker 1: heads of the larvae of butterflies and moths to determine

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Speaker 1: where they were in their molt cycle. He noted that

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Speaker 1: adding a record of width of the head should become

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Speaker 1: standard in any research related to the molting of lepidoptera.

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Speaker 2: This work became really influential in the entomology world, and

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Speaker 2: the measurement of larval heads to track their life cycles

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Speaker 2: was adopted. The work he had done to correlate headsize

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Speaker 2: to life cycle using a constant ratio came to be

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Speaker 2: known as Dyer's law. This remains important in entomological work.

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Speaker 2: It's not a perfect formula, just as with Sir Edmund

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Speaker 2: Halley's population table we talked about recently in our Actuarial

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Speaker 2: Science episode, the data kind of smoothed out a little

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Speaker 2: bit but this applies to roughly eighty percent of lepidoptera species.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can basically look at larvae of something,

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Speaker 1: see its headwidth related to his body length, and go, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is probably at this point in its developmental cycle,

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Speaker 1: and it's pretty accurate. In eighteen ninety one, Harrison and

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Speaker 1: Zella were once again on the move collecting specimens. On

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Speaker 1: these trips, normally Zella assisted her husband, and then after

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Speaker 1: their return from this long win in eighteen ninety one,

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Speaker 1: Dier next went to Columbia University for an advanced degree

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Speaker 1: in biology. He got his master's degree there and then

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Speaker 1: continued to finish his PhD, which he did in eighteen

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Speaker 1: ninety five. His focus for his PhD had been bacteriology,

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Speaker 1: specifically the bacteria in the air in New York City.

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Speaker 1: His next step was to work as an assistant bacteriologist

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Speaker 1: at Columbia's medical school, and after two years in that job,

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Speaker 1: he then went to the United States National Museum to

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Speaker 1: study insects. This is interesting because it's not exactly a

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Speaker 1: job offer, and it's an example of how Harrison's familial

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Speaker 1: wealth really enabled him to do as he wished. Because

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Speaker 1: he was not paid at the National Museum. Although he

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Speaker 1: was given a title of Honorary Custodian of Lepidoptera.

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Speaker 2: Dyer could work without needing to be paid because he

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Speaker 2: had that money from his inheritance, and with it he

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Speaker 2: made various investments, particularly in real estate. We've talked so

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Speaker 2: many times about how a lot of the wealthiest families

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Speaker 2: in the US made a lot of their money by

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Speaker 2: purchasing and then selling or leasing real estate in New

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Speaker 2: York and other rapidly growing cities. Dyer did the same thing.

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Speaker 2: He continued to acquire real estate throughout his life. He

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Speaker 2: often bought multiple properties at the same time. One newspaper

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Speaker 2: entry from the Washington DC Evening Star in March of

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Speaker 2: nineteen oh six, for example, lists real estate sales made

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Speaker 2: through the firm of Early in Lambton in the preceding days.

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Speaker 2: Dyer is listed twice, having acquired a property called the

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Speaker 2: Ashbourne for fifes two thousand dollars and an empty lot

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Speaker 2: on Harvard Street between thirteenth and fourteenth for twenty five

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Speaker 2: hundred dollars. Some of his investments were rental properties, some

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Speaker 2: were lots that he built on, and some he just

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Speaker 2: held until it was a good time to sell them

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Speaker 2: off at an appreciated value, so he had regular income

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Speaker 2: to support himself and his family without needing the museum

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Speaker 2: to pay him while he conducted research into lepidoptera. This

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Speaker 2: also meant he was really able to self direct his work.

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Speaker 2: Not getting paid meant that he didn't really have to

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Speaker 2: answer to anyone, and the work he.

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Speaker 1: Was doing in his honorary role was important to the museum.

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Speaker 1: It was something that they needed somebody to do. He

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Speaker 1: was really managing their collection of specimens, and that meant

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Speaker 1: that he was organizing it, notating it. He was also

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Speaker 1: acquiring new specimens and culling any that weren't really beneficial

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Speaker 1: to the collection, So those calls were things like duplicates

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Speaker 1: or poorly preserved samples that weren't going to be of

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Speaker 1: scientific value.

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Speaker 2: But Dyer also studied insects outside of the order of Leptoptera,

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Speaker 2: and one of these, the mosquito, became an important part

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Speaker 2: of Dyer's legacy. This work caused a lot of problems

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Speaker 2: with Dyer's frequent collaborator, John Bernhardt Smith, who was working

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Speaker 2: on mosquito research before Dyer got involved. The two of

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Speaker 2: them bickered over naming conventions, and projects that overlapped, and

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Speaker 2: specimen collection, really anything that came up regarding mosquito research.

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Speaker 2: All of this was going on as that research was

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Speaker 2: becoming very important because the United States became involved in

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Speaker 2: the construction on the Panama Canal, meaning mosquitos were a

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Speaker 2: very real problem. In the time that the French had

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Speaker 2: been working on the canal, twenty two thousand workers had died,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of those deaths were from yellow fever

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Speaker 2: and malaria. Dyre collaborated with several other scientists on research

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Speaker 2: about mosquitoes that ultimately expanded practical knowledge of their life

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Speaker 2: cycles and behavioral habits that enabled the United States to

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Speaker 2: implement some control measures that helped eliminate yellow fever deaths

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Speaker 2: in the workforce.

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Speaker 1: Dyer was so protective of his work in this area

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Speaker 1: that when entomologist Evelyn Grosbeck Mitchell published a book titled

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Speaker 1: Mosquito Life in nineteen oh eight, Dyer wrote a scathing

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Speaker 1: review of it in the publication Canadian Entomologist, and in

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Speaker 1: that review he accused her of plagiarizing the work of

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Speaker 1: himself and other entomologists without credit. Mitchell had worked the

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Speaker 1: National Museum as an illustrator prior to writing her book,

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Speaker 1: and Dyer stated that quote. Probably Miss Mitchell scarcely realizes

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Speaker 1: herself how much information she has absorbed from the government bureaus.

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Speaker 1: We should like her to try to imagine what her

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Speaker 1: book would have been if she had written it before

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Speaker 1: she came to Washington. Mitchell filed a suit against Dier

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Speaker 1: for libel, seeking thirty five thousand dollars in damages. That

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Speaker 1: lawsuit was dismissed because it wasn't really pursued. After the

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Speaker 1: filing and reading it, it kind of sounds like she

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Speaker 1: was just filing it to make a point. But this

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Speaker 1: is just one example of a lot of fights that

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Speaker 1: Dier picked with fellow entomologists over the years. He and

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Speaker 1: Smith argued forever, to the point that Smith said he

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Speaker 1: would no longer go to the National Museum if Dyer

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Speaker 1: was involved.

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Speaker 2: Coming up, we will talk about Dyer's work as an

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Speaker 2: editor and his complicated personal life, but first we will

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Speaker 2: take a quick sponsor break.

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Speaker 1: Somehow, despite all of the many things keeping him busy,

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Speaker 1: including writing nasty reviews of anyone who dared to write

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Speaker 1: on a subject he worked in, Dyer found time to

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Speaker 1: write a book on his family history titled A Preliminary

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Speaker 1: Genealogy of the DIYer Family, was published in nineteen oh three.

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Speaker 1: He also became heavily involved in the publishing of entomological

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Speaker 1: journals during his career. In nineteen oh four he started

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Speaker 1: editing the journal of the New York Entomological Society and

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Speaker 1: he did that for three years. In nineteen oh nine

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Speaker 1: he became the editor of the Proceedings of the Entomological

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Speaker 1: Society of Washington, and then in nineteen thirteen he started

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Speaker 1: his own publication, in Secutor in Citier Menstruis that name

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Speaker 1: translates to Persecutor of Ignorance Monthly. Uh. He started this

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Speaker 1: one because he had a falling out with the Entomological

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Speaker 1: Society and he didn't want to edit their periodical anymore.

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Speaker 1: And I don't think they wanted him to either. And

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Speaker 1: that name is a dig at the organization and its members,

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Speaker 1: who he had bad relationships with.

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Speaker 2: From the eighteen nineties to the nineteen teens, Harrison Dyer appeared,

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Speaker 2: at least outwardly to be a man who was living

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Speaker 2: an accomplished, well to do and overall conventional life, but

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Speaker 2: that had actually started to unravel at home, and in

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifteen, things shifted considerably, and to tell that story,

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Speaker 2: we've got to talk about a woman named Willeska Pollock.

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Speaker 1: So. Wileska Pollack was born in eighteen seventy one into

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Speaker 1: a large family. Her mother, Louise, studied under German educator

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Speaker 1: and reformer Friedrich Froebel, who is credited with inventing kindergarten.

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Speaker 1: Willesca was deeply influenced by her mother's work in education,

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Speaker 1: and she joined her in it once she had finished

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Speaker 1: her own education as an educator, and Willsca also trained

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Speaker 1: new teachers in addition to running a kindergarten, specifically new

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Speaker 1: teachers from black communities. In nineteen hundred, Harrison, Zella and

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Speaker 1: the kids went to the Blue Ridge Mountains for a

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Speaker 1: summer trip. They stayed at a camp owned by George Pollock,

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Speaker 1: and that summer George's sister, Willesca was also staying at

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Speaker 1: the camp, so the dyers met Willesca. They socialized with her.

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Speaker 2: As well as with other campers at the various group

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Speaker 2: activities that were available.

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Speaker 1: There, and Harrison and Molesca hit it off. He taught

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Speaker 1: her about caterpillars and moths, and she started helping him

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Speaker 1: with collecting, and then when they were back in DC

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Speaker 1: and Willesca lived in Washington, DC. Also, he gave her

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Speaker 1: a job at the museum as a typist, helping him

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Speaker 1: compile his list of lepidoptera. So she taught kindergarten during

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Speaker 1: the day and then in the afternoon when school was over,

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Speaker 1: she headed to Harrison's office. They spent a lot of

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Speaker 1: time together, and he even named a species after her,

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Speaker 1: the Parasa. Wilesca.

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Speaker 2: Trips like the one to the Blue Ridge were very

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Speaker 2: common for the Dire family, and after that trip, Willesca

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Speaker 2: sometimes popped up at them. In the summer of nineteen

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Speaker 2: oh one, they went to Colorado. Willesca arrived there late

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Speaker 2: in the summer, although there's some uncertainty about whether she

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Speaker 2: got there before Harrison left to go back to Washington,

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Speaker 2: d C. In nineteen oh six, the Dyers were in

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Speaker 2: southern California. This was also a trip for their daughter, Dorothy,

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Speaker 2: who had mastoiditis and was prescribed a mastoidectomy. Her skull

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Speaker 2: was drilled to relieve pressure. And then Wileska just happened

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Speaker 2: to run into Zella's mother, Dorothy, while the two of

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Speaker 2: them were both out on Errand's Wileska hung out with

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Speaker 2: the dyers after that. Fancy this, I'm also in Pasadena,

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Speaker 2: like ancertainly, how weird our travels keep intersected? How funny now.

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Speaker 2: That same year, nineteen oh six, Wileska got married to

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Speaker 2: a man named Wilfred p Allen. That wedding took place

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Speaker 2: in Richmond, Virginia, and Wilfrid just sort of pops into

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Speaker 2: the picture without any previous mention of him. Before that year,

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00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:40,600
Speaker 2: Wileska told friends and family that she had met this

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Speaker 2: man on a train platform in Chicago and they had

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Speaker 2: started talking. And when she started talking to him about

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Speaker 2: the Bahai faith, of which she was a member, he

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00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:51,520
Speaker 2: told her he was really interested in it. So she

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00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:53,600
Speaker 2: got his address so that she could send him some

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00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:58,000
Speaker 2: religious literature. And then, according to her story, their correspondence

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00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:02,280
Speaker 2: quickly turned romantic and he prepared host Willsca and Wilfrid

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00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:06,320
Speaker 2: had three sons together over the next seven years. Wilfred

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00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:08,880
Speaker 2: was said to be living in Philadelphia for his job

293
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Speaker 2: as a railroad man and then as a private secretary

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Speaker 2: to a wealthy man named only mister McGrath. He never

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Speaker 2: made it to any of his son's births, although Willeska's

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Speaker 2: good friend Harrison Dyer, was there for all of them.

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Speaker 2: In fact, nobody ever saw Wilfrid, although Willeska, despite having

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Speaker 2: a rather modest living as a kindergarten teacher, was able

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Speaker 2: to purchase various properties with what she said were funds

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Speaker 2: that Wilfred sent to her. She also told friends that

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Speaker 2: doctor Dyer, who was very happy to see her starting

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Speaker 2: a family, had helped the couple out financially from the beginning.

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Speaker 1: So Zella Dyer was not ignorant of this odd and

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Speaker 1: intense connection between her husband and Wileska, and she went

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00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:58,000
Speaker 1: beyond suspicion to downright angry when she discovered that Harrison

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00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:01,280
Speaker 1: had transferred the ownership of a lot of his Washington,

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00:18:01,359 --> 00:18:04,679
Speaker 1: d c. Real estate, with the exception of the family home,

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00:18:05,119 --> 00:18:09,560
Speaker 1: to Wileska's name. So Zella wrote Wileska letters asking her

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Speaker 1: point blank about the relationship with Harrison, but Wileska always

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Speaker 1: insisted the two of them were really more like siblings

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Speaker 1: than anything romantic. But despite these assurances, things got really

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00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:25,240
Speaker 1: strained in the dire home, and eventually Zella went to Berkeley, California,

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Speaker 1: to be near her family, and she and the children

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Speaker 1: had an extended stay there. In nineteen fifteen, Harrison filed

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Speaker 1: for divorce from Zella, claiming cruelty and desertion. Harrison probably

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Speaker 1: wanted this whole thing to happen really quickly, but that

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Speaker 1: was not how it played out, and things got really ugly,

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Speaker 1: really fast. Zella filed a countersuit, saying that Dyer had

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Speaker 1: misrepresented his income and that he held far more real

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Speaker 1: estate than he had claimed, and that his Smithsonian income

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Speaker 1: was just a tiny sliver of what he was worth,

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Speaker 1: which he estimated to be more than six hundred thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: so she wanted a much larger alimony than what Dyer

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Speaker 1: had suggested in his filing. But early on Harrison Dyer's

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Speaker 1: case was dismissed by District Judge T. C. Hart quote

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Speaker 1: on the ground of lack of jurisdiction, Dyer having failed

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Speaker 1: to establish to the satisfaction of the court that he

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Speaker 1: was a bonafide resident of Nevada. According to the Nevada

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Speaker 1: State Journal coverage of the case, yeah, uh for clarity,

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Speaker 1: because I didn't include it earlier. He had started to

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Speaker 1: get paid after a while by the US Department of

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Speaker 1: Agriculture because of his work in insects, and he claimed

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Speaker 1: that he made eighteen hundred dollars a year.

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Speaker 2: And that that was his whole income, not which is

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00:19:43,359 --> 00:19:46,000
Speaker 2: went paid by the Smithsota, but that was it, and

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00:19:46,040 --> 00:19:49,040
Speaker 2: that was nowhere near what he was actually worth well.

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Speaker 1: Lesca meanwhile had also filed for divorce from her husband, Wilfred.

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Speaker 1: She had also filed in Nevada, and she had actually

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Speaker 1: moved with her children to Reno prior to taking any

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00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:04,240
Speaker 1: li eagal action. Nevada only required six months of residency

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Speaker 1: before filing for divorce. That was actually a law that

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00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:09,240
Speaker 1: had been in play. It got extended to a year,

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00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:12,000
Speaker 1: and then, like right around the time this started boiling up,

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00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:14,359
Speaker 1: they had backed it up to only six months again.

345
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:20,160
Speaker 1: But even so this proved difficult. She and Harrison almost

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00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:22,840
Speaker 1: certainly wanted to make sure all documents that would hold

347
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:26,239
Speaker 1: them back from being legally married themselves were taken care of,

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00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:28,800
Speaker 1: but it was still very difficult for a woman to

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Speaker 1: get a divorce from her husband at this point. Right

350
00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:32,919
Speaker 1: there had to be a case made that she had

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Speaker 1: been mistreated in some way, and this was all made

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Speaker 1: even more complicated because Wilfrid Allen was a no show

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Speaker 1: and pretty quickly a judge sniffed out that there was

354
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Speaker 1: something weird going on. Additionally, Zella Dyer, in that filing

355
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Speaker 1: we've been talking about, had basically outed Wilfrid Allen as

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Speaker 1: a fictional character concocted by Harrison and Willsca so that

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Speaker 1: he could be married to both women at once.

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Speaker 2: So, just to be super clear here, at this point,

359
00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:02,320
Speaker 2: Wileska is trying to get a divorce from a fictional.

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Speaker 1: Care from her imaginary friends.

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Speaker 2: Right on December fifth, nineteen fifteen, Willesca wrote Zella a letter,

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Speaker 2: and it's a doozy. She did not take any responsibility

363
00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:19,000
Speaker 2: for inserting herself into the dire family and committing adultery.

364
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:24,720
Speaker 2: She instead chastises Zella for making it all public. She wrote, quote,

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00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:27,479
Speaker 2: of course people are discussing it and enlarging on it

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Speaker 2: and writing to all their friends east, west, north and south,

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00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:34,480
Speaker 2: so that even in Honolulu and Seattle and Europe they

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Speaker 2: have it all to talk about.

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00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:38,280
Speaker 1: Whose fault is it that all.

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Speaker 2: This sensational news came to the view of the public,

371
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Speaker 2: never to be forgotten. Doctor and I were quietly in retirement.

372
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:50,879
Speaker 2: It was your horrible, unnecessary, disgusting bill containing gross misstatements

373
00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:54,119
Speaker 2: all to the injury of the two other parties. In

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00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 2: this letter, Willesca goes on to assure missus Dyer that

375
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Speaker 2: the entire thing is going to disgrace her much as

376
00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:04,240
Speaker 2: her husband and Willesca herself. It's not clear why she

377
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:07,240
Speaker 2: thinks Zella might be disgraced in all this, except maybe

378
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:12,040
Speaker 2: through the shame of having her husband being a bigamist

379
00:22:12,119 --> 00:22:15,600
Speaker 2: for so many years. Yeah, there's another theory that we

380
00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:17,240
Speaker 2: could talk about in behind the scenes.

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00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:22,200
Speaker 1: That is a whole other bolo wax. The final paragraph

382
00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:26,080
Speaker 1: of this letter, written by Wileska, turns a little bit threatening.

383
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 1: It reads quote, A wise lawyer would have been so

384
00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:31,439
Speaker 1: mild in his charges that we might have let the

385
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:33,840
Speaker 1: bill go by default, and so you would have gained

386
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 1: your object, but now only over our dead bodies. And

387
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 1: what an audience we will have if this suit comes off,

388
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:44,360
Speaker 1: not only our friends and our friends' friends from far

389
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:47,639
Speaker 1: and near, but all Washington, from the executive offices to

390
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:52,160
Speaker 1: the saloons brought by your able advertising. I can see

391
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 1: them now crowding the courtroom to suffocation, struggling in the corridors,

392
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 1: and standing in long lines down the streets, guarded by

393
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: overtax policeman, do you think we shall let this audience

394
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 1: witness our defeat comedically? After this, she signs off with respectfully,

395
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 1: Willsca pe allen, this whole thing is wild. So Willska

396
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 1: appealed the initial court ruling. That ruling basically stated that

397
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:29,960
Speaker 1: it seems like Wilfred was imaginary, that there was some

398
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: squirrely stuff going on with the Williska's status as a

399
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:35,680
Speaker 1: resident of the state, that she seemed to be having

400
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:38,960
Speaker 1: a long term adulterous affair, which would give her no

401
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 1: grounds to file for divorce. This imaginary husband would have

402
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 1: to be the one to do it right, because divorce

403
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:48,159
Speaker 1: law at this point, like you had to show that

404
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:50,400
Speaker 1: you had been wronged by your spouse to get out

405
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 1: of your marriage. And she could not do that, but

406
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: he maybe could if he filed something in the court

407
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 1: records of the Supreme Court of Nevada from December nineteen twenty.

408
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: So it did take a while. That is a court

409
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: that heard Willsca's appeal. It's noted quote while council appearing

410
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: as ameche Curier admit that plaintiff was a party to

411
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 1: a marriage ceremony on September fifth nineteen oh six, as

412
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:18,120
Speaker 1: alleged in the complaint. It is contended one that there

413
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 1: is in fact no individual by the name of Wilfrid

414
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: p Allen, but that doctor Harrison, G. Dyer, or some

415
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:27,119
Speaker 1: other person at the of the performing of the marriage

416
00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: ceremony impersonated Wilfrid p Allen, and two that if there

417
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 1: is in fact a Wilfrid p Allen, the plaintiff is

418
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 1: not entitled to a divorce because of adulterous conduct on

419
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 1: her part long prior to the time when it is

420
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: claimed that he failed to support her.

421
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 2: These court notes go on to really lay out the

422
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:49,000
Speaker 2: ways that Willesca and Harrison had been sneaking around for years.

423
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 2: It notes that they took trips together, that Dyer, who

424
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 2: was normally fastidious in noting all of his lives doing

425
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 2: in his diaries, just did not mention in those notes

426
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 2: at all. It also mentions that his people started to

427
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 2: get really suspicious of Wileska's marriage. She and Dyer started

428
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:10,199
Speaker 2: to create a pay portrayal to make the existence of

429
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,880
Speaker 2: this Wilfrid Allen more believable. They opened a bank account

430
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 2: in his name. He was reported on the census the

431
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 2: Allan family built a new house in d C, but

432
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 2: the money actually came from Harrison Dyer. All these facts

433
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 2: were pretty obviously shady, but as they came up in court,

434
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 2: Willeska did a lot of work trying to provide reasons

435
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 2: for all these various inconsistencies. At one point during testimony,

436
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 2: she said that Wilfrid Allen was not her husband's real name,

437
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: but that he operated under an alias because he had

438
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:43,919
Speaker 2: faked his death many years earlier and was basically hiding

439
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 2: from his family, which she thought explained both the difficulty

440
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 2: in finding anyone by that name and the fact that

441
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 2: none of her relatives had ever met this man.

442
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,880
Speaker 1: He keeps on the do because his parents thought he'd drowned.

443
00:25:57,920 --> 00:25:59,880
Speaker 1: Like that's literally the excus.

444
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 2: In the judge's decision on this appeal of her divorce case.

445
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 2: He stated, quote, I cannot understand how anyone could listen

446
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 2: to the evidence of the plaintiff and watch her conduct

447
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 2: and demeanor upon the stand without being impressed by her

448
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,920
Speaker 2: utter lack of sincerity. We are going to pause here

449
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 2: for a sponsor break, and then when we come back,

450
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,640
Speaker 2: we're going to get into Dyer's life after the divorce.

451
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 2: And yes, finally the Tunnels.

452
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 1: Dyer's professional reputation was unsurprisingly deeply damaged by the very

453
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: public coverage of all of these three way divorce proceedings

454
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: and bigamy, and all of the scandal of his double

455
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: life made his colleagues want to distance hit themselves from him.

456
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: Despite his proven entomological expertise. The Department of Agriculture actually

457
00:26:56,119 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: fired him for unbecoming conduct, and in December nineteen seven teen,

458
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: Dire donated forty four thousand specimens to the Smithsonian and

459
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: then at the end of that year he had what's

460
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: described as a nervous breakdown and he went to Connecticut

461
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: for two months to recover.

462
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 2: It took years for all of the legal tangle of

463
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:20,120
Speaker 2: Harrison and Willesca's divorces to be settled. The Dire divorce

464
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,159
Speaker 2: was finalized at the end of nineteen twenty. Courts in

465
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 2: Nevada refused to spend any more time on the Allen divorce. Finally,

466
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty one, Harrison and Willesca got married. They

467
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 2: had been romantically involved for twenty years at that point,

468
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 2: with three kids, which Harrison then adopted because their birth

469
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 2: names were listed as Allen, and he had to do

470
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 2: so for them to take the last name of Dire.

471
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so much imaginary paperwork in this mix.

472
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: But still he was finally able to live openly with

473
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 1: the woman that he loved. He also became a member

474
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:57,920
Speaker 1: of the Bahai Faith during this time, and he put

475
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,400
Speaker 1: his editorial experience to work in that community by becoming

476
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: the editor of the periodical Reality. He used that magazine

477
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: as a personal platform and published a lot of his

478
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 1: own writing as a consequence. He's kind of My understanding

479
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: is that he's a controversial figure in the Bahai Faith

480
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: even today. He had always written fiction as well as

481
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 1: scientific papers, and some of those were included in Reality.

482
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 2: But then in nineteen twenty four, Dyer once again found

483
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 2: himself in the news after another of his secrets came

484
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 2: to light. During some construction work in the DuPont Circle

485
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 2: area near the corner of twenty first in p Streets,

486
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 2: there was an accident on September fifteenth. A truck that

487
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 2: was making a delivery behind the house at fifteen twelve

488
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 2: twenty first Street Northwest just fell partially into the street.

489
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 2: The integrity of the street had not been compromised by

490
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 2: a sinkhole or the construction work that was happening around it,

491
00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: but by a tunnel that had been dug underneath it.

492
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 2: This was not just a rudimentary tunnel, though, it had

493
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 2: multiple levels and electricity.

494
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: So this caused a little bit of panic. Investigators and

495
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: the public started to immediately think of reasons why there

496
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: might be secret tunnels under the city. It could, some thought,

497
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: be an old spy tunnel, or maybe it was used

498
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: by bootleggers this was all happening right in the middle

499
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: of prohibition, or perhaps there was some other criminal or

500
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: terrorist group using the tunnels to move through the nation's

501
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: capital undetected. Journalist Larry Boardman decided to explore and document

502
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 1: these tunnels. He described seeing a tunnel with a dirt

503
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: floor when he entered with German newspapers from nineteen seventeen

504
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: and nineteen eighteen. Stuck to the ceiling, Boardman wrote, quote,

505
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: cryptic marks and symbols marked the pages, suggesting a code.

506
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: He also saw the electrical lights although the power was off,

507
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: and a pile of hundreds of broken glass bottles. He

508
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: noted that the main tunnel was tall and wide enough

509
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: for two adults to walk side by side in it,

510
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: but that as additional tunnels split off from it, sometimes

511
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: going down those tributaries were narrower. He followed one to

512
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: near the home of a former ambassador, and another that

513
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: almost reached the property of a publisher. Boardman quote followed

514
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: a third hallway to find it ending at the basement

515
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: of a house. The passageway had been cemented. Then a

516
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: second door also cemented, and yet another which led to

517
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: the basement. The house owner said he had never explored it.

518
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: This right up, though, ends with the revelation that these

519
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,479
Speaker 1: tunnels were revealed to be the work of Harrison Dyer,

520
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: who Boardman described as quote a twinkling eyed, stoop shouldered

521
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: scientist with carefully trimmed beard and gray tinged hair. Boardman

522
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: ends though.

523
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 2: By suggesting that somebody else may have been living in

524
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 2: these tunnels, no doubt, to feed the reader's imagination. When

525
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 2: Dyer gave a statement to the press about all of this,

526
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 2: it was pretty relaxed, he said, quote, I did it

527
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 2: for exercise. Digging tunnels after work is my hobby. There's

528
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 2: nothing really mysterious about it. I have been interested in

529
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 2: tunnels and underground construction work since I was a boy.

530
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 2: I constructed tunnels or caves whenever I could. Dyer said

531
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 2: that he worked on these tunnels from nineteen oh six

532
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 2: to nineteen fifteen. That address of fifteen twelve twenty first

533
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 2: Street northwest, behind which the truck had been when it

534
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 2: was delivering supplies and fell into the street, had been

535
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 2: his home, but he moved from there in nineteen fifteen.

536
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 2: He said that he was always careful to stay in

537
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 2: his property lines, and if this description of the tunnels

538
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 2: makes it sound like they extended past the lot of

539
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 2: one home, that is because they did. Dyer had bought

540
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 2: properties adjoining his own over the years to use his

541
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 2: lab space for growing insect larvae and to house live

542
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 2: in staff, but he didn't stop digging when he moved

543
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifteen. He just stopped digging at twenty first Street.

544
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 2: He had moved to eight to four B Street and

545
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 2: had made an even more astonishing tunnel system there, reaching

546
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 2: thirty two feet into the earth.

547
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: These tunnels were really impressive, and you can occasionally find

548
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: images like diagrams of them online and it's like a

549
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: little mind blowing. Dyer explained when questioned that the first

550
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: tunnel project he started was to set a garden for

551
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: his wife, Zella, and then the second one was dug

552
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 1: as a way to move furnace ashes out of his basement.

553
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 1: But in both cases he just kept digging, telling a

554
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: reporter quote, when I was down perhaps six or seven feet,

555
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: surrounded only by the damp, brown walls of mother Earth,

556
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: I was seized with an undeniable fancy to keep on going.

557
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: In this second setup, from the first tunnel of it

558
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: that was allegedly for ashes, and it was accessed near

559
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: the basement, there were two more levels down. There were

560
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: also vertical shafts on each end of the structure that

561
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: helped with airflow. There were two smaller vertical shafts interior

562
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: to the layout, and a vented opening to a young

563
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 1: The walls were bricked in many sections, and at least

564
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,479
Speaker 1: one of the vertical shafts had a ladder built into it.

565
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: This tunnel system was carefully made enough that Dier was

566
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: comfortable letting his kids play in it. Please don't do this, No.

567
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 2: Maybe the most surprising thing about Dyer's tunnels wasn't that

568
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 2: they were so meticulously crafted, or that they had electricity,

569
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 2: or that they were the work of one man. The

570
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 2: most surprising thing might be that they had been discovered

571
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 2: and covered in the papers seven years earlier. In May

572
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventeen, the Washington Times had run the story

573
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 2: Mystery tunnel joins two homes. It explained that when the

574
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 2: tennis court over a section of the tunnel was excavated

575
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: for new construction, they had discovered this tunnel, and in

576
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 2: the same article, neighbors were like, yeah, those are the tunnels.

577
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 2: Harrison Dyer doug as a hobby, so this just wasn't

578
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:58,959
Speaker 2: a secret. It had gotten kind of lost in the

579
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 2: news cycle. Yeah, it's very interesting that like the city

580
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 2: just completely forgot in the course of seven years, or

581
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 2: probably a lot of them never knew about it. This is,

582
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 2: of course happening in nineteen seventeen, so World War One

583
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 2: is happening, there's a lot going on, and also his

584
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 2: divorce is playing out. That's probably where people are associating

585
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,720
Speaker 2: his name. But it's like, yeah, we knew about the tunnel,

586
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:23,480
Speaker 2: so I don't know why there's a big deal. In

587
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 2: twenty four One of the rumors that has cropped up

588
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,320
Speaker 2: over the years, and you'll find it over and over,

589
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 2: was that Dyer had dug these tunnels between his home

590
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:36,439
Speaker 2: with Zella and Wileska Allen's house, and that's I mean,

591
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 2: I understand why people get there. It's a pretty reasonable

592
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 2: guess given the other links that Harrison and Wilesca were

593
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 2: willing to go to to maintain their relationship for so long.

594
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 2: But that is simply not the case in the case

595
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 2: of someone like Dyer, whose behaviors in all areas of

596
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 2: his life are kind of difficult to understand. His motivations

597
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 2: for tunneling may also just have to remain a little

598
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 2: bit of a mystery, or we just take it face

599
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 2: value that that's how he stayed fit and unwound. At

600
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 2: the end of the day, I'm like, dude, find another hobbies.

601
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: As a homeowner.

602
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 2: I'm just like, ah, what if my neighbor was tunneling

603
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 2: over underneath my house? Yeah? Same, even adjacent to my house.

604
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 2: Still not okay. Although he had rearranged his whole life

605
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 2: to live it the way he wished with Wilesca, his

606
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:30,399
Speaker 2: finances faltered after the divorce. For one, legal fees and

607
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 2: the divorce settlement ate up a lot of his fortune.

608
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 2: For another, he started making bad business decisions. He just

609
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,800
Speaker 2: didn't have the level of independent income that had enabled

610
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 2: him to just work for free in earlier years of

611
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 2: his life. Yeah, he bought like some luxury properties at

612
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 2: this stage that were like, oh, do you really want

613
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 2: to spend two million dollars right now, Let's just dig

614
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 2: tunnels under them and also make them structurally unsound. Yeah.

615
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: He had been making his case to be rehired at

616
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 1: the USDA and various points over the years, and in

617
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty eight he pursued the issue again after he

618
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 1: got worded that some of the leadership were kind of

619
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: considering that they might be willing to hire him back.

620
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 1: He may have been a curmudgeon and have all kinds

621
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: of foibles and personal drama, but he still was a

622
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 1: really good and pretty respected entomologist. But he never got

623
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,320
Speaker 1: the job, not because they didn't hire him, but because

624
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: he had a stroke before anything moved forward and he

625
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: did not recover from it. He died on January twenty first,

626
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine. Wilesca had his ashes buried with her family.

627
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,879
Speaker 2: Zella died in nineteen thirty eight after being struck by

628
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,280
Speaker 2: a trailer in Long Beach, while Esca died in nineteen

629
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 2: forty from a heart ailment. Her obituary goes into depth

630
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 2: about her work with the Bahigh Faith, does not mention

631
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 2: any of this other scandal. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty it's

632
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 2: it's pretty nice. Literally, it's like Harrison Dyer's widow has died.

633
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 2: They don't talk about any of the weird stuff. It's

634
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 2: very lovely. I have so many notes for behind the

635
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 2: scenes because Harrison Dyer. But in the meantime I have

636
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 2: listener mail. All right, this is from our listener Carla,

637
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 2: who writes measurement in the UK and educator's perspective. Carla

638
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 2: opens with another comment on metric and imperial measures, as

639
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 2: you seem to be enjoying them. I am another UK

640
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,240
Speaker 2: citizen who went to school in the seventies and eighties,

641
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 2: part of the generation that was supposed to spearhead the

642
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 2: country going completely metric like the listener from last week,

643
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,200
Speaker 2: but even more metrically included. I don't do fahrenheit at all,

644
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 2: or pounds and ounces. I naturally think first in metric

645
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 2: for pretty much everything. The only exception is miles per

646
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 2: hour because of speed limits on the roads. There was

647
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 2: no imperial measurement used throughout my time at school. All

648
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 2: well and good, but here is the twist. After my

649
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 2: undergrad I trained as a maths teacher and found that

650
00:37:57,440 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 2: in the few years I was away, it had snuck

651
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 2: back in. So I had to essentially learn imperial in

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00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 2: my twenties in order to teach it in our national curriculum.

653
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 2: Is the statement quote understand and use approximate equivalences between

654
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 2: metric units and common imperial units such as inches, pounds,

655
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 2: and pints. Can you imagine how annoying it is having

656
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 2: to learn two separate systems and to convert units not

657
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 2: only within but between them. This was my all time

658
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 2: least favorite topic to teach. I feel like, especially when

659
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 2: you have students who are probably going I hate this,

660
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 2: it is not fun for the teacher either. They don't

661
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 2: want to force you to do that. I am firmly

662
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 2: in the camp of teaching slash learning masks for conceptual understanding,

663
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 2: never just information to be memorized. Praise you for this,

664
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 2: because I feel like that is the better way. Also

665
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 2: that we should be able to give a rational justification

666
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,319
Speaker 2: for everything we ask the kids to do. Quite the

667
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 2: challenge in this case. And then she makes a request

668
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 2: for a possible topic, and she mentions in her ps

669
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 2: that she's a longtime listener, going forwards and also backwards

670
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 2: in time through the episodes nearly at the start, but

671
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 2: not a complete list as I wuz out of anything

672
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 2: too violent or grizzly. Thank you for your excellent podcast

673
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 2: and particularly keeping me company on insomnia nights, Carla, I

674
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 2: so appreciate this idea, one I can't imagine, and this

675
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 2: is evidence of my weakness. I can't imagine having to

676
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 2: learn a whole second set of units to a degree

677
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:37,439
Speaker 2: that you have to master it to then teach other

678
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:41,360
Speaker 2: people when you were in your twenties, doing training after

679
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 2: you have only known one.

680
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: I know people do it. I don't think I could.

681
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:49,839
Speaker 1: I struggle with it all the time. The best I

682
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: ever got at it was when for a while I

683
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: used to volunteer at the Georgia Aquarium and we would

684
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: do weights of the food diets. We would prep in kilograms,

685
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: and that's the best I ever got at it, because

686
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:04,879
Speaker 1: we were still getting shipments of food in pounds, so

687
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: and even then it's dicey listen, but I can calculate

688
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 1: yards really quickly. So I love getting all these perspectives,

689
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:17,240
Speaker 1: especially from the UK, and thinking about how the teaching

690
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: has had to shift and accommodate these weird backsteps that

691
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:23,719
Speaker 1: are going on in some cases. If you would like

692
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:25,960
Speaker 1: to write to us and tell us about your relationship

693
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 1: with metric or imperial units, or anything else for that matter,

694
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: you can do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

695
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: You can also find us on social media as Missed

696
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:37,600
Speaker 1: in History, and if you haven't subscribed yet and you

697
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: would like to, you can do that on the iHeartRadio

698
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.

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00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 2: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:55,319
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

701
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,