Happy 128th Birthday to Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson

For over 20 years I have been piecing together the facts of MWN’s life. In that process, I have spent days pouring over microfilm, accessing files from various outposts of the National Archives including the main building in Washington, DC as well as other libraries across the country. On almost all official records he listed his birthplace as Greeneville, Tennessee.

However, he listed Carteret, Tennessee, a suburb of Johnson City, on one military document. His father Lewis Orlando (Lola) Strain was listed in an 1890 list of voters as living in Carteret. With those clues I traveled to Johnson City, Greenville and the surrounding small communities, numerous times attempting to find the Major’s birth certificate.

Greeneville, Tennessee. respective holders

The Major’s original birth name was Malcolm William Struan. His father was Lewis Orlando (Lola) Strain and his mother Antoinette Wheeler. During this period people often used various spellings of names. Strain is spelled as Struan and Straughn among others.

When his mother divorced and remarried TJB Nicholson, she hyphenated her name in the tradition of suffragettes, to Wheeler-Nicholson and her sons did the same.

Added to the confusion of last names there are poor records from that period. In addition to the 1921 fire which destroyed much of the 1890 national census, there were no hospitals in Greenville or Johnson City at the time and thus no official birth records from that period.

Antoinette Wheeler-Strain ca. 1896

The area in the northeastern corner of Tennessee bordered by North Carolina to the east and Virginia to the north is rich in history of the native Cherokees and the early German and Scottish settlers. It is Daniel Boone territory.

The land is stunningly gorgeous, part of the Appalachian Mountains with the Smokey Mountains to the south and the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east with hills and valleys and swift creeks running through them.

If Antoinette and Lola were living in or near Johnson City the January weather in the mountains would have made travel especially difficult to make a trip from Johnson City to Greeneville. It would not be an easy terrain to navigate on horseback.

Cemetery, Telford, Tn. NWN 2007

There are references that can be drawn from the local newspaper items that indicate Lola and Antoinette may not have always been living in the same home. Lola traveled for work and Antoinette may have lived with her widowed father at times.

The Major’s grandfather, Christopher Wheeler, was a physician living in Telford, a small community about halfway between Johnson City and Greeneville. Since Antoinette, was very close to her father she may have gone to be with him during childbirth. If Dr. Wheeler had an office or surgery in Greeneville that may be the why Greeneville is listed as the birthplace.

Unless, an official birth document is discovered then the information MWN stated on all official government documents is considered his birth date and place.

Washington College, Telford, TN. NWN 2007

I did not grow up with the Major or my father and the rest of the Wheeler-Nicholson family. My mother Olive and my father Malcolm, Jr. were divorced when I was quite young. By the time I met my father and the Wheeler-Nicholson family at 30 years of age, the Major, had died 20 years prior.

My mother’s family have lived in the same part of the country since 1827 with direct connections to older relatives and family archives of letters and photographs, some dating back to the Civil War era. Due to Antoinette and Lola’s divorce and the subsequent move to Portland, Oregon sometime in 1896 or so, the Wheeler-Nicholson family did not have the same kind of family records.

The Major was something of a mystery even to some in the family who often confused family stories and factual information.

Mac, Jr. and Olive, Happier times, NYC ca 1948 Family Archives.

MWN had obtained a kind of mythic quality not just in the family but in the larger world. The stories about him in the comics world were dependent on oral histories of the artists and writers who had known him for a short period of time and by Donenfeld and Liebowitz and others, who had the power to tell his story to flatter themselves and possibly in some cases assuage their guilt.

The facts of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson’s life were never fully researched or examined and the anecdotes of those who told the stories were accepted as the truth and repeated for decades.

Photo and drawings from “Fifty Who Made DC Great.” respective holders

In the beginning, my search was a desire to know a part of myself. As anyone who has been adopted or lost a parent at an early age there is a great sense of loss–a part of oneself missing.

Since I came into the family as an adult and showed an interest in family history, it was natural for the elder family members to want to pass on family history to someone in the next generation who was interested. I became the recipient of various archival material and became a de facto family historian.

At first, overwhelmed with the spirit of the remarkable family that I was now a part of, I took the family history on its own without examining it too closely. It was several years before I realized that the “trashy novels” referred to by some family members that he wrote were popular adventure stories, some based in solid historical research.

“Alamut,” Short Stories, December, 25, 1947

It took another 15 years before I began this odyssey to discover the full story of my grandfather’s life and work. In the meantime, I spent several years recording Native Elders telling their stories and completed a Master’s degree in Classical Greek Mythology with an emphasis on the divine feminine.

Unlike the hero, who, in most myths, is searching for a vessel such as The Holy Grail, the female heroic myth is usually a search to put broken and scattered pieces back together. In the myth of Isis and Osiris, Osiris is hacked to pieces by his brother Set who then scatters them. Isis travels the world looking for the pieces to put Osiris back together and restore his life.

She finds all the pieces except for his male member which she fashions from clay and thus restores him to life. Life is given from the clay of the earth. Sound familiar? Diana, princess of Themyscria, Wonder Woman, in one of her origin stories is fashioned from clay, from the earth. Comics and the study of mythology have much in common.

Wonder Woman #36, July 1949. Cover-Irwin Hasen

Knowing the facts and continually learning more of the facts, it is often frustrating to read what has been said and written about the Major that is false, and/or slanted. It’s difficult not to let my anger at this injustice seep out occasionally, especially given the years of research.

However, I make every attempt to follow our grandfather’s example. According to all accounts, he was a man of charm and lovely manners and a man who did his best to act for what is right, for the truth.

The only time I’m aware that he openly lost his composure was his distress at losing his comics publishing company. The vision he had of what comics could be was his dream. It wasn’t just a business for him or a way to make money. I don’t think he ever completely got over what happened and what was done to him.

MWN, Sweden, ca 1948. © Finn Andreen.

What keeps moving me forward in this quest is the Major as a writer and creator. As a child I was aware that the Major was a writer and somehow had something to do with DC Comics and that Superman was all tangled up in there somewhere.

As a child I had heard some of the stories from my mother who lived with the Wheeler-Nicholsons in Great Neck, NY in 1947 when she was working for the United Nations. When I was around 6 years old, my mother opened up a magazine and pointed to Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson’s name on the contents page and said, “that’s your grandfather.”

Superman, #27, March-April, 1944, Cover-Wayne Boring

It was about 40 years later before I tracked down some of MWN’s pulp stories and read them. I fell in love with the pulps and with my grandfather’s writing. What a world—gallant knights, courageous military men, spies in exotic locales and usually a romantic heroine who was as brave and courageous as the hero.

Besides telling a good story, the Major’s pulp adventures often contain autobiographical material and descriptions of places that were familiar to him. Connecting the factual research with the content of the stories has helped him come alive for me. I can hear his voice.

“The Baldassare Ruby,” Argosy, July 5, 1930

In my studies of Greek myth, I read several translations of Euripides and I remember the moment it struck me that despite several thousand years and numerous translations there were passages that pierced my heart and I knew I was hearing the true voice of the poet.

The creative act of writing is the attempt to put one’s voice into words for others to read and allow the truth to shine through. That is the mystery of truth and how a writer’s voice can shine through all the years and all the layers of myth. The facts are important but the facts alone do not tell the full story. It is necessary to study the Major’s prolific creative output in order to have a greater understanding of his story.

Happy Birthday to our grandfather, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, may his creative vision, his voice and his truth shine through.

MWN, Sweden, ca 1948. © Finn Andreen.