Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin

Recently when perusing social media, I ran across an article with the title “The Real Life Horror Story Of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin House” (see here). It was the juxtaposition of the words “Wright” and “Taliesin” that caught my eye – because “Wright” was the maiden name of my wife’s mother and “Taliesin” is the middle name of one of our grandsons. I decided I had to do some further investigation.

 

Frank Lloyd Wright – a convoluted personal life

Frank was born in 1867 in Wisconsin. (You can find much of his life story here). His father, William Cary Wright, was originally from Massachusetts and his mother, Anna Lloyd Jones, was an immigrant from Wales. Although never graduating, Frank attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied civil engineering. In 1887 he moved to Chicago which was still rebuilding after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and found work as a draftsman and architect. In 1889 he married his first wife, Catherine Lee “Kitty” Tobin. They went on to have six children.

By 1901 he had completed about 50 projects, including many houses in Oak Park. It was about this time that he began working on a house style known as “Prairie Style”.  In 1903, while designing a house for Edwin Cheney (a neighbor in Oak Park), he became enamored with Cheney’s wife, Martha “Mamah” Borthwick Cheney, and she became his mistress. They moved to Europe to escape the scandal in Chicago. While Edwin granted Mamah a divorce, Kitty would not grant one to Frank.

When Frank return to the US in 1910, he persuaded his mother to buy land for him in Spring Green, WI, and this land was adjacent to property held by his mother’s family. It was there that he built a new home in 1911 which he occupied together with his mistress, their servants, and on occasion Mamah’s children who usually were in the custody of her former husband.

On August 15, 1914, while he was working in Chicago, a servant set fire to the house and then murdered seven people with an axe as the fire burned. Three of these people were Mamah, then age 45, and her two children, then ages 11 and 9. Having lost his ex-wife and children, Edwin later remarried and had three more children.

Frank also did not wait too long to have someone else in his life and he began living with a new mistress, Maude “Miriam” Noel. In 1922, Kitty Wright finally granted Frank a divorce, the terms of which included his not being able to remarry for a year. He married Miriam in 1923, but her addiction to morphine led to the failure of this marriage in less than a year. In 1924, still married to Miriam, Frank met Olga Lazovich Hinzenburg. He and Olga moved in together in 1925 and they had a child together later that year.

Frank and Miriam finally divorced in 1927. He again had to wait a year and he married Olga in 1928.

In my investigation into these people, I have found the following genealogical connections:

·        Through his Wright ancestors as well as my wife’s Wright ancestors, Frank in an eighth cousin, three times removed, of my wife. He is also a ninth cousin, four times removed, of myself.

·        Catherine Tobin, Frank’s first wife, is a seventh cousin, twice removed, of my wife and an eighth cousin, three times removed of myself.

·        Edwin Cheney is my tenth cousin, once removed

·        Martha [Borthwick] Cheney is a seventh cousin, three time removed, of myself (2 ways)

·        Maude [Hicks] Noel is my sixth cousin, four times removed

·        Olga Ivanovna Lazovich Hinzenburg was born in Montenegro and is not related to my wife or myself.

 

Taliesin homes

Frank Lloyd Wright actually built four homes for himself with the name Taliesin – three in Wisconsin (called Taliesin, Taliesin II, and Taliesin III), and one in Arizona.

Taliesin was begun in 1911 and was completed in 1912. The living quarters were burned in the fire of 1914 when Frank’s mistress and her children were murdered.

Within a few months of his recovery from this devastating event, Frank began work on rebuilding, naming the rebuilt structure Taliesin II. In 1925, there was another fire, apparently caused by an electrical surge which ran through the telephone system, and this second home was also destroyed.

Rebuilding yet again, the new structure was called Taliesin III. This final version measured 37,000 sq. ft.

Taliesin West was Frank’s winter home and school in Scottsdale, AZ, from 1937 until his death in 1959 at age 91. Today it is the headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.  

 

Taliesin

Taliesin (pronounced tal-YES-in) was a 6^th century early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. He was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three kings.

According to legend Taliesin was adopted as a child by Eiffin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir. In later stories he became a mythic hero, companion of Bran the Blessed and King Arthur.

In addition to the poems attributed to him, he shows up in a variety of places in literature, including, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. He is also the subject of a few musical works. And, of course, he is the individual who Frank Lloyd Wright named his homes after.

Our daughter gave her third son the middle name of Taliesin, as part of a series of middle names for her four children – each having a name after one of the countries in the British Isles – Marrok (English), Conall (Irish), Taliesin (Welsh), and Bhaltair (Scottish). You can read further details here.