18 Tiny Deaths, page 24
In the first place, everyone had to be taught what Legal Medicine is, and its potential value, both those who could sponsor it and those who could practice it, as well as the general public who could benefit by it. The President and Fellows of Harvard had to be taught, the Dean of Harvard Medical School had to be taught, and the doctors and lawyers had to be taught. The police had to be taught, most of all of these holding away from it with reluctance to learn. The police superintendents had to be taught, but they were almost without exception willing to learn and send their men to take the course I was finally able to persuade an unwilling Department Head to permit me to offer, and there was the bright spot, the police students themselves, who have been enthusiastic participants and supporters from the outset…
Having, during my long life, had a good deal of experience in amalgamating some rather heterogeneous groups of people, I wished to make our classes not “just another school,” and so chose to keep the classes small and to inject a definite social quality into them. For this reason I have persisted in giving the class dinners, much against the wishes of the head of the Department, who insistently said, “those dinners are expensive; all that money could be used in the Department to better purpose.” But even in the few years of their existence I can plainly see the value of the social contacts these dinners have forwarded. The establishment of the little organization called Harvard Associates in Police Science is another stepping stone along the path toward friendships. It is my firm belief that this society can become powerful for good, for the betterment of the police training, and for improvement in medical investigations…
While I know it is said that there is no one in the world whose place cannot be filled, still I believe that Legal Medicine will take something of a slump when I die, for, though I say it myself, I have had enthusiasm, willingness, courage, patience, and persistence, and believe my personality has been effective in what I have been trying to accomplish. I have dearly loved our graduates; have been proud and happy in their successes, and understanding and sympathetic when luck went against them. They have been wonderfully dear and sweet to me and have brought a beautiful happiness to my last years. I have been meticulous in never asking for or seeking a favor, and I conjure you to be the same…
My whole object has been to improve the administration of justice, to standardize the methods, to sharpen the existing tools, and to make it easier for the law enforcement officers to do “a good job” and to give the public “a square deal.”
Harvard has not been very broad-minded or very generous in its attitude toward the Department of Legal Medicine, but the Rockefeller Foundation has been much more sympathetic. Dr. Moritz was willing to “play ball” as long as there was something in it for him, but never without a fight; and Dr. Ford is much the same, although Dr. Moritz was active and Dr. Ford is inert. Had there been true collaboration from the beginning, Legal Medicine could have been much farther advanced than it is today, but perhaps that would have been growing too fast.
But at any rate, here we are. Please don’t let things slump down and disappear. You five will have to learn to go ahead, no matter how many times you are knocked down. But you men already know this far better than I have ever learned it, and then there are five of you to compare the bruises.25
What follows in the letter to her advisory board are more than five single-spaced pages with detailed instructions about conducting the week-long homicide seminar, the selection and vetting of students, a timetable for organizing the seminars, how to line up speakers for lectures, and the seating arrangements and menus for the group dinner. No aspect of the seminar was overlooked. According to Lee’s directions, the dinners “must be carried out with conspicuous elegance, generosity, and friendliness.”
Then she returned to continuing her work:
I suspect that since you are mostly men, you may not run into some of the difficulties that I have from the very outset, but I will hereby warn you that you will find the Department personnel in no way understanding of the value or meaning of the Seminars. They see no reason for putting the subjects in a certain order—in their minds, if a subject is to be discussed during the Seminar week, it makes no difference at what place it is brought forward. Actually, it makes much difference—first things first, and the Class as a whole is not ready for certain subjects until they have been prepared for them. It must be remembered that these men are not scientists and there is no intention of making them into scientists. They are not trained in laboratory technique, but it is well for the development of Legal Medicine that they should know how easily certain tests can be made, so they may have a person in their organization who can make these tests for them when needed. Also the chemical demonstrations serve to break up what could easily be too long a day overfilled with too much concentration. These men are adults, some years removed from school, and to sit in inactivity from nine to five for nearly a week is difficult for them. This is one reason for cigarettes and is the main reason for placing certain features on the program at the points where they are found…
It has been my intention in whatever I have done, to bring about an up-grading of the police in the United States and to thereby place them in a position where they are deserving of the respect and honor which is rightfully theirs, and I charge you with continuing my efforts along these lines to the end that there may be an improvement in the administration of justice in this country. If, singlehanded, I have been able to accomplish as much as I have, you—five of you—with your wider experience and stable masculine judgment, should be able to accomplish wonders… I am herewith handing you a lighted torch to bear, with complete confidence that you will not let the flame go out, and so accept my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for the help you have already given me by showing your interest and belief in my work and for the comfort I have in knowing that it will be carried on—farther and more widely than I have been able to do—when I have to leave it.
As for Harvard, Lee was unsparing with her views:
For the past 20 years I have given all of my time and energy and thought, indeed all of my waking hours, to the effort to establish securely Legal Medicine in the United States, not merely to establish a department of Legal Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, although that has been a basic part of the overall picture. Harvard has the reputation of being old fogeyish and ungrateful and stupid and I have indeed found this reputation to be deserved. I therefore have no special wish to further Harvard, but I do feel that there is already there a department together with its library and other equipment, much of which is unique and cannot be duplicated. Moreover, Harvard has a clear cut and well recognized reputation as the first department of Legal Medicine in this country. Therefore I recommend to the Board and to the Foundation that they favor Harvard whenever possible, but I have placed certain restrictions upon Harvard… I warn you each and every one that Harvard is clever and sly and will need to be watched constantly or she will take advantage of you and apply any funds you may grant her to her own purposes. This has been so marked a tendency in my lifetime that I have preferred to spend the money myself to procure what I wanted and then to give the result to Harvard. I suggest that whenever possible, you do the same.
Lee concluded her top-secret letter with final words of advice for her advisory board:
Don’t forget, it is Legal Medicine to be built up, not Harvard Medical School. Also keep an eye upon tax problems.
Despite the increasing disabilities of advancing age, including heart disease and repeated fractures, Lee maintained a busy schedule for the remaining eleven years of her life. Active in professional associations, Lee attended the second meeting of the American Society for Forensic Science. She was the first female member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, frequently attending their meetings as well as those of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire Medico-Legal Societies, the New England Policewomen’s Association, and many others.
Along with Ralph Mosher’s son, Alton, Lee resumed work on several more Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death dioramas. Alton created a scale model of the Swedish porch of Lee’s residence—an enclosed stone patio with a fireplace. Every miniature stone used in the model matched the shape of the actual Swedish porch, reproducing the authenticity to the most minute detail. Lee also worked on a multiple-room diorama and a large model of an apartment building.
The Rocks also continued to be a gathering place for law enforcement officials to visit. Lee’s son, John, described the activity at his mother’s house during a weekend visit:
We had not been visiting more than a few hours when who should arrive but Captain Schwarz of the Connecticut State Police, and wife. Needless to say, the conversation fell heavily on police work and legal medicine affairs for the remainder of the weekend. Interesting, but I couldn’t contribute much, as my own crimes are not for public discussion. The latest of these was covering the 220 miles to Littleton in five and a half hours, flat, including breakfast. This averages 40 mph including breakfast, which mean I spent a lot of time at 65 or more, which is too fast for Vermont’s twisty roads. So when the Captain, who had traveled the same route, started to compare notes on elapsed time, I was understandably vague.26
December 21, 1951
Lee visited the FBI again and attempted to schedule a meeting with J. Edgar Hoover to discuss the need for a national dental record database that could be invaluable for identifying unknown bodies throughout the country. Hoover told Lee that his official duties, regretfully, made it impossible for him to meet during her visit to Washington, DC, and referred her to one of his staff.27 According to a Director’s Office memo circulated to FBI associate director Clyde Tolson, “When informed of Mr. Hoover’s absence, Mrs. Lee declined to talk with anyone else and stated that she wanted to arrange an appointment with Mr. Hoover to discuss a matter that she had written about.”28
This time, Lee did not get her audience with Hoover.
In the mid-1950s, Harvard officials began considering gently guiding Lee to the door. Lee turned seventy-six years old—the age of mandatory retirement at Harvard—in 1954. The Harvard Corporation noted this fact within weeks of her birthday. In April, the corporation secretary contacted Berry, the medical school dean, about whether Lee’s honorary curatorship of the Magrath Library should be terminated.
By then, Lee’s involvement with Harvard was limited. She was mostly at the medical school only for the twice-yearly homicide seminars for police officers, and her titles with the university were largely ceremonial. Aside from occasional requests for lecturers at the homicide seminar, the burden she posed on the university was minimal. Berry questioned whether it was prudent to bite, however gently, a hand that fed the university.
“No salary from Harvard is involved,” Berry said to the corporation secretary. “Mrs. Lee has made generous contributions to our work. Unless changes in the times have posed financial problems for her since she told us about the plans she had for the disposition of her estate, I believe that the Department of Legal Medicine will find that she has left substantial sums in her will. In the light of these circumstances, I hope that the Corporation will agree that an exception is justified.”29
David W. Bailey, secretary of the corporation, told Berry that Lee would be allowed to keep her honorary title. “I have talked again with President Pusey about the matter, and he agrees that under the circumstances it will be a happy thought to leave Mrs. Lee’s present appointment undisturbed despite the fact that she has almost totted up the psalmist’s four score years.”30
Berry shared the good news with Ford. “You will agree with me, I am sure, that persuading them to continue to let her hold this honorary post was in our best interests!” Berry said.31
The following year, the issue of Lee’s “retirement” was put to rest for good. “So you may have a written record in your files, I write to tell you that we do wish to continue Mrs. Lee on the University’s roster as Honorary Curator of the George Burgess Magrath Library of Legal Medicine even though she has passed the compulsory retirement age. It is reasonable to assume, furthermore, that we shall continue Mrs. Lee in the honorary post indefinitely.”32
Colonel Woodson, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, received an enticing invitation from Lee through her foundation—the opportunity to spend two weeks in England and one week in Germany for the purpose of studying the police systems in those countries.
Being a prominent member of the law enforcement community and an officer in the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Woodson thought it prudent—even though he had known Lee for years and was a member of her advisory board—to check with the FBI to see whether the agency knew of any affiliation with subversive organizations of individuals. It was the height of the Cold War in 1955, and a link to communism could ruin a career.33
The FBI special agent in charge of the Boston field office filed a report to Hoover about meeting Lee at a reception she held at The Rocks for the annual conference of the National Association of Attorneys Generals. “This reception reportedly cost CAPTAIN LEE approximately $3500 and she imported caterers from New York City to handle all arrangements,” the report said. “The Bureau has previously been advised with regard to the background of Captain LEE. She is approximately 75 years of age, practically an invalid, and has been deeply interested in Criminology and Legal Medicine for many years.”34
The all-clear was given by teletype from the Boston field office to the FBI headquarters, then relayed back to Woodson: “NO DEROGATORY INFO CONTAINED IN BOSFILES PERTAINING TO HER.”35
In the late 1950s, the tranquility of The Rocks was disturbed by a work crew from the New Hampshire Highway Department. A new expressway was being surveyed that would transect the Glessner estate, separating about a third of the land from the rest of the property.
Approaching eighty years old, practically deaf and blind, Lee was as willing as ever to muster up a battle. “I’ve been fighting the Highway Dept. to take their darned road elsewhere, but to no use,” she wrote in a letter to her son, John.36
According to Lee, the highway crew said to her, “As soon as it is determined exactly how much of your land we will take you will be offered a fair price for it.”
“Oh no, it won’t be a fair price,” she responded. “You will offer me the lowest figure you think you can get away with. If you don’t do that you will show that you are not a good businessman.”
The work crew and Lee parted as friends. “If I must lose my farm, you will find me a good loser,” she told them. “I will not make unnecessary difficulties but will cooperate with you to the best of my ability.” They agreed to do the same.
Lee invited the work crew to lunch and served them cocktails before the meal. “I had them come up to lunch two weeks ago and gave them a swell meal,” she wrote to her son. “We had some drinks all around before lunch and I drank to them individually and by name and added ‘down with the Highway Department!’”
Work crews drilled core samples to assess the underlying geology of the area. “I was praying for quicksand but they got solid granite,” Lee said. They gave Lee two pieces of granite core taken from her property, heavy cylinders of gray rock about two feet long. She had the granite polished and made into table lamps.
The road surveyed by the work crew became I-93, which now runs from Boston through Concord and the White Mountains to Waterford, Vermont. Lee remained living in her cottage at The Rocks until, as time went on, difficulty walking limited her mobility. In 1957, Lee purchased a prefabricated house trailer and had it placed behind the cottage. Gleaming aluminum finished in white and lavender enamel, the mobile home looked like a space-age module in the rustic setting of The Rocks. Lee was delighted with her new scaled-down home. Inside the trailer, she could move about without a wheelchair or walker. Everything was new and worked. It was well-illuminated, had plenty of hot water for one person, and had more electrical outlets than Lee knew what to do with. Alton Mosher set a table and comfortable chair in front of a large window with a view of Mount Washington, and Lee planned to begin writing her own books there.
Lee’s spirit and energy never flagged, despite ongoing health problems and repeated bone fractures. In the summer of 1958, she broke a rib while leaning over an armchair to pick up a letter that had dropped to the floor. Whatever the obstacle, Lee put it behind her at day’s end with a shaker of cold, delicious martinis. “The cocktail hour has come to be important time with me—not for the liquor, but for the pause, the relaxation, the daintiness and prettiness of the service,” she said in a letter to her family. “In the day to day living, it is unwise to let it become entirely utilitarian—some of the graces and formal gracious living must be included or one would go completely to seed.”37
In another letter to her family, Lee reflected on her life. “As I sit quietly here, an old woman, I think back over my life and realize what a wonderfully rich life it has been,” she said. “Recently I read somewhere that when we are young, we cannot understand the problems of the old for we haven’t experienced them yet ourselves, and when we are old we have largely forgotten the problems of the young. But I haven’t forgotten, and I believe I am nearer a sympathetic understanding of the problems of those younger than they think possible. Anyway, it’s a good world and I am grateful I have been given a chance to play a part in it.”38
In February 1961, Parker Glass, assistant to Ford in the Department of Legal Medicine, wrote to Lee with heartbreaking news. An accumulation of snow and ice on the roof of Building E-1 had allowed water to leak onto the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Several dioramas had suffered water damage.
