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Thomas Alexander
Boyd ~ (1) Margaret Woodward Smith
(2)
Ruth Fitch Bartlett
Defiance County, Ohio
Thomas Alexander Boyd, novelist, was born on July 3, 1898, in Defiance, Ohio, the only child of Thomas Alexander and Alice (Dunbar) Boyd. His
father, who came of Canadian stock, had died three months earlier, and he was brought up by his mother's family in Ohio. His mother, who had returned to the profession of nursing after her husband's death, sent her son to various public and private schools, including Porter Military Academy, Woodward High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Elgin Academy in Illinois. On May 14, 1917, while still a student at Elgin Academy, Boyd, together with a friend enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was trained at Paris Island, South Carolina, and Quantico, Virginia, and in September 1917 went to
France with the Sixth Regiment. He saw action at Belleau Wood, Soissons, and St. Mihiel and was awarded the croix de guerre. In the autumn of 1918 he was gassed, but he recovered and served with the Army of Occupation in Germany. He was discharged from the Marines in July 1919. After various unsatisfactory jobs in Chicago, Illinois, and elsewhere, he went to
Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he worked for a time on the Non-Partisan League paper, the Minneapolis Star, and subsequently on the St. Paul Daily News. On October 15, 1920, he was married to a third cousin on his mother's side, Margaret Woodward Smith. With Cornelius Van Ness he opened a bookstore called Kilmarnock Books, and soon afterward he began editing a weekly book page for the Daily News. His only child, Elizabeth
Grace Boyd, was born in November 1921.
Kilmarnock Books became a center for the literary life of St. Paul, and Boyd became acquainted with such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and Charles Flandrau. Urged on by them, he began to write a novel based on his experiences in the war, which was finally published in 1923 under the title of "Through the Wheat". One of the earliest and best of the realistic war
novels, clearly showing the influence of Stephen Crane, it was well received by most critics and established Boyd's reputation. Other writing followed, including a number of short stories of the war that were first published in magazines and then in a volume called "Points of Honor" (1925). Also published in 1925 was "Samuel Drummond", a novel based on the life of Boyd's maternal grandfather, Samuel Dunbar. In 1928 he published a biography, "Simon Girty", the "White Savage", and subsequently he wrote "Mad Anthony Wayne" (1929) and "Light-Horse Harry Lee" (1931). Both are competently written and interesting, but neither is strikingly original. In this period Boyd also wrote for the magazines, sometimes in collaboration with his wife, whose pen name was Woodward Boyd.
Divorced from his first wife, Boyd married Ruth Fitch Bartlett on December 30, 1929. He had long taken a friendly interest in socialism, and the Depression of the early thirties intensified his dissatisfaction with the capitalist system. Always impulsive, impatient with theory and eager for action, he looked about for something he could do. He was at this time (1933-1934) living in Vermont, and he became greatly concerned about a strike of quarry workers. Finally he joined the Communist party and was its candidate for governor of Vermont in the election of 1934. Early in 1935 he died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of thirty-seven. Two books were published posthumously: the novel "In Time of Peace" (1935), which was a sequel to "Through the Wheat", carrying on the story of its autobiographical hero and clearly revealing the author's revolutionary predilections; and Boyd's best biography, "Poor John Fitch: Inventor of the Steamboat" (1935). None of his subsequent books, however, made an impression equal to that of "Through the Wheat".
Source: Ohio Biographical Dictionary, Second Edition, Vol I, Summerset Publishers, Inc.
I. S. B. N. 0-403-09970-6
Hello,
I am a great fan of the novel, Through the Wheat.
I am looking for any piece that Thomas Boyd might have written about
living in Vermont or meeting Sinclair Lewis in Vermont or running for
governor in Vermont.
Thank you so much for your help.
Ann McKinstry Micou annmicou "at"
aol.com
P.O Box 273
South Newfane, VT 05351
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