Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gary Robert Pinnell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Gary Robert, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

I am writing a nonfiction story, The Madness of E.W. and Lydie Marland. He was the world’s most successful independent oilman in the 1920s. After his wife died in 1926, his daughter, Lydie, is rumored to have become pregnant in 1927. Lydie was admitted to a NYC hospital a few blocks from his hotel at the Plaza, then to an asylum. They married in 1928, but the aftershock of postpartum depression may have continued the rest of her life. Ironically (and everything about this story is ironic) he lost his fortune and she may have sacrificed her sanity, but despite their taboo marriage, he was elected to Congress and to governor.
How did I get started with this story?
I was the editor of The Seminole Producer in 1992 when Governor David Walters invited Oklahoma reporters and photographers aboard a tour bus, and to write about the state. At Ponca City, Marland Mansion docents told us about Ernest Whitworth Marland. I hadn’t heard of him, but he was the most successful wildcatter of the Roaring Twenties: he struck oil so often, his Oklahoma company became worth one hundred million dollars.
By 1912, E.W., thirty-eight, and his wife, Mary Virginia Collins Marland, thirty-six, had dozens of oil wells and the highest status in their community. However, they were childless. With E.W. gone most of the time, they invited her nephew and niece, George C. Roberts, fourteen, and Lydie Miller Roberts, twelve, to spend the next four summers in Ponca City.
The Marlands offered to adopt the children in 1916. Grindingly poor, George F. and Margaret Roberts, supported their four, plus his three nieces whose mother had died. They reluctantly agreed, but later it was rumored that George F., who sold produce from a cart, had accepted fifty thousand dollars from the Marlands. The Marlands sent George and Lydie to Catholic schools to catch up, then George to Yale, Pittsburgh and OU. Lydie went to three Eastern finishing schools.
By 1923, E.W. was one of the wealthiest men in America, but started making erratic decisions. To grow his company faster, and to compete with J.D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire, E.W. borrowed millions from corporate pirate J.P. Morgan’s bank. The nouveau riche president of Marland Oil also spent insane amounts of cash for a yacht, a sumptuous private railroad car, and a Plaza hotel suite in New York City. In 1925, he bought a Mississippi plantation and remodeled the manor into a second mansion. In 1926, an architect designed a third mansion in Ponca City, and E.W. hired European artisans to build a palace on the prairie with gold hammered into one of the ballroom ceilings.
But then, their world darkened into gothic anxiety. Virginia died, reportedly of cancer; an economic downturn slowed the Roaring Twenties economy, and the price of oil dropped.
Rich and famous, E.W. was chatted about in the society pages. Friends often saw him and Lydie talking together, riding horses together, traveling together, and enjoying each other’s company more than seemly for a father and daughter. Early in 1927, talk started that Lydie was pregnant.
The worldwide publicity, the disapproval of family and friends, and a possible case of post-partum depression were too much for Lydie. The New York Times reported she was admitted to a New York City hospital in 1927 for “anemia.” In a second Times article, that turned out to be a “nervous condition.” A third Times story referred to a New Jersey asylum.
They had ample warning of what would happen, but in January 1928, E.W. announced news that startled the world: they were engaged. They returned to the same Philadelphia court where George and Lydie had been adopted, and their fosterage was annulled.
The fifty-four year-old Oklahoma oil tycoon and his lovely twenty-eight-year-old former daughter created a sensation. The scandal was printed in Sunday supplements in newspapers across America and internationally, anywhere E.W. did business.
Corporate pirate J.P. Jack Morgan, whose bank financed Marland Oil, was furious about E.W.’s scandal. Morgan bamboozled E.W. into resigning, and in 1929 merged Marland Oil Company with CONOCO, which Rockefeller had controlled until the U.S. Supreme Court broke up Standard Oil in 1911, and might still.
Even though he had a taboo marriage, E.W. was elected to Congress in 1932 and to governor in 1934, and served during the worst years of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.
After listening to the Marland Mansion docents, I wondered, why I hadn’t I read the Marland story? Someone should write a book.

Gary Robert, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I tell people I went to college on the 20-year plan. I started at the University of Oklahoma in 1971, and dropped in and out. I finally finished with a BA in political science in 1983, and an MA in journalism in 1992. I worked as a community newspaper reporter for 35 years. My requirement for a new job was that it be in a state I had not lived before, so I worked in Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and I retired in Florida in 2017. The benefit about being a small-community reporter was writing about local commerce. I learned about wheat in Perryton, Texas; sugar beets in Scotsbluff, Nebraska; chickens in Alexandria, Louisiana; Amish farmers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; apples in Virginia; and citrus in Sebring, Florida.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Lydie and E.W. proved life is about the choices we make. They were tragic figures, so their story ends badly. They made an unwise choice in 1926, and paid for it until the day they died.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I have researched and written this story, off and on (mostly off, after I retired mostly on) for 33 years. I am determined to publish it. I write in public, so nearly every day, I journey to Starbucks, Panera, the Corner Bakery, McDonald’s, McAllister’s, any place that has wifi, an electric plug and soft seats (my butt fell off years ago).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://garyrobertpinnell.com
• Facebook: Gary Pinnell, Gary Robert Pinnell