Latham Timothy Souther 1874 - 1948

Born July 31, 1874 in Springfield, Illinois to George Howard Souther and Nancy Emily (Nannie) Latham.

Married LYNA CHASE Dec. 8, 1903 at St. Louis, Missouri.

Children:

Nancy Grace Souther
Mary Louise Souther
ELIZABETH LATHAM SOUTHER
Howard Chase Souther
Margaret Chase (Polly) Souther

Died April 15, 1948 in Springfield.

Purchased the oldest house in Springfield and moved it from its original location at Sixth & Cook Streets to 1825 S. Fifth Street, thereby saving it from demolition to make room for the First Christian Church. Now known as the Elijah Iles House, it has been moved to Seventh & Cook Streets in order to ensure its preservation.

To the far left of the photo, the Price-Wheeler Mansion can be seen. Various apartments in that old house were the residences of my brother Tom and sister Joan during the late 1980's. The present location of the Iles House next door to the Price-Wheeler Mansion is at the former address of our great-great-grandfather, Henry A. Stevens according to the Springfield City Directory.

We know Latham Souther for his role in preserving the Elijah Iles House, but he also played a role in the life of Vachel Lindsay that is not generally known. Souther was the Trust officer for the Lindsay estate and a long-time Lindsay family friend. Neither Latham nor Lyna Souther are mentioned by name in any of the Lindsay biographies, but Latham's name appears in at least two of Lindsay's preserved letters and a book with an incription by Lindsay to Mrs. Latham Souther is held in the Sangamon Valley Collection, a gift of Betty S. McMinn.

Masters, Edgar Lee Vachel Lindsay, A Biography, p. 334-336:

In the year after his mother died he suffered a complete nervous breakdown from which he never wholly recovered.

Fast following upon this came the legal and business matters of settling her estate. Philistine Springfield now saw its opportunity to get rid of Lindsay. He loved the old residence where he was born and had grown up. He had chosen Springfield for his own for life. To send him into exile unfriendly people in Springfield fomented an artifical disagreement between Lindsay and his sisters, one of whom then lived in China, and one in Cleveland, by which Lindsay lost occupancy of the house. Thus moved out of his ancestral abode, it was turned into a boarding house. The old heirlooms were packed in the closets, the miniatures of the Nicholases and the Vachels were locked away, and what Lindsay called "the fat rich illiterate, climacteric women of Springfield" had an enormous satisfaction in this circumstance, and in keeping well-disposed heirs on the warpath by a crossfire of "financial advice." Such are his own words. He dreamed that a Springfield university would have put these marplots right, and grieved that it was not yet established. Thus, with his father dying in 1918, and his mother in 1922, and with the loss of this beloved house, his city passed from his hands too, the city of his special choice and illimitable dreams. His world collapsed in ruins all at one fell swoop. His woe had come from those who hated poetry and the whole poetry movement, with a deadly hatred, as Lindsay declared, and so with Lindsay's departure believed that the future of Springfield was in their hands. After Lindsay was gone and was thus out of their way they could, without the offense of his presence, show Springfiled visitors the room in which Lindsay was born, and the room where he wrote and drew, which contained furniture made by Lindsay with his own hands when he was a boy of thirteen. "All the fat females who are so lustful of useless power, who brought this about, not one of them ever willingly opened a book in her life." So wrote Lindsay to me from Spokane in 1927. In this letter Lindsay siad that he had not had a five-year uphill fight for nothing, but that he was settled happily in Spokane, with an entirely new start that he would not give up for the world. Yet in about two years he was back in Springfield, for to quote the letter again, "I am not going to be robbed of Central Illinois by anyone, however deft and powerful they may be. The word Springfield is written in letters of Utopian gold, is going into every paper and book I write till I die. It will be the mystic city of America. Think of all those people in Springfield pawing my things over, and showing them to visitors, as though I was the 'dear departed.' They ran me out to do it, but I will make Springfield a beautiful city yet."
What should Lindsay do now, thus practically run out of Springfield?

ibid, p. 354 calls the contract for the old house "onerous".

From Ruggles:

Page 372-373 --

Yet his spirit was not at rest. There were days when he hated and was homeless. At this time, writing to Masters, he charged that after his mother's death he had been "banished" from his town and "lost" the home that was his by right owing to the machinations of those whom he called, on a rising note of fury, "the fat rich illiterate climacteric women of Springfield."

"My father, my mother my ancestral home and my city, the very city of my special choice and illimitable dreams -- all lost at one fell swoop ... because a few fat illiterate rich women hated to whole New Poetry movement and all it implied with a deadly hatred."

He was writing on June 28, 1927. Eighteen months earlier, he had hurled his tirade against the clubwomen of America soon after he and Elizabeth walked by, almost like strangers, the house of his boyhood. Again it was in the recollection of that unspeakably dispiriting glimpse that he now told Masters: "The whole house looks like the wrath of God."

He seriously declared to Masters that it was the Springfield bankers' wives, his lifelong enemies, an "absolutely close corporation," who in 1922 had run him out.

"Lustful of useless power ... those fat females," cried Lindsay, had deliberately fomented a disageement among him and his sisters abouth the handling of the property -- "the whole thing was to give the local trust companies fat pickings on a hundred thousand dollar estate entirely out of debt..."

Since 1921 the management of Lindsay's estate, a part of which was mortgaged, had been in the hands of a Springfield bank. The officer directly responsible for the administering was an old family friend; he had reported to Mrs. Lindsay and after her death to her three children. Then for a year the house was rented to a private family -- though Vachel, before his move to Spokane, still kept his books and papers there -- after which the Wakefields occupied it on their furlough home in 1923. When Olive and Paul returned to China, it was Joy, the youngest but most practical of the heirs , who with the consent of the others made the decision to rent the house furnished to the Business and Professional Women's Club.

All this Lindsay ignored in his letter to Masters, which, written in a blinding nervous rage, was yet the source of the account, was yet the source of the account of his leaving Springfield later given by Masters in his biography of Lindsay.

Masters had his own grudge against the Philistine small cities of the Midwest. He swallowed his friend's extravagant claims greedily and entire, making no allowances for a state of mind indicated even by the deteriorating handwriting, and replying, "I never have read of anything more infamous except in books of history ... Be sure history will want the story."

From Ruggles, paraphrasing and quoting Lindsay:

. . . the bank executive and supposed good friend who was handling the estate and who "does not want me in Springfield in that house. He has always considered it sheer impudence for me to write books. . . ."

Masters biography of Lindsay, which appeared in 1935, must have mortified Latham and Lyna Souther. Although it is not known whether they read the book, it is practically inconceivable that they would not have been aware of it. Lyna may or may not have been one of the bankers' wives Lindsay complaned about. It is not positively known. Lyna was the wife of the banker he told Masters was trying to prevent his return to

Chenetier, Marc, editor, Letters of Vachel Lindsay, Burt Franklin & Co., New York 1979

Exerpt from letter to Ben and Joy Blair, December 30, 1926, p. 374:

"I think the sooner the Springfield property is sold off, the better. George Greenwood of Spokane, Vice President fo the Old National Bank and Cashier here, is going to begin to urge Latham Souther to sell all the rest of the Springfield property as soon as is possible, and sensible. Latham seems to respect Greenwood's letters much more than he does my own. Greenwood seems to be able to write in that mysterious trust company phraseaology, which indicates to your real business man that business is being transacted.

"I was very much pleased that you two were pleased over the sale of the Lawrence Avenue properties. I know you believe in the sale of the Fifth and Edwards Street property. I have urged it all along and I am going to ask George Greenwood to urge it in my name, and Elizabeth's. In this she heartily concurs. If you ever are inclined to protest, write us, of course, but I fancy you are still of the same mind."

Expert from letter to Harriet Monroe, December 14, 1927, p. 417:

"The trust officer of my Springfield estate cannot write me a single letter without spatting me on the wrist for continuing to be a poet. He is forced to to approve of my old work."