The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post: A Novel

Marjorie’s father, Charles William Post, “loomed largest over [her] girlhood and its earliest memories” (12). He is described as over six feet tall with blue eyes. Marjorie likens him to Abraham Lincoln, as “both sprung up from nothing but their own grit and the fertile frontier soil” (12). After surviving the illness that plagues him when they first arrive in Battle Creek, Charles William credits his health to Christian Science. After recovery, he works diligently to create a cereal empire. Like Marjorie, Charles William becomes an extravagant lover of luxury; his fortune means he is never quite sated by owning one property; instead, he buys multiple, always keeping his eye out for the next investment.

While Post Cereal Company generates exorbitant wealth for the Post family, Charles William considers himself almost a philanthropist for selling cereal and other foods meant to make people’s lives easier and healthier. Later in the novel, Marjorie uses this same self-justification to rationalize her lavish lifestyle by thinking of herself as primarily a doer of good. Charles William’s impact on Marjorie’s business acumen is apparent; she often has an eye for the market General Foods should expand into, as when she decides to acquire a frozen food company. Her early experience in managing her own estate, down to balancing her books, makes her internalize Charles William’s idea that “It’s a question of having your affairs in hand. The greater the wealth, the greater the need for careful oversight” (100). She will remember these lessons as she grows older and takes a larger role in the family business.

However, Charles William, like many of the men in Marjorie’s life, does not always treat women well. His affair with Leila nearly shatters her estimation of her father, and it puts distance between them. Marjorie sees that her mother Ella’s health is ruined by her divorce from Charles William; she believes that Ella dies of heartbreak. Thus, Charles William is the first man to break Marjorie’s heart, even though she loves and admires him until his death as “the one-man symbol to so many of hope, hard and honest work, and opportunity” (123).

Edward “Ed” Close is Marjorie’s first husband. He comes from an old-money family in Connecticut, and meets Marjorie when she is still enrolled at Mount Vernon Seminary in Washington, DC. They are quickly engaged and marry after Marjorie finishes school. Together, they have two daughters, Adelaide and Eleanor.

Marjorie and Ed’s relationship embodies the tension between old and new money families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Post fortune is acquired through business in one generation; this marks the family as too closely connected to the merchant class and thus considered socially “inferior” to the members of the Four Hundred—a loose collection of East Coast upper-crust families that form the US social elite. In contrast, Close family wealth comes from landownership rather than business and has been passed down through several generations. As a result, Ed’s mother disapproves of Marjorie, seeing her as much less refined than her son and those with whom she regularly socializes. This is a tension that Ed comes to embody, often telling Marjorie that her taste and behavior are provincial and gauche—“just not done” (122). As Marjorie grows more independent, she is unable to reconcile their early love with the control that Ed seeks to exert over her, even though much of their life is now paid for by her father’s fortune.

This tension is particularly evident after World War I. After being drafted and serving, Ed returns to find that Marjorie has become an active philanthropist and an advocate for women’s suffrage. He expresses his distaste for her being so much in the public sphere, which he finds inappropriate for women. His beliefs about the role of women harken back to his patriarchal upbringing. The last straw for their marriage is Ed’s scorn for Marjorie’s abstinence from alcohol as a result of her Christian Scientist faith. The two divorce in 1919.

The widowed Edward “Ned” Hutton is Marjorie’s second husband. When Ned’s son, Harcourt, dies in an accident shortly after their wedding, Marjorie decides that she would like to have a child with Ned. Nedenia “Deenie” Hutton is named for her father.

Marjorie appreciates Ned’s humble roots, his enthusiasm and involvement in the Post family business, and his investment in the charitable causes she supports. They both open free kitchens during the Great Depression, an economic catastrophe that her wealth allows them to not be affected by.

Ned’s active participation in General Foods eventually results in his resentment that it is Marjorie’s family money that supports their lavish lifestyle. When she looks to participate more actively in the business, he refuses to yield any control or look to her for advice. Their relationship experiences its first major challenge when she thinks that Post Cereal Company should acquire Birdseye Frozen Foods, despite Ned’s belief that it is a foolish investment as people will then have to buy refrigerators. However, Marjorie goes behind his back to inquire and later purchase the company, which ends up being a great and lasting success.

Eventually, Ned has an affair with a member of their staff, and Marjorie divorces him.

Marjorie’s third marriage is her longest. They first meet in 1935, and Joe is “tall and slim, with dark hair and, from the looks of it, a strong opinion on whatever topic he was discussing” (241). They fall in love quickly, though she demands that he divorce his wife before they commence a relationship, having just divorced Ned for infidelity.

At first, Joe appears humble and modest despite his longstanding friendships with US Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. When Joe becomes US ambassador to the USSR on the eve of WWII, he and Marjorie move to Moscow, where she uses her talent for hosting social events to contribute to the process of diplomacy. After the war, however, Joe grows increasingly jealous of Marjorie’s ability to socialize with political giants, especially as he loses favor with the Oval Office after FDR passes away and his book, Mission to Moscow, is dismissed as “propaganda for the Soviets” (323) with the onset of the Cold War.

Marjorie is reticent to divorce Joe until he becomes emotionally abusive and his angry outbursts cause her daughters to avoid him. When he takes his frustration about his lack of social standing out on her, she divorces him. Joe’s resentment of Marjorie is especially embodied in his desire to retain many of the treasures she purchased while they lived in Moscow, despite their value to her.

Herbert May is Marjorie’s fourth husband, and she is only married to him for a short period of time. When they meet, he is a widower, and Marjorie is surprised to find herself falling in love again. However, Herb has several affairs with young men. While those around Marjorie notice his attraction to men, she remains unaware until shown evidence, swept up by late in life love.