Willkie, Edith Wilk, 1890-1978

In January 1918 he married Edith Wilk, a librarian from Rushville, Indiana; the couple had one son, Philip. In France, Willkie was assigned to defending soldiers who had slipped away for time in Paris against orders. He was recommended for promotion to captain, but was discharged in early 1919 before the paperwork went through.[2][13] Wendell and Edith Willkie moved to New York in October 1929, only weeks before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and found an apartment overlooking Central Park. On September 12, Willkie began a whistle-stop tour by train, and between then and November 2, he reached 31 of the 48 states. He did not visit the Solid South, though he spoke in Texas, hoping to win it as Hoover had in 1928. Willkie filled the Los Angeles Coliseum with 70,000 middle-class supporters, but reporters saw few working-class people at his rallies, and he cancelled some appearances at auto plants in the Midwest. Other people in working-class areas booed the candidate, held up signs in support of Roosevelt, or pelted his motorcade with overripe fruit.[71] Although Edith Willkie accompanied her husband on his tour (he had little time for contact with Van Doren), she disliked the media attention and did not give interviews, completing the campaign without ever giving a speech. On one occasion, she looked at her husband and stated, "Politics makes strange bedfellows".[72] The Democrats knew of Willkie's affair with Van Doren, but the Republicans had letters from Henry A. Wallace, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, to his former guru, Russian mystic Nicholas Roerich, and neither issue became a factor in the campaign.[73] Roosevelt released a statement applauding Willkie's "tremendous courage" which "prompted him more than once to stand alone ... In this hour of grave crisis the nation loses a great citizen."[139] War Secretary Stimson offered to have Willkie buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but Edith Willkie wanted her husband to be buried in his native Indiana, at Rushville.[140] His casket was placed in the center aisle of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church; 60,000 people filed by his casket, and 35,000 crowded around the church during the service, including many blacks—as, Eleanor Roosevelt noted in her column, was fitting. Wendell and Edith Willkie rest together in Rushville's East Hill Cemetery, the gravesite was marked by a cross, and a book was carved in stone, designed by sculptor Malvina Hoffman, and inscribed with quotations from One World.[140][141]: 11