Copyright © 2020 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
In 1918, Thomas G. Moses went on an auto trip to South Bend, Indiana. He was accompanied by Lester and Jessie Landis. Of the experience, he wrote, “July 2nd, Lester, his wife and myself started for Battle Creek by the way of South Bend in his auto. We had a delightful trip, spending the 4th of July in South Bend and coming away with a $1,200.00 contract.” Earlier that spring, Moses recorded that the studio “Did considerable work for South Bend in April.”
When Joseph S. Sosman passed away in 1915, stockholders elected Moses as president of the Sosman and Landis Company, Sosman’s stepson Arthur as vice-president and Landis’s son P. Lester Landis as secretary and treasurer. This occurred only two months after Lester married Jessie Medbury. By the end of the 1915, Moses wrote, “I hope within a year that Lester will get into the office work so I will not have much of that to do.”
Lester was slow to take on the company reigns for a couple of factors. The first being his recent marriage to actress Jessie Medbury in summer. At the same time, Arthur Sosman did not success in the role of vice president. By 1916, his mother replaced him in the role. On October 10,1916, Moses was re-elected president of the company, with Mrs. Sosman as vice president and Lester Landis as the secretary and treasurer. This was the same year that Lester and Jessie’s son was born with downs syndrome. The company is still in turmoil from Sosman’s passing, each family is struggling with their individual problems and America enters the was. Now throw in clients not paying their bills, or delaying payments; it was a rough period, but Lester remains in the position of secretary and treasurer.
By 1918, Lester is more active in his role, and Moses even mentions his success in collecting overdue payments for some projects, but the company is still faltering. By that fall, Moses decided to leave, writing, “September 1st, I resigned as President of the Sosman and Landis Company which severs my connection with the firm after thirty-eight years of service. I joined the New York Studios and expect to get a studio and an office to do business. The Sosman and Landis Company have only done $85,000.00 worth of work for the past year. We should have done about $116,000.00 worth to make money.” Lester stays and soon becomes company president. He was never a painter, never had the same connections as his father, or really understood how the business was run. This had to have been an extremely difficult time for Lester, especially as he and Jessie disagreed on how to raise a child with special needs.
Although Moses resigned as President of Sosman & Landis in 1918, he would sporadically work with Lester, mentioning him again 1922. That year they pitched a new design for the Scottish Rite Valley of Little Rock, Arkansas. However, Sosman & Landis was preparing to fold and the vultures were waiting in the wings to grab what was left.
In 1923, Moses and Fred Megan purchased the name of Sosman & Landis. Megan was previously associated with the Kansas City scenic Co., but had subcontracted work to Sosman & Landis over the years. The pair would try to convince Lester to work with them again in 1925 after successfully purchasing the name and reorganizing Sosman & Landis. In short, Moses seems to have genuinely liked Lester to have made the offer. This may have been the turning point for Lester when he declined the position, as he didn’t remain with the theatre industry long after that. Although he was listed in the Evanston Directory as a salesman for theatrical supplies in Chicago in 1931, by 1935 he was a salesman for North Shore Buick Co. He would remain an automobile salesman until his passing twenty years later.
Lester and his wife add an interesting twist to the overall story of Sosman & Landis, as well as the life and times of Thomas G. Moses. I am going to take a moment to focus on the Landis family.
Perry “Lester” Landis was born on October 25, 1892. He was the son of Perry and Nora Landis. His father, Perry, co-founded Sosman & Landis with Joseph S. Sosman in 1877. The Landis family was theatrical one, with two of Perry’s brothers being well-known minstrel performers during the late nineteenth century.
Perry and Nora were married in 1881 and the couple celebrated the birth of only two children: Viola E. Landis (1885) and P. Lester (1893). By 1899, the family moved from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, when Perry was listed as a co-founder and “scenic artist” at Sosman & Landis. Despite the success of the studio, the Landis family experienced quite a bit of sorrow over the years, as father Perry and daughter Viola dies within six months of each other; Perry died in 1905. Lester’s son also died in 1928 from the flu. Perry had been extremely sick for three years before his passing.
During the 1920s, however, everything also goes wrong for his son Lester. The loss of his son to influenza in 1928 immediately led to the loss of his wife. They had struggled for years concerning the care of their son and her desire to have a career. Jessie Royce Landis would eventually find success as an actress and film star and publish her autobiography, “You Won’t Be So Pretty (But You’ll Know More)” in 1954. I have been trying to get my hands on a copy for quite some time now, as I only have a few Xeroxed pages that were tucked away in the John H. Rothgeb papers at the University of Texas, Austin.
In her book, Jessie describes the early years of her marriage and the birth of her son. She married Lester on June 7, 1915, and the couple celebrate the birth of a son in 1916. Medbury Perry Landis was named after his two grandfathers – Medbury for her father and Perry for Lester’s.
Medbury was born with down’s syndrome. Of her son’s early years, Jessie wrote, “Meddie was a beautiful baby and almost too good to believe. He seldom cried. During the first two years of his life everything went wrong in the Landis home. The business from which they derived their incomes began to fail and it was disclosed for many years the dividends had been paid out of capital. Lester tried to nurse it back, but he knew nothing about the business and it was all pretty hopeless. The family had never had to economize and couldn’t believe that it was necessary to do so now. ‘It will turn out right somehow,’ Mother Landis would say and they continued to live as they had always lived. I, who had known the ups and downs of fortune, seemed to be the only one to worry.”
It was during this time of extreme financial difficulties that Jessie returns to acting for additional income. After a series of charitable performances, she begins working as an actor and director for the North Shore Players. By 1926 she was performing on Broadway, with her last Broadway show, “Roar Like a Dove,” in 1964. As with many performer, love theatre was her first love, even after appearing on the big screen. In the 1920s, Jessie was touring on the road, her son was enrolled in a special school, and her husband was struggling with his own career. By 1928, their son had passed away from influenza, Sosman & Landis had closed and then reopened under the management of Moses, and Jessie’s career took off. Too many factors for their marriage to survive.
Although Jessie was married two more times, she retained Landis as her stage name. From 1937-1944 she was married to Rex Smith, and in 1956 she married US Army Major General John F. R. “Jeff” Seitz. In hindsight, keeping the Landis name it may have been a strategic move, as the Landis family was well-known for their theatrical connections also across the country.
Jessie Royce Landis is worthy of mention in her own right. She was born Jessie Medbury on Nov. 25, 1896. “Royce” was not her original middle name, only “T” or “J” are listed as middle initials in census reports. Later in life, Jessie described her childhood as the daughter of a symphonic musician, explaining “a hankering for the stage since childhood” (Stars and Stripes Newsletter, August 6, 1961). She continued, “When other children were playing with their dolls, I would be playing theater. I do remember I used to put on little shows in the backyard.” As a 14 year old, Jessie had received a scholarship to attend the Hinshaw Dramatic School. She also recalled additional studies as a pianist at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. She met her husband while performing with the Evanston Stock Comedy. The Landis’ were a big name in Evanston and the theatre industry. Their marriage must have seemed like a perfect fit, and it was for a very brief while.
Lester’s WWI draft record described him as medium height and medium build with brown hair and brown eyes. At the time, his present occupation was listed as a manufacturer of stage scenery at Sosman & Landis. The couple celebrated the birth of their son Medbury in 1921, Sosman & Landis is liquidated in 1923, and Jessie returned to the stage in 1924. That year, newspapers noted that she was both acting and directing with the North Shore Players, going on tour with a production of “The Highwayman.” This is when her career begins to take off – immediately after the collapse of Sosman & Landis. By the 1950s she begins appearing in movies, including “To Catch a Thief” (1955), “The Swan” (1956) and “North by Northwest” (1959). In “North By Northwest,” she plays Cary Grant’s mother.
The same year that Jessie married Rex Smith, Lester also remarried. On October 2, 1937, Lester married Mrs. Elsie C. Karger; the couple stayed together until his passing. Lester passed away at the age of 62 in 1955. At the end of his life he was still an automobile salesman, living in Belleville with his second wife. He had been in the town for four years, having moved from O’Fallon. Both his wife and stepdaughter Jacqueline (Mrs. Charles Schultz) of Columbia, Illinois were listed in his obituary.
To be continued…
The resilency in theatre is required skillset…and in life.