On Writing The Lindbergh Nanny

As a teenager, I was obsessed with I, Claudius. I had a mild speech impediment and learned very quickly at school that, as far as my peers were concerned, I didn’t do the talking thing well. So I felt a natural affinity with the awkward stammering Claudius who survives generations of his relatives poisoning, stabbing, and suffocating one another precisely because no one notices him or takes him seriously.

I like people who are overlooked. Smiley as opposed to James Bond, Miss Marple as opposed to Poirot. When I started writing mysteries, I chose a lady’s maid as my detective because I wanted the sleuth to be in a position to see and hear things others wouldn’t; the wealthy people she serves don’t worry about her presence because to them, she’s not a person, she’s a household implement. A broom or a toaster. 

So when my publisher asked for a historical standalone, I immediately started slotting servants into famous historical events. A waiter on the Titanic? The chauffeur driving Archduke Franz Ferdinand? One snag: my book was supposed to be a mystery. There weren’t a lot of unanswered questions about those events.

Then I remembered Murder on the Orient Express. The film where the opening sequence showed the kidnapping of Little Daisy Armstrong, as her nanny lies helpless, tied up on the floor. I knew the book had been inspired by the Lindbergh kidnapping of 1932. Had the Lindberghs had a nanny? If so, who was she and what had happened to her?

A quick search revealed that the Lindberghs did have a nanny. Or nurse, the proper term at the time. (Although not as beloved by publishing as nanny, hence my title.) She was a young Scottish woman named Betty Gow. Her letters and interviews revealed her to be sharp witted, eloquent enough to narrate a story. More importantly, she was the last person to see baby Charlie alive and the first to discover he was missing. Most important of all, she was a suspect. As was her boyfriend. As were several members of the Lindbergh and Morrow staff, because the police believed someone in one of the households had helped the kidnappers.

Previously, I had never written about real people. Now I had a large cast that included one of the most admired and reviled Americans of the 20th century. So as I dug into the case, reading the many books, biographies of both Lindberghs, police records, and newspaper accounts, I viewed everyone, including my heroine, as a possible suspect. Did she care for the baby? Did the Lindberghs treat her well? Was she a happy, mature personality? Or a bit lost? Unstable? Naïve? 

Certainly that was how the newspapers presented her: an attractive woman, nearly 30, but still unmarried. Her boyfriend had recently entered her life and he was sweet, but his employment history was sketchy enough to spark interest. One officer called Betty “the coolest of the lot.” One of the people interviewed by the police claimed to have known the Gow family in Glasgow and said they were disreputable people. That was certainly intriguing. 

But Betty’s letters home and her answers to the police and in court indicated a level of self-possession and personal pride. This was a young woman who knew what was correct and what was not, and she wasn’t going to be bossed. She had a dry sense of humor. She disliked Colonel Lindbergh, admired Mrs. Lindbergh, but didn’t seem over-awed by them. And there was one thing everyone agreed on: she adored Charlie. This wasn’t going to be a “When Nannies Go Bad” mystery. 

I don’t want to give away more than that. But I can say that researching the experiences of the Lindbergh staff, the false narratives that were created around them, allowed me to explore the lives and expectations of women in the early 30s, both for wealthy, well educated women like Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and for those like Betty Gow, who left school at 14 and would never have dreamed she’d be caught up in the most infamous kidnapping in American history, becoming front page news here and abroad. In addition to Betty, the story encompasses the tragedy of Violet Sharpe, a table maid whose treatment by the police and subsequent suicide, sparked outrage in England and caught the eye of a mystery writer named Agatha Christie. 

Betty had to testify at the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. She entered the court still guilty in the eyes of many. Brutally interrogated by a defense attorney hoping to confuse the jury, she fought back—and won. For the first time, she got to assert her own narrative and it was a complete triumph. It has been an honor and pleasure to tell her story.

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Website: https://www.mariahfredericksbooks.com/

Twitter @MariahFrederick

THE LINDBERGH NANNY

Mariah Fredericks’s The Lindbergh Nanny is powerful, propulsive novel about America’s most notorious kidnapping through the eyes of the woman who found herself at the heart of this deadly crime.

“A masterful blending of fact and fiction that is as compelling as it is entertaining.”―Nelson DeMille

When the most famous toddler in America, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnapped from his family home in New Jersey in 1932, the case makes international headlines. Already celebrated for his flight across the Atlantic, his father, Charles, Sr., is the country’s golden boy, with his wealthy, lovely wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by his side. But there’s someone else in their household―Betty Gow, a formerly obscure young woman, now known around the world by another name: the Lindbergh Nanny.

A Scottish immigrant deciphering the rules of her new homeland and its East Coast elite, Betty finds Colonel Lindbergh eccentric and often odd, Mrs. Lindbergh kind yet nervous, and Charlie simply a darling. Far from home and bruised from a love affair gone horribly wrong, Betty finds comfort in caring for the child, and warms to the attentions of handsome sailor Henrik, sometimes known as Red. Then, Charlie disappears.

Suddenly a suspect in the eyes of both the media and the public, Betty must find the truth about what really happened that night, in order to clear her own name―and to find justice for the child she loves.

“Gripping and elegant, The Lindbergh Nanny brings readers into the interior of the twentieth century’s most infamous crime.”―Nina de Gramont, New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair

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Category: On Writing