Madeleine Edison Sloane
By Alexandria Edwards, Marketing and Public Relations Coordinator
Madeleine Edison (seated far left) and group sitting by the Seminole Lodge fountain circa 1907
Affectionately nicknamed “Toots” by her relatives, Madeleine Edison Sloane was born on May 31, 1888, and was the only daughter of Thomas and Mina Edison. She attended Miss Henning’s Kindergarten school in Glenmont, New Jersey, and completed her early education at the Oak Place School. Oak Place was a small girls’ preparatory school run by two of Madeleine’s aunts. To aid the children’s success in school, Thomas and Mina Edison administered pop-quizzes during breakfast based on the children’s homework.
Besides attending school, the Edisons valued research and diligent reading as a solid form of education. The world-famous inventor encouraged his children to help him go through volumes of science reference books in the upstairs living room at Glenmont and make notations to aid his laboratory work. There were also five newspapers in the house that the family could read, or anything written by Shakespeare, Charles Lamb, or Tennyson was recommended by Thomas Edison, which Mina often read to the children before dinner. During her free time, Madeleine studied French and read “Little Women.”
Starting in 1885, the Edison family wintered at their Fort Myers estate, Seminole Lodge, from January to March through 1931, the year Edison passed away. When the Edison’s were away from their Glenmont estate in New Jersey, Mina often worried about her children missing several weeks of school. Mina spoke to her sister, Grace (the school administrator) and she approved a class trip to Florida for Madeleine and four other girls in 1906. Since the Edison’s Fort Myers home, was too small to house everyone, the teacher and the girls stayed at the Fort Myers hotel; the remainder of the Edison family stayed at Seminole Lodge. Madeleine’s guests wrote glowing letters about their experiences in Southwest Florida and sent them to Mina’s house in Ohio. Classroom sessions were held in a variety of locations, including the Fort Myers Hotel, the end of the Edison pier, and on the Menge brothers’ ships.
During their time at the Edisons’ estate, Mr. Edison thought it would be fun to host a five-day steamship trip up the Caloosahatchee River. Mrs. Edison gave the girls a birding lesson while pointing out a Curlew, an Everglades Kite, and a Turkey Vulture that they saw along the way. After crossing Lake Flint and Lake Hicpochee, they reached Okeechobee. According to the Fort Myers Press, the girls “seemed subdued by the indescribable feeling that comes over one, unlike that felt at sea, to find yourself out of sight of land on the Okeechobee.” When the group returned to Seminole Lodge, they sang a song to honor Captain Menge, who reportedly blushed profusely.
In the fall of that year, Madeleine began her studies at Bryn Mawr, a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. She found success in her English and drama classes that she shared with two freshmen, Mary Worthington and Peggy James. Peggy’s father, William James, wrote the text, “Principles of Psychology,” an integral part of the undergraduate syllabus. When Madeleine was not attending class, she enjoyed her time as a member of the Glee Club. After her sophomore year, Madeline decided to conclude her college career and return to Glenmont. When she returned home from school, Madeleine spent time socializing with individuals at galas and attended football games in Hoboken with her boyfriend, John Eyre Sloane.
She continued to keep in contact with her college acquaintance, Peggy James and invited her to Seminole Lodge after her father passed away. Peggy’s spirits lifted when she saw the white walls, red roof, wide porches and French windows of Seminole Lodge. The group took a fishing cruise up the Caloosahatchee on the steamer, “Suwanee,” and toured Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Peggy was amazed by the large alligators that came up to the side of the boat and the spectacular orchids that were close enough to touch. At night, through her cabin, she heard the “Whippoorwills and Herons and Bitterns and owls calling.” Madeline and her friends stayed at the Gilliland House, which Edison purchased in 1906 and turned into his guest house. According to Mina, they remained independent of everyone else except during mealtime.
At the time, Madeleine was 23, but still exhibited a fun sense of humor when she was with her friends. That humor can be seen in an unsigned, undated document that lists her rules for guests at Seminole Lodge. These rules included:
- Don’t cabbage unto yourself all the fish poles.
- Don’t ask Madeleine what she is writing – if its letters, she won’t want you to know – if its literary plights you won’t want to know.
- Don’t ask her why she writes so many letters. She does it out of spite.
- Whatever happens don’t ask why, ten to one none of the family could tell you.
- If you perceive that we need someone with a sane understanding to manage us, look the other way. On our account try to act as the balance wheel. The family all think it’s great to be crazy.
- Don’t kill the black snakes under the pool. They are there for a purpose.
- Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’d like to catch a tarpon. You wouldn’t. Mother and Father are both after one with blood in their eye, and there are just four tarpon poles.
- If you don’t think Seminole Lodge is the loveliest spot you’ve ever wore your rubbers in, don’t let that on to Father.
- Don’t pick the flowers off the century plants. We might not be there to see them bloom again.
- Don’t fail to retire to your room during each part of the day, so that the family may squabble without embarrassment.
- When going on a three-day cruise, don’t discover when you are at the far end of the dock that you left your toothbrush in the house. In a case like this, the best thing to do is leave your toothbrush behind but if you are obstinate, get Father to take a nap in the boat and then run for the shore.
Don’t take any conveyance to the village without making the rounds of the entire family to see if you can’t do some errand for them. - Don’t stop Madeleine if you see her start anywhere violently alone, she’s only trying to work out her disposition.
- Don’t capsize in the sailboat if you can help it. Remember there isn’t any man to rescue you in 750 miles – and besides there are sharks.
- Don’t tell us the perfume of the river hyacinths reminds you of the Jersey meadows by moonlight.
- Don’t hesitate to say you are bored.
- Don’t hesitate to say you are enjoying yourself.
- Don’t ask us anything about Palm Beach. We don’t want to know.
Madeleine and John Eyre Sloane were married in the drawing room at the Edison’s Glenmont estate on June 17, 1914. Henry A. Brann, director of the St. Agnes’ Catholic Church in New York performed the ceremony, which was only attended by relatives and a few friends. They lived for a year in a fourth-floor apartment on 8th street in New York City, across from the Brevoort Hotel, a famed Bohemian gathering place. They later moved to Plainfield, New Jersey, where John’s family had a thriving biplane factory. John and Madeleine had four sons, who were Thomas Edison’s only grandchildren. Today, there are no direct descendants of Thomas Edison carrying his family name.
During World War II, Madeleine donated much of her time to the New Jersey Red Cross blood drives, serving as the wartime chapter chairmen. She managed more than 1,000 volunteers and a motor pool of 28 vehicles that served her unit. During the four years Madeline ran the operations at the Red Cross, members of the organization packaged 3.5 million sterile surgical dressings and collected 8,146 pints of blood for soldiers who were wounded during the war. When the government committees and board stalled on making decisions to guide the Red Cross, Madeleine stepped in and provided direction for all tasks. As a result of her dedication, perseverance and hard work, Mrs. Sloane was referred to as the Edison version of “Rosie the Riveter.”
Shortly after the war ended, Madeline and her mother, Mina, focused on preserving Edison’s legacy and bringing his story to life. Both of them decided to open the house he was born in, located in Milan, Ohio, to the public as a memorial and museum. Mrs. Sloane served as the museum’s first director and focused on restoring the home to its 19th century appearance, the time period Edison grew up there. The museum opened on the centennial of Edison’s birth in 1947. The Museum was designated as a National Historic Landmark on September 16, 1965. At the dedication ceremony, Madeleine stated, “this museum should be more than just a memorial … we especially want children to get the inspiration that a true picture of him should provide – a better sense of values and to assure them that such qualities as fortitude, industry and independence of thought are still worthwhile and should not vanish from the earth.”
In 1950, Madeleine Edison Sloane was the first woman elected to the Board of Directors for the Western Union Telegraph Company. President, Walter P. Marshall’s hope was that her contribution would help recognize woman’s viewpoints and broaden interests. As a young man, Mrs. Sloane’s father, Thomas Edison, worked for Western Union as a telegrapher. He developed an improved stock and commodity ticket with telegraph equipment, which enabled him to fund his first laboratory. Mrs. Sloane was also a trustee of the Newark Museum and a member of the board for the Salvation Army in West Orange, New Jersey.
Today, visitors can learn more about Madeleine and Edison’s other children during tours of the site and in special presentations held in the 15,000-square-foot museum on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 a.m.
THE CALADIUM JOURNEY
By Karen Maxwell, Horticultural Specialist
The month of May heralds the approach of summer gardens in Southwest Florida, with unrelenting heat and humidity that can tucker the most zealous of our lot; however, there is just one more thing to plant! Caladiums! Whether you are a new or salty and seasoned Florida gardener, these beautiful foliage plants belong in your garden, in a pot, on your balcony, or even on your kitchen table. Before expounding on the virtues of caladiums,the story of their introduction to the gardens of Thomas and Mina Edison is, in and of itself, an interesting tale of adventure, perseverance, triumph and failure.
The Edisons employed a host of gardeners, some simple caretakers, others renowned horticulturists, and one in particular, Dr. Henry Nehrling, a highly educated Wisconsin native of German descent was blessed with an uncanny knack for tropical plants. He was known as the Audubon of Wisconsin for writing three encyclopedias of birds, all in German. The most famous encyclopedia being “Our Native Birds of Song,” was two volumes and was published in 1893. Always advocating for the value of birds in the garden as natural pest control, surely, Mina Edison who also loved birds, found this man most intriguing.
Dr. Nehrling purchased 40 acres in Gotha, Florida, deep within the so-called Orange Belt in 1886. He established a Palm Cottage Garden and proceeded to collect and raise tropical plants, many samples of which were sent to him by the greatest plant hunter of them all – Dr. David Fairchild. After seven years of living a quiet, probably lonely botanist existence, where shade houses were the most significant buildings to be found in this newly settled area, Dr. Nehrling must have been most anxious to make a trip to Chicago in 1893 to attend the Chicago Columbia Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair). Here he would mingle with the intelligentsia of his time: Edison, Tesla, Mark Twain, Scott Joplin; and be introduced to that great ball-game staple, the hot dog which also made its debut at the most famous event in the White City while the world was seeing Thomas Edison’s first movie!
In the International Building, the Brazil Exhibit included a fine collection of exotic foliage plants being shown by a transplanted German, Adolph Lietze, now living deep in the Amazon. Nehrling purchased the entire exhibit and returned to Gotha with all eight varieties of the exhibited caladiums. These colorful tropical plants, native to the rainforest floor of the Amazon, in the state of Pará, became an important economic product when Nehrling opened the doors of his Palm Cottage Gardens, to the public. He wrote how visitors overlooked all of his other plants when his 2,000 varieties of caladiums were in full leaf, some with “leaves a full two feet in diameter and big enough to serve as an umbrella!”
Sadly, the freeze of 1917 would just about ruin Nehrling, killing much of his tropical plant collection. He abandoned the property and set out to find a property with more hospitable weather for growing tropical plants. Today, the recently formed Nehrling Foundation is well underway in its restoration efforts of Florida’s first botanical garden in Gotha.
Broke and faced with starting over at the age of 64, Nehrling decided Miami was too built up and negotiated with R. Halderman, a real estate developer who offered 13 acres of property and the financial assistance. With that, Nehrling was back in business and wrote that “once again I’m a pioneer in the wilderness.” In a short time, Nehrling amassed a vast collection of tropical plant species without care or knowledge as to their invasive characteristics upon the virgin Florida landscape of Southwest Florida. Dubbed his “Garden of Solitude,” Nehrling’s trials and efforts at his new Naples outpost become the basis for his detailed gardening articles published from 1922-1929 in the American Eagle, the widely read publication of the Koreshan Unity, in Estero.
Nehrling visited Estero frequently and marketed his beautiful caladiums at the Koreshan and Fort Myers flower shows. Books dedicated to South Florida gardening did not become available until the mid-1930s, and this would have been after the gardens of Thomas and Mina Edison would have been fairly mature. As a result, the Edisons often traveled from Fort Myers to visit gardens and nurseries, in search of great plant material and they most certainly would have been familiar with Nehrling’s botanical writings in the American Eagle. As the Edisons developed their Fort Myers gardens during the 1920s, we know that Mina adopted many of the Arts & Crafts garden hallmarks (the Moonlight Garden) which included bringing color to the garden with foliage plants and not relying solely on flowering plants and became enamored with the extensive use of crotonsand caladiums at the Koreshan compound in Estero.
An earlier gardener at the Edison estate was Ewald Stulpner, also a German educated horticulturist, from whom we inherited excellent notes and details about plantings and purchases for the property (he also assisted the Koreshans in Estero). By the mid-1920s Dr. Nehrling’s caladium business was a thriving enterprise once again only to be pummeled by a hurricane in 1926. To this day, it is unclear how some people whosupposedly came to help Dr. Nehrling clean up after the hurricane, made off with truckloads of plants, including most of his remaining caladiums which re-surfaced in Highland County, Florida. Today, Highland County is the center of Florida’s $20 million caladium agri-conomy and 95% of the world’s caladiums are grown in Florida to be shipped around the world.
In 1928, Thomas Edison hired Dr. Nehrling to consult and advise on gardening matters and he introduced a number of fruit trees to the Fort Myers property, as well as created Orchid Lane by mounting a collection of orchids and bromeliads to trees to the delight of Mina Edison. Though Edison and Nehrling were 81 and 74 respectively, a visitor to the Estate in March of 1928 commented that the two “bounded out of the laboratory and raced across the grass to look at a plant, moving as rapidly as boys of 20.” Nehrling was very helpful to the Edisons and spoke highly of Mina’s gardens, though he didn’t mince criticism of plants that he believed would fail in the Florida humidity, such as her Madonna Lilies. In addressing the State Federation of Garden Clubs in Miami in March of 1929, he proudly stated that “Mrs.Edison has extended ornamental plantings along the banks of the Caloosahatchee.”
In 1929, Thomas and Mina visited Nehrling at his Naples Gardens and Edison marveled at Nehrling’s collection of 100+ species of Ficus – no doubt the source of many of the original Ficus plantings here at Edison Ford. Shortly thereafter, Nehrling passed away, in debt once more and his property was foreclosed only to become the site of “Jungle Larry’s Caribbean Gardens.” Some of our readers may be familiar with the location today – there are two small brass plaques commemorating the work of Dr. Nehrling, deep inside the Naples Zoo.
Thomas Edison passed away in 1931, shortly after Dr.Nehrling passed. Mina Edison spent some time in deep mourning, not returning to her Fort Myers home until 1933. At this time, she began in earnest to plant the Moonlight Garden, though there is no evidence she ever used the plant list put forward by Ellen Biddle Shipman because they were predominantly temperate plants. Mina consulted with two nurserymen, a Mr. Helms who owned Royal Palm Nursery in Oneco (outside of Bradenton) and she received a planting list for the Moonlight Garden that included podocarpus, ixora and azaleas. Somewhat unsure of these plants, she ran his list by nurseryman Albert Herman, manager of the Ornamental Nursery in Fort Myers who approved Mr.Helm’s suggestions and also added “he left you some fancy leaf caladium bulbs to try.”
Today, Edison and Ford Winter Estates plants dozens and dozens of caladium tubers each season. As a tropical tuber, caladiums can be planted in our Zone 10 all year, but they will sit quietly until both the air temperature and soil temperature are a minimum temperature of 65 degrees. Below that, they will remain dormant and if planted too early, in a garden with frequent watering, one runs the risk of rotting these tubers.
Without a doubt, caladiums are one of the easiest plants to include in your summer garden. They come in a wide assortment of colors: white, greens, pinks, reds and countless combinations thereof. Most spectacular when planted en-masse, just lay your tubers out where you want a color riot in a shady part of the garden. Cover with 4” of good compost, water and voila! If you plant now, as described, your caladium palette will fill your garden within five weeks! Keep good compost in your soil, keep the soil moist and caladiums will last through December. Do not let them dry out, as that will kill the foliage.
Most fancy leaf caladiums (the tall, heart shaped leaves) prefer 60% shade or more and all of the white varieties require 100% shade – a great way to liven up a dark corner! Lance leaf, also called dwarf species can often take some morning sun. Because they are shallow growers, feel free to plant caladiums under or around any trees in your gardens – they will not compete. The caladium growers of Highlands County are more than happy to match the correct variety to any garden.
Caladiums are just about pest free and when planted en-mass, they do a great job of crowding out the weeds! Plant enough to enjoy cutting and including them in floral arrangements. After cutting your stems in the morning, allow caladiums to rest and recover for 24 hours before using them in floral design. Just be sure never to put them in the refrigerator – nothing below 65 degrees. Can’t get enough? Continue your Caladium journey with a trip to Lake Placid, the Town of Murals,in the center of the caladium industry, or visit during their annual Caladium Festival where one can tour the fields – this year marks their 31st annual festival (July 29-31, 2022).
