America’s Agatha Christie, trouting on the Flathead River, and the National Parks Portfolio

Of the hundreds of photographs in the fifth edition of the National Parks Portfolio, only two individuals are identified by name.  One is Judge Walter Fry (See blog “Wintriest winter…”)

The other is Mary Roberts Rinehart.

Per Wikipedia: Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876 –1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. Rinehart published her first mystery novel The Circular Staircase in 1908, which introduced the "had I but known" narrative style. Rinehart is also considered the earliest known source of the phrase "the butler did it", in her novel The Door…”

In fact, both Mary and her husband Stanley were good friends of Stephen Mather.  In a letter dated January 31, 1929, Stanley wrote in part to Stephen…

My dear Steve,

      I can’t tell you how distressed Mary and I were to hear about your illness…I don’t suppose you are well enough yet to write letters or even to dictate them, so I don’t expect a reply to this.  In fact, we are going to Florida on Monday for a short stay and I don’t expect to be back in Washington for at least a month.

      Just about this time every winter, in recent years at least, the pressure of Washington life gets to much for Mary and she has to seek refuge somewhere else, so we’re going to Useppa Island, a little dot in the Gulf off the west coast of Florida to see if fishing and very little golf and especially the freedom from social obligations will put a little pep into her.  She’s really very well but needs a rest…I have just been reading what Mr. Cramton said about you and your work in the Park Service and I agree with every bit of it.  Our love to you…

Stanley Rinehart died in 1932.  Outliving her husband by 25 years, Mary divided her later years between her luxurious 18-room Park Avenue apartment and her home in Bar Harbor, Maine, continuing to write prolifically. Following her husband's death, she and her sons formed a publishing firm, Rinehart & Co.. By this time it was estimated that her novels sold over 10,000,000 copies in English and 13 translations. Rinehart passed away peacefully on September 22, 1958, in New York City.