Elena Mumm Thornton Wilson - First Marriage

First Marriage

In 1930, Elena met James "Jimmy" Worth Thornton, the son of Sir Henry Worth Thornton and Lady Virginia Blair, while he was working and studying in Germany. James and Elena married in 1931 and soon after moved to Montreal, Canada, living among the English-speaking elite. Edmund Wilson would later write that her years in Canada were “stuffy”, as she was surrounded by conservative, conventional people, including her own husband. She seemed to get along better with her more gregarious father-in-law. However, by 1933, Sir Henry had been forced to resign his position and lost most of his wealth. He moved to New York City, where he later died of complications from surgery. James and Elena followed Sir Henry to New York. James then went off to war in Europe. Cut off from her husband and her family in Germany and living in reduced circumstances, Elena took various jobs. When she became a secretary for the editor of Town and Country magazine, she worked her way up to the position of assistant editor. Elena met Edmund Wilson when he submitted a piece which she edited. He was at that time separated from his third wife, Mary McCarthy. They fell deeply in love, went to Reno, Nevada, divorced their respective spouses, and remarried there in December, 1946, when he was 51 and she was 40. They brought three children to their marriage: Rosalind who was the child of Edmund and the actress Mary Blair; Reuel, the son of Mary McCarthy and Edmund; and Henry, the son of James and Elena.