Community Corner
Regretting Mr. Wright: Mahmah Tells Her Own Story
Mamah Borthwick Cheney and
Frank Lloyd Wright fell in love. They were both married to other people and had
eight children to care for between them. Flaunting all social mores of their
time and abandoning their obligations, they ran off together. They spent time
in Europe and then later settled in Wisconsin where Mr. Wright built Taliesin
for Mamah. Mamah was a modern woman living in a still very Victorian world.
While Mr. Wright could depend on society to forgive a man’s indiscretions;
especially if it also viewed him as genius, Mamah was expected to behave in a
carefully prescribed manner. When she did not, she was outcast. She lived what
was left of her short life as the female head of household at Taliesin where
she died, tragically, in 1914. Mamah returns to our world in this presentation
to tell her own story. Portrayed by Ellie Carlson.