1: Love, “Cuba”

Few men reflect the times in which they live as vividly as William Douglas Pawley. Born in Florence, South Carolina, on September 7, 1896, he matured in a period when America was rapidly turning the corner from an agricultural economy to an industrial society. As amazing advances in technology were transforming the nation into a world power, this son of Edward Porcher Pawley and Mary Irene Wallace Pawley quickly recognized that fortunes were waiting to be made all around him—and all around the world— if he pursued them without fear of failure.

The Pawley family had roots in South Carolina dating to colonial times1 when Percival Pawley, Sr. in 1711 was granted the land in proximity to what is now Pawleys Island, an isle known in the 21st century for being an “arrogantly shabby” residential community where low-country cooking and beer mix freely with a refreshing breeze off the Atlantic Ocean. Earlier, in the 1700s, rice plantation owners such as Thomas George Pawley vacationed on Pawleys Island to escape the threat of malaria from May through October, because the isle was surrounded by saltwater marshes that were inhospitable to mosquito breeding.2 Even though Hurricane Ian made landfall less than 10 miles away in 2022 with a seven-foot surge that destroyed the pier, Pawley Islanders quickly cleaned up the sand, mud and debris attesting to the island’s resiliency over the centuries as a desirable southern beach destination.3

Edward Porcher Pawley was born during the Civil War a few counties away from where the Confederate rebellion had exploded at Ft. Sumter. As a young man, he tried to make his fortune in cotton, but plantations suffered after their cheap slave labor was freed, and he soon faced bankruptcy. Fortunately, Edward had learned a merchant’s trade, selling dry goods in Florence, and was able to pursue other opportunities beyond South Carolina.4

The inflammatory sinking of the USS Maine triggered the Spanish-American War and the U.S. invasion of Cuba made famous by the American Rough Riders charging up San Juan Hill. It not only catapulted the cavalry’s victorious leader, Colonel Teddy Roosevelt, to governor of New York State but made Cuba a fertile ground for William Pawley’s father’s ambitions. By 1900, Edward Porcher Pawley moved his wife, Mary, and their sons, George Plummer Pawley and William Douglas Pawley to eastern Cuba where he established E.P. Pawley Co. of Caimanera. About 1908, at some 64 years of age, he opened a branch store nearby at South Toro Cay, close to the wharf that supplied the United States Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay.

Despite a lease agreement between the United States and Cuba that forbid the operation of private enterprise, the Pawley Store sold general merchandise to the U.S. Navy sailors and Marines. The elder Pawley may have gotten around the restriction because he had been in Cuba early on working for the U.S. Army.5 But in 1910, the Secretary of the Navy revoked E.P. Pawley & Co.’s permit to conduct a mercantile business within the limits of the Guantánamo Reservation.6

Soon Edward Porcher Pawley moved his wife, Mary, sons, George and William and their new brothers, Edward, Eugene and Wallace Pawley to Port au Prince, Haiti and established E.P. Pawley and Co. as an import-export business. Eventually incorporated as the West Indies Trading Company, the business exposed William and his brothers to selling groceries, dry goods and the latest life-changing inventions from Edison, Ford, Goodyear and others. The company became one of the largest enterprises in Haiti, and E.P. Pawley noted that his new found paradise was inhabited by "exceptionally clean people" who used "more soap per capita than any country in the world."7

William’s early Cuban education had been supplemented by prep school at Stamford Collegiate Institute some 200 dusty miles west of Dallas, Texas, but he quickly left before the Methodist school became Stamford College which financially collapsed within the decade.8

In the midst of World War I, William attended Gordon Military Academy in Barnesville, Georgia where his island upbringing and fluency in Spanish led his Georgia classmates to nickname him “Cuba.”9  It might have been considered a slur by some of the students because Gordon Military Academy was named in honor of a former Confederate soldier who headed the local Ku Klux Klan which helped undermine Reconstruction with a wave of terror against freed slaves and blacks who visited the South.10 But for William the nickname was a sign of friendship and admiration of his flawless Spanish, and he took pride in the name, even signing a postcard to his wife two decades later: “Love, Cuba.”11

As America roared into the 1920s, William Pawley’s financial interests grew beyond the Caribbean, into South America and eventually across the Pacific. But Cuba, where he had lived from age six to seventeen, was always in his heart and it is where he first dealt in the products of United Fruit Company which later would be grateful to Pawley for his role in a coup that spared the company’s banana plantations in Guatemala from nationalization in 1954. Two years later, with a more predictable growing environment in Guatemala, United Fruit coincidentally was awarded a contracct to bring fresh and frozen provisions and fresh milk twice monthly to Pawley’s old stomping grounds at the Guantánamo Naval Base.9

As a young adult, William Pawley ventured after his fortune in various ways and locations. He joined a New York exporting company selling diving suits to Venezuelan pearl divers.10 He sold old Haitian ships to the U.S. Government, promoted gold stocks in Canada, distributed candy to the West Indies, and even drove a milk truck in Wilmington, Delaware.11

He met Annie Hahr Dobbs while in Barnesville visiting a friend, Bruce Milner. Although engaged to marry Louise DeJarnett, Pawley was smitten when he beheld the dark-haired southern belle, Annie, while gazing out his hotel window. She was the daughter of Clifton Dobbs of Marietta, Georgia, a successful businessman who wanted his daughter to marry a man with a more promising future, West Point cadet Lucius D. Clay, Jr. But Pawley managed to overcome her father’s long-running objection to his vagabond ways and permitted his daughter to marry “Cuba” instead of Clay—who two decades later distinguished himself in World War II, overseeing the construction of 450 airports in the U.S., becoming the youngest Army brigadier general, serving as General Eisenhower’s deputy, and overseeing the post-war Berlin Airlift.15

Pawley, too, would make a name a for himself—and a fortune—in aviation, first by running Compania Nacional Cubana de Aviacion Curtiss in the 1930s and a decade later manufacturing planes for the Flying Tigers to battle the Japanese over China.  

The announcement of William and Annie’s August 1919 Friday evening wedding in The Atlanta Constitution called it “a wedding of wide interest in the South” and stated that William Pawley was of Port au Prince, Haiti.16

Over the next two decades, William and Annie had four children with amazingly unimaginative names considering Pawley’s boundless creativity when it came to entrepreneurship. The children were: William Douglas Pawley, Jr.; Annie-Hahr Pawley (Mrs. Hobert Boomer McKay); Clifton Dobbs Pawley; and Irene Wallace Pawley (Mrs. Robert Mullins Gravely) who was given her grandmother’s name.17

In 1942, William traveled from Miami to Cuba and stayed at the National Hotel in Havana for a month so he could qualify to file for a Cuban divorce before flying off to India where he married his secretary, Edna Earle Cadenhead. Annie Pawley contested in the Florida court system the validity of William’s Cuban divorce filing and sought financial support without acknowledgement of the divorce all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in October 1950.18

Annie’s continuing refusal to recognize the Cuban divorce was displayed in print when a letter she had written was printed in the January 15, 1945 issue of the Embry-Riddle School of Aviation newspaper. The Fly Paper with its humorous tagline “Stick To It” carried a photo of her son, Lt. William Douglas Pawley, Jr., and her announcement from 3190 Pine Tree Drive, Miami Beach that “our son” had finished a year “as a pilot in the India-China Wing of the Air Transport Command and was back in the states.” A former Embry-Riddle flying student, “Bill” had volunteered—undoubtedly inspired by his father and uncle’s involvement with the American Volunteer Group—and “completed 450 combat hours over the ‘Hump!’” in the China-Burma- India “Theatre of War.” She also provided an update on Bill’s younger, 18-year-old brother, Clifton, also an Embry-Riddle-trained “pilot with some 300 hours” who is in the U.S. Naval Reserve “at the University of Miami.” She praised the aviation school and the Fly Paper noting that she knew “how the English lads enjoy it, because about fifty of the Royal Air Force cadets of Riddle Field, Clewiston, have been my guests during the past twelve months.” She signed off, “Annie-Hahr Dobbs Pawley (Mrs. William D.)” casting shade on Edna and William’s wedding three years earlier.19

In presenting the brief in support of her petition for certiorari, Annie’s attorneys provided evidence that William’s Cuban filing was invalid because he was not a Cuban resident citizen or resident—in fact, William had never given up his United States citizenship while living with his parents there and in Haiti. The petition also provided insight into the unraveling of the William and Annie’s blissful marriage as he grew more successful in business:

• Following William and Annie’s honeymoon in New York, they made their home in Port au Prince, Haiti until 1923, when they moved in with Annie’s parents in Marietta, Georgia.

• After giving up his position at Nunnally Candy Company in Atlanta, William and Annie moved to Wilmington, Delaware.

• In 1925, William moved his wife and baby to the Granada Apartments in Miami, so he could participate in the real estate boom. There a second child was born.

• From September 1926 until 1929 (when the real estate market crashed) they owned a home at 4210 S. W. 4th Street, Miami, Florida, where their third child was born.

• William’s Spanish fluency enabled him to get a job in November 1929 with Pan American Airways, helping the company acquire landing rights in Cuba and soon taking charge of Cuban National Airways which was eventually taken over in November 1932 by American Airways.

• Pan Am then offered him a temporary employment in China, and he went there while his family was ensconced in a rented home at 2800 Prairie Avenue, Miami Beach.

• Annie testified that William did not want her to go to China with him “because she was pregnant” and “would not go to a hospital and have an abortion.” Denying this, William stated “he did not ask her to go to China at that time because he did not know anything about conditions out there.” He returned from China just prior to the June 18,1933 birth of their last child in Miami. 

• A week later, William telephoned Annie from New York to inform her he was heading back to China but would not take the baby. When she objected, he told her the baby could join them, but the other children would have to stay in their new, jointly owned home at 3401 Prairie Avenue, Miami Beach with her mother in charge.

• Annie made three or four trips to China with William, once staying nearly a year while the children remained in Florida.

• Annie returned via England from an extended time in China, arriving in Miami in August 1936. Shortly thereafter, William spent $68,000 in cash for a new, jointly owned, home at 3190 Pine Tree Drive, Miami Beach and an additional $20,000 for improvements. Ringing in 1937, the family moved into this new home where Annie and William cohabitated for two years, and to which William always returned after business trips. (In 2024, that piece of real estate was valued at $6.4 million).

• In 1940, William, then “decided to establish a third and more elaborate home” on one of Miami Beach’s exclusive Sunset Islands. Annie helped design the $200,000 home, but her name was not on the title—just one of William’s corporations, and he never invited his family to move in with him.

• In 1942, William approached Herbert Dobbs, Annie’s brother, to seek his help in obtaining an amicable divorce and settlement. During their marriage he had amassed a fortune, including millions providing airplanes to China. In addition to founding Intercontinent Aircraft Corporation, he had constructed large buildings; owned Pan American Lumber Company which sold building supplies; and purchased the Miami Beach Railway Company, the transportation system for parts of Miami and Miami Beach--locations where he proclaimed he would rather live “than any place in the world.”

• Using his Pan Am connections – “Tom Morgan, my boss in New York”—and Pawley’s warplane manufacturing business in India as justification for travel, William obtained a United States passport but instead flew to Cuba “for the sole purpose of obtaining a divorce and not with the intention of making it his domicile.” After staying in the Havana hotel for 31 days starting July 27, 1942, he flew to India. While there, his Cuban lawyer filed “a complaint for divorce for Mr. Pawley, charging desertion or separation for six months and asking for a divorce on that ground.”

William never testified at the Cuban divorce. Instead, four Cubans gave testimony to paint a false picture that Annie had not wanted to go to China with him and, that since 1936, they had lived apart and not had conjugal relations. In Annie’s Florida court suits to dismiss the Cuban divorce, she presented William’s own letters that belied the testimony of the Cubans. The U.S. Supreme Court transcript included his August 1937 postcard to “Mrs. William D. Pawley” at the Pine Tree address. “We came here by plane from Milan—left Bad Nauheim yesterday by train. The minister leaves for China tomorrow. Sellett and I will see him off. We then go back to Athens, then Budapest, Vienna, Paris, London & home. The business is ok. Can't wait to see you. Love, Cuba.”

“This was the first case in Florida legal history where it was found that alimony, divorce and  property status could be settled in separate proceedings and that on ex parte hearing.”20

The ruling set a precedent about recognition of out-of-country divorces that still stands.21 It also stimulated a legal and social phenomenon that spread to Mexico and eventually led Burt Bacharach to write the Drifter’s 1962 hit “Mexican Divorce.”

FOOTNOTES:

1 National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 60, (James T. White & Co., 1981). Page 215.

2 Katherine H. Richardson, Pawley’s Island Historically Speaking (Pawley Island Civic Association, 1994). Pages 8- 10.

Vida Miller, A Little Book About Pawleys Island (Self-published, 2007).

3 “Pawleys Island residents dig out after Hurricane Ian: ‘Gut Punch,’” By Mike Woodel, The Post and Courier, October 1, 2022.

4 National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 60, (James T. White & Co., 1981). Page 215.

5 Anthony R. Carrozza, William D. Pawley: The Extraordinary Life of the Adventurer, Entrepreneur, and Diplomat Who Cofounded The Flying Tigers (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2012). Pages 6-8.
>> This biography is excellent and very thorough thanks to the cooperation of Pawley family members. It contains extensive details of William Douglas Pawley’s family history, accomplishments, behind the scenes activities, and lifestyle including insights based on interviews with William Douglas Pawley, Jr. who was briefly engaged to actress Elizabeth Taylor.

6 “Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted of Congress, December 7, 1911.” File No. 811.345/24, The Acting Secretary of State to the American Minister, Washington, August 18, 1910, No. 114. (United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1918.) www.history.state.gov 

File No. 811.345/24.

The Acting Secretary of State to the American Minister. WASHINGTON, August 18, 1910.

[No. 114.]SIR: Referring to previous correspondence [etc.] you are instructed again to take up with the Cuban foreign office the question of the enlargement of the naval station at Guantánamo, emphasizing the feeling of this Government that, for the reasons stated in the inclosed report of the joint board and set forth in greater detail in previous correspondence with your legation, the proposed additional area is urgently needed to place the United States in a position to fulfill the stated purpose of the original lease of this station, namely: “to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba and to protect the people thereof as well as for its own defense.”2

In this connection, you will invite attention to the identical provisions of Article VII of the act of Congress approved March 2, 1901, and of Article VII of the Appendix to the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, promulgated on the 20th of May, 1902, that for the above-mentioned purpose “the Cuban Government will sell or lease the lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.”

You will also take notice of the recommendation of the joint board, which has been approved by the Secretaries of the Navy and War, regarding the possible relinquishment of the leasehold of the United States to land at Bahía Honda, and if, in your judgment, such proposed relinquishment would tend to overcome the reluctance heretofore expressed by the Cuban Government to consider the question of leasing the additional desired area at Guantánamo, you will bring this phase of the situation to the attention of the foreign office, stating that it is the opinion of the United States Government that the leased area at Bahía Honda is more than equal in value to the desired addition at Guantánamo and, therefore, that this, aside from all other consideration, should prove a sufficient consideration to induce the Cuban Government to yield to the wishes of the United States in this matter.

At the same time, you may say to the foreign office that, in deference to its wishes, as heretofore expressed to you, the Secretary of the Navy has revoked the permit issued to E. P. Pawley & Co. to conduct a mercantile business within the limits of the Guantánamo Reservation, such revocation to become effective within a reasonable time granted for closing out the business. This action has been taken notwithstanding the opinion of the Secretary of the Navy that such permission was not in violation of the provisions of Article III of the lease in question,1 since it was granted solely for the purpose of providing by the most expedient means for supplying the needs of officers, men, and employees of the United States on duty at Guantánamo, and was therefore regarded as within the authority granted by Article V of the lease, to import into the leased area “for exclusive use and consumption therein” free of customs duties or other fees or charges “material of all kinds, merchandise, stores, and munitions of war.”

In conclusion you will impress upon the foreign office the importance which is attached by the United States Government to the desired addition to the Guantánamo station, as in the best interests of both the Governments concerned and express the earnest wish of the Government of the United States that the Cuban Government will look upon the matter in this light.

I am, etc., Huntington Wilson

7 Anthony R. Carrozza, William D. Pawley. Page 9.

Haiti, 1919-1920: livre bleu d'Haäti, blue book of Hayti (Klebold Press, New York). Page 29.

8 “Stamford College history.” Texas State Historical Association, Handbook https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/kbs52 

9 Pawley v. Pawley, 46 So.2d 464 (Fla.1950), certiorari denied, 340 U.S. 866 (1950) [when an ex parte divorce has been obtained in a foreign state].

10 “John B. Gordon (1832-1904) biography,” The New Encyclopedia of Georgia. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2805.

CIA Biographical Data on William Douglas Pawley. February 24, 1964.

11 8/1937 Postcard. To: Annie Hahr Pawley, Miami Beach. From: William Douglas Pawley in Italy. (R. 136, Pawley v. Pawley, Supreme Court of the United States, October 1950).

"Mrs. William D. Pawley, 3190 Pine Tree Drive, Miami Beach, Fla., U.S.A. We came here by plane from Milan—left Bad Nauheim yesterday by train. The minister leaves for China tomorrow. Sellett and I will see him off. We then go back to Athens, then Budapest, Vienna, Paris, London & home. The business is ok. Can't wait to see you. Love, Cuba."

12 The History of Guantánamo Bay: 1694-1964, An Online Edition, Chapters 3, 4, and 28. http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/gazette/History_98-64/hischp3.htm.

13  “William D. Pawley, Financier Dies at 80, Ex-Ambassador and Philanthropist Found Shot at Miami Beach Police Call Death a Suicide.” The New York Times January 8, 1977. Page 22.  

14  “Aviation: China Swashbuckler.” Time, September 7, 1942.

15 Anthony R. Carrozza, William D. Pawley. Page 10.

Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay: An American Life (New York: Henry, Holt & Company, 1950).

16 The Atlanta Constitution, August 3, 1919.

17 “William D. Pawley, Financier Dies at 80, Ex-Ambassador and Philanthropist Found Shot at Miami Beach; Police Call Death a Suicide.” The New York Times, January 8, 1977. Page 22.

18 Pawley v. Pawley, Supreme Court of the United States, October 1950.

Annie Hahr Pawley, petitioner, retained as her solicitors W.G. Ward, D.H. Redfearn, and R.H. Ferrell out of the Alfred I. duPont Building in Miami (now an historic landmark). They presented to the Supreme Court the question, “When a citizen of Florida obtains an American passport, leaves his home in Florida, flies to Cuba and remains there thirty-one days and then leaves for India, but causes a Cuban firm of attorneys to file, several weeks after he left Cuba, a suit for divorce in Cuba against his wife in Florida, and no process is served upon her in accordance with the laws of the state of Florida or in accordance with the laws of Cuba, and she does not appear in the Cuban divorce case, is the judgment of the Cuban court granting the husband a divorce entitled to recognition under the rules of international comity and has the wife, a Florida citizen, been deprived of her marital contract and her property rights in her husband's estate by the due process of law accorded her by the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States?”

Florida Case Law, Pawley v. Pawley, 160 Fla. 903 (1948) October 22, 1948.

Pawley v. Pawley, Supreme Court of Florida, en Banc., April 6, 1950. Rehearing Denied June 9, 1950 World Who’s Who in Commerce and Industry, 1966-67 (Marquis—Who’s Who, Chicago). Page 1015. National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 60 (James T. White & Co. 1981), Page 215.

19 Annie-Hahr Dobbs Pawley, Letters to the Editor, Fly Paper, January 15, 1945. Page 3. Embry-Riddle School of Aviation.

20 “Mrs. Pawley’s Plea of Illegal Divorce Fails,” The Washington Post, October 24, 1950. Page B9.                                             >> Divorce appeal documents cited February 24, 1964.

Pawley v. Pawley, 46 So.2d 464 (Fla.1950), certiorari denied, 340 U.S. 866 (1950) [when an ex parte divorce has been obtained in a foreign state].
>> The Pawley divorce is still cited to argue certain points in divorce cases.

21 Facts on File, 1950. April 13, 1950. 46 So.2d 464, 28 A.L.R.2d 1358, Pawley v. Pawley, Supreme Court of Florida, en Banc., April 6, 1950.
>> Rehearing Denied June 9, 1950.