Leslyn Heinlein, ca. 1933.
As I understand it (my information on this point is a little iffy), Robert A. Heinlein was married at least three times, maybe more. The only early wife I know anything about, though, was the one just before Ginny. Her name was Leslyn.
What I know about Leslyn is really just two things. First, she must have been a pretty nice person, because John Campbell and his then wife Dona named one of their daughters after her. Second, a few years after Robert had divorced Leslyn and married Ginny, I began to receive sad, wistful, lonesome letters from Leslyn reminding me over and over of the wonderful times she and Bob and I and other local science-fiction writers and fans had had sitting around her kitchen table in the old days.
This worried me. You see, it had never happened. I had never been in her kitchen, nor indeed had I met Leslyn anywhere else, either. The woman clearly was not in close touch with reality. I could think of nothing to do about it other than to reply to her letters as pleasantly and noncommittally — and briefly — as I could.
But I did, and still do, wonder what it did to a person with as hypertrophied a sense of duty as Heinlein’s to have been unable to save the woman he had vowed to love and protect.
To be continued. . . .
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