This month, February 2022, marks the 100th anniversary of the Reader's Digest, the first issue of which carried the cover date of February 1922. Co-founders DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Acheson Wallace, married the previous October, borrowed enough money to finance a press run of 5,000 copies.
The debut Digest, seen at right in all its black-and-white glory, listed four editors with otherwise unspecified titles. They appeared in this order: Lila Bell Acheson, DeWitt Wallace, Louise M. Patteson, and Hazel J. Cubberley. Who, you might wonder, were Patteson and Cubberley, and whatever happened to them?
Peter Canning, in his 1996 book, "American Dreamers: The Wallaces and Reader’s Digest, An Insider’s Story," writes that, "Louise and Hazel were merely female window dressing—cousins of Lila's—and had nothing to do with the magazine."
The "window dressing" part may be true. Canning's point is that the Wallaces at that juncture envisioned The Digest as a magazine primarily for women. Interestingly, the magazine's prototype issue, created pre-Lila and dated January 1920, lists DeWitt as the lone editor.
However, Louise Patteson was, in fact, Lila's sister-in-law. She was married to Lila's older brother, Barclay Acheson, and used her maiden name on the masthead. She also appears in Canning's book, as well as John Heidenry's 1993 one, "Theirs Was the Kingdom: Lila and DeWitt Wallace and the Story of the Reader’s Digest," under the name Pat Acheson. At her death in 1968, at age 80, the New York Times reported that she had been "an amateur metal craftsman, specializing in enamel overglazes on silver" as well as a "breeder of champion English sheepdogs."
Barclay, meanwhile, later went to work for The Digest in various positions until his death, at age 70, in 1957.
Heidenry also identifies Hazel J. Cubberley as an Acheson cousin. She doesn't seem to have had any further role with The Digest. At the time of the first issue, she was the director of athletics at the wonderfully named Savage School for Physical Education in New York City, and in 1925 she moved west to UCLA. Cubberley's editorial adventures weren't entirely over, however. In addition to a number of articles in professional journals, she was the author or co-author of several books, including "Field Hockey and Soccer for Women" (1923) and "Field Hockey Analyzed" (1928).
For more Digest history, may I recommend this article on 60 Reader’s Digest Covers to Celebrate 100 Years.
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