to take drama lessons instead. Becoming an actress was easier to accomplish than she might have imagined. Rose seemed born to the stage. A producer saw her in her first college play and offered her the ingénue role in his touring stock company. New York followed the touring company, and she was immediately cast in a major production. Doors opened for her. To many, she seemed destined for superstardom. She should have been content, but she was not. After her role in Sancho Panza, none of the new parts seemed right for her. She wondered whether she should continue to devote her energies to the theatre or had the time come for her to marry? She was in love and the appeal of home and marriage sometimes seemed greater than her desire to be on stage.
It might have been unthinkable for some to imagine, but within a year Rose would forsake her career as an actress, settle down with a husband, and devote her life to him and raising a family. Her drive to be an actress had lessened at the same time that her desire to be with him had grown. Rose had found her soul mate and their coming together would forever change her life’s direction.
Although she was young, already she had come to believe that there were no accidents. Life had a way of bringing situations and experiences together—call it a divine script that provided her with potential entrances and exits. Most often, her role was simply to watch and listen for her cues. A part in a Broadway production of Laugh Clown Laugh two years earlier than her role in Sancho Panza had led her to the current crossroads in her life. While in the play, she had met two individuals who would become important in her life’s direction: one a drama critic and the other a thirty-two-year-old businessman.
During a break from rehearsals, she found herself waiting at the pier for a relative’s ocean liner to dock. Attractive, outgoing, and friendly, Rose soon engaged in conversation with the tall, distinguished-looking gentleman waiting next to her. A discussion of pleasantries soon led to Rose’s discovery that the man was interested in theater. She mentioned her small part in the production of Laugh Clown Laugh, starring Lionel Barrymore. The gentleman promised to see her performance. As it turned out, he was John Corbin, chief drama critic for the New York Times.
After one of the play’s performances, Rose received a note backstage from another man named Bryant Goodman. Mutual friends had asked that he look her up. She found him engaging and invited him to join her and her sister for dinner. Although Bryant had seemed normal enough back at the theatre, during their dinner conversation he started talking about mysticism, past lives, and a psychic friend of his back in Dayton, Ohio, named Edgar Cayce. Although she loved discussions of religion and philosophy, up until that night Rose had never even heard of reincarnation and she wondered to herself, “What in the world have I picked up here?” Still, she and her sister found Bryant fascinating, even though she couldn’t possibly believe every word he said.
Time passed, and after Laugh Clown Laugh closed, a complimentary letter about her performance from John Corbin opened the next set of doors and she was cast as the female lead in Sancho Panza. She continued to see Bryant. She felt drawn to him. He was interesting, a talented businessman, and fun to be around. However, she still couldn’t bring herself to believe all that he talked about. Much of his conversation included wild tales of this Edgar Cayce who reportedly could diagnose illnesses while asleep as well as provide insightful business advice (which Bryant claimed he relied heavily upon). Bryant also believed that Cayce could somehow see how the events and relationships of former lives had an ongoing influence upon the present. For Rose, none of these tales were stories she relished discussing with her family when she talked about the man she was seeing.
Eventually, the Sancho Panza company went on the road and one of the cities on tour happened to be Dayton. At Bryant’s insistence, Rose invited Edgar Cayce and his wife, Gertrude, to see the play so that she could meet them. As it turned out, the Cayces loved the play, and Rose asked if she could watch Cayce’s own work with his psychic readings. The next day Rose witnessed her first reading, given for a five-year-old child who was having difficulties keeping any food down; for some reason the child began to regurgitate after every meal. The little girl was slowly starving to death. The doctors had tried everything they knew without success, so the parents had finally turned to Edgar Cayce for help.
Just as had been described to her, Cayce put himself to sleep on the couch. His wife gave him the suggestion that he would be able to examine the child while in his trance state. Told to “find” the little girl who was in the house (although not in the same room with the adults), it was not long before he began talking, opening with “Yes, we have the body.” As soon as he began speaking, Edgar Cayce’s secretary started writing down everything he said.
Rose watched the process with a great deal of skepticism. She couldn’t believe that an individual could somehow tune in to another person’s physical problem (let alone see something as far-fetched as a past life). Still, the Cayces took their work very seriously and the little girl’s parents seemed to take his every word as gospel. Edgar Cayce discussed what was wrong with the child and recommended such things as a complete change of diet, consisting chiefly of very ripe bananas, and some physical therapies. Although Rose had often heard about this man’s work, seeing it firsthand made her feel a little ridiculous.
The longer she listened, the more irritated Rose became. This man wasn’t a doctor; by all accounts he had never finished high school. He had made no physical examination of the child, nor did he plan to. Gertrude had stated that her husband had no medical background or training. At the very least, Rose felt that this man was practicing medicine without a license. What if he recommended something that would kill the child? The thought both alarmed and outraged her. Still, the group watched and listened to the sleeping Cayce without question.
When the reading was over, Rose left the house as courteously as she could. After all, she was an actress. However, she was mad at the Cayces and disgusted with Bryant for believing in the whole business. To her relief, a few weeks later she heard from the child’s parents and was surprised to discover that their daughter had completely recovered. The little girl was finally able to keep down normal food; Cayce’s reading had apparently been successful. It was for that reason that Rose began to wonder if Bryant had been right about Cayce after all.
By the spring of 1926, the cast of Sancho Panza was back in New York. Although a success, the tour was finished and the play was over. Rose was having a hard time finding her next role. Nothing seemed just right. She began to question what she wanted to do with acting. At the same time, Bryant had begun asking her to marry him. She loved him and was unmistakably drawn to him, but did she really want to forsake the theater for home and cooking and babies? Because of the demands of each possibility, it didn’t appear to her that she could pursue both successfully. Sometimes the idea of marriage was appealing, but on other occasions nothing could have interested her less. At other times, the spotlight of the theatre was wonderful, and yet the satisfaction of it wasn’t totally fulfilling or lasting. For the first time ever, Rose found that she didn’t know what to do with her life.
In part, to help her with her direction, Bryant suggested a life reading from Edgar Cayce. By this time, supported with the backing of some very influential New York business people, the Cayces had moved to Virginia Beach to establish a hospital for his work. Having heard even more success stories of what this man was somehow able to accomplish, Rose agreed to the reading.
To make the business of the readings seem even more incredulous, Rose learned that her reading would be done while the Cayces were in Virginia Beach and she and Bryant remained in New York. Apparently, Edgar Cayce didn’t even need to be in the same city with Rose in order to tune in to her.
When the reading finally came, she was amazed by its accuracy. Any remaining doubts she had about the man or his abilities quickly disappeared. She wrote the Cayces to tell them that the information was more than just helpful and interesting. Without knowing her life story or her current dilemma, somehow the sleeping Cayce had perfectly analyzed her character, feelings, and talents. Rose was very impressed. Immediately, she requested readings
