Zelda Yolande (Roth) Suplee (1908 - 1989)

Born 8 Sep 1908 in New York City, New York.

Ancestors

Wife of Walter Creutzman — married 11 Dec 1937 in New York City, New York.

Wife of John Reed Suplee — married 13 Apr 1947 (to 1961) in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, United States

Died 17 Jan 1989 at age 80 in Los Angeles, California.

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Daniel Bly [send private message]

Biography

Zelda Roth was born in New York City, in 1908, daughter of Herman Roth and Phoebe Schweitzer, grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, and graduated from Dickenson High School in Jersey City in 1924.^[1] She took a job as a stenographer in New York City and made friends with many of the young writers and artists in Greenwich Village, and even had a child by one of them. In 1930 Zelda began working as a editor and researcher for Macfadden Publications, headquartered in New York City.^[2] Macfadden Publications was founded by Bernarr Macfadden, an early proponent of "physical culture," who established the company in 1899. By the 1930s he was a well-known and controversial figure because of his views on health, diet and sexuality. From the beginning of his career in the early 1900s he campaigned against Victorian prudery and viewed the human body and human sexuality as natural and good. Through his writings (over 100 books) and speaking engagements, Macfadden was an important influence in changing American attitudes about all aspects of human sexuality from the 1920s onward.^[3] He was clearly an influence on Zelda, who had already been exposed to unusual attitudes regarding health and sexuality by her mother's embrace of Christian Science and who rebelled against convention, herself, when she refused to marry the father of her child. Among the publications Zelda worked on during her 17 years with MacFadden Publications were True Story, True Detective and Mystery Detective Magazine. The focus of these popular magazines was real life mysteries, often involving unusual or strange circumstances. Undoubtedly many of the stories and people Zelda encountered during her work at Macfadden also contributed to her growing interest in hypnosis and psychic phenomenon.

Zelda married Walter Creutzman in 1937 and settled into domestic life in New York, but continued working at Macfadden through the war years. By 1946 her marriage to Creutzman was over and Zelda met John R. ("Reed") Suplee, who had opened "Sunny Rest," a nudist resort near the town of Palmerton, in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, in 1945. They married in 1947 and Zelda became a partner in the operation of "Sunny Rest" and the manager of day to day affairs. Reed Suplee was an entrepreneur with ambitious plans for "Sunny Rest," which occupied over 70 acres of secluded woodland. In 1949-50 they built a landing strip for private planes and the resort received widespread attention not long after it opened, when an unsuspecting pilot had to make an emergency landing there and wrote a story for a flyer's magazine about his experience of being greeted by a crowd of unclothed people.^[4] Widespread attention got Zelda an appearance on a popular Sunday night television show, "What's My Line," in June, 1953, where using the pseudonym, "Yolanda Reed," she answered questions as a panel tried to guess her line of work.^[5] Reed and Zelda also opened a "naturalist camp" in Florida City, Florida, in 1948 calling it "Sunny Palms," but Zelda usually only spent winter months there and continued to focus primarily on "Sunny Rest." Their marriage ended in 1961 and Reed turned ownership of "Sunny Rest" over to Zelda and kept "Sunny Palms." A little over a year after Zelda took over sole ownership and management, the editors of Playboy Magazine expressed an interest in doing a feature article on "Sunny Rest," and of course, Zelda responded with enthusiastism. Shel Silverstein, well-known cartoonist and feature writer for Playboy, appeared with a crew of photographers and put together an article with a number of photographs, including one in which Zelda was prominently featured wearing only a hat, sunglasses and her signature string of pearls.^[6] Shortly after that Zelda brought in Wally and Shirley Rogers as co-owners of the resort and began to give them more management responsibilities as she began to turn her attention in another direction.

Sometime in the early 1960s Zelda met and became friends with Reed Erickson, a transgender man, who had inherited a fortune and was using his time and money to bring attention to the social stigma and hostility experienced by transgender and homosexual people. In 1964 Erickson founded the Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF) for the purpose of educating doctors, social workers, scientists and the general public about issues involving transsexuality.^[7] Erickson asked Zelda to become the general manager of the Erickson Educational Foundation in 1965, she accepted, moved to New York City and turned "Sunny Rest" over to the Rogers. She sold all remaining interest in the resort a few years later. As general manager of the EEF, Zelda had full control of day to day operations, as well as considerable discretion regarding projects and activities.^[8] Much of her time was spent helping desperate individuals find the psychological and medical attention they needed, but her primary job was to use the money Erickson provided, to educate people and hopefully create more humane attitudes and policies regarding people with gender dysphoria. This meant organizing symposiums and forums, finding experts who would address them and getting people to attend them. It also meant collecting and distributing literature and providing updates of new developments in a regular newsletter. Zelda was able to convince administrators of Johns Hopkins University Medical School to establish the country's first Gender Identity Clinic. She also co-ordinated and participated in the First International Congress on Gender Identity in London in 1969 and direction the production of documentaries detailing the personal experiences of transsexual people. After ten years of intense activity, the EEF began to see results. Medical schools, social service networks and even government agencies began to acknowledge the issues and were starting to provide resources and support for transgendered people. Erickson, himself, began to give more attention to psychic healing and other "New Age" ideas and Zelda stepped down as director in 1977. Canadian scholars, Aaron Devor and Nicholas Matte wrote an article that appeared in the International Journal of Transgenderism in 2007, in which they credit the Erickson Education Foundation under the management of Zelda Suplee, in its first twelve years, as the major force directing the course of transgender research and social service policies that led to significant changes in medical and social policies and attitudes regarding transgendered people.^[9]

During her time at EEF Zelda met an artist friend of Erickson, named Ingo Swann, who was painting psychedelic panels and dabbling in parapsychology.^[10] From 1971 onward they were the center of a group of like minded friends and associates. After Zelda retired from the Erickson Foundation she spent much more time with this group and began traveling to California, New Mexico, London and wherever there were gatherings and conventions of others involved in exploring the world of parapsychology. By the late 1970s Zelda's friendship circle even included some well-known celebrities, many of whom were interested in past life regression, using hypnosis, a technique Zelda was said to have perfected. Compared to the emotionally demanding work of the Erickson Foundation these new ventures offered fun and friendship. This was important enough to Zelda that she decided to spend her last years in Hollywood, California, where many of her friends also had their homes. After a typical day lunching with friends, shopping, swimming and hosting some friends in the evening, she apparently passed away as she prepared for bed on the evening of January 16, 1989. She was found by a friend the following morning. In regard to Zelda's long time interest in psychic phenomenon and especially recall of previous lives, a friend from the old Erickson days asked her: "Do you really believe that stuff?" Her reply was: "It beats television."^[11] This might appear to be a cynical statement, but to Zelda it was not a matter of believing or not believing. She was doing what she had always done; Identifying with, affirming and validating people who have been dismissed and marginalized by mainstream culture and social convention as "kooks."

Sources

• New York, New York City, Extracted Births, 1845-1909, at FamilySearch.org: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2WCN-DDG
• United States Census, 1910, New York, New York City, Borough of Manhattan, Ward 12, 7th Ave. p. 3A, family #38.
• United States Census, 1920, New Jersey, Hudson County, Jersey City, Ward 11, Handcock Ave. p. 8B, family #188.
• United States Census, 1930, New Jersey, Hudson County, Jersey City, Ward 7, Stegman Terrace, p. 31B, family #696.
• United States Census, 1940, New York, New York City, Manhattan, Assembly Dist. 23, Broadway Terrace, p. 6A.
• Pennsylvania County, Marriages, 1885-1950, at FamilySearch.org.
• California Death Index, 1940-1997, Ancestry.com.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Dickenson High School Graduates, 1913-1932, Hudson County, NJ at: USGENWEB Archives.
2. ↑ "Zelda R. Suplee," (biographical sketch), in "A Gender Variance Who's Who," online blog at: https://zagria.blogspot.com/2009/01/zelda-r-suplee-1908-1989-director-of.html#.XZZfIHdFyM8
3. ↑ "Bernarr Macfadden," Wikipedia biography at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernarr_Macfadden
4. ↑ Donald Johnson, "Pennsylvania's Nudist Airpark," Flying, October, 1950, p. 28.
5. ↑ Clips of this episode can still be found online, here is one link: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1of724/nudist_camp_owner_shocks_hysterical_1953_audience/
6. ↑ "Shel Silverstein Visits a Nudist Camp," Playboy, August, 1963.
7. ↑ "Reed Erickson," Wikipedia Biography at wikipedia.org
8. ↑ Joanne J. Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed: A History of Transexuality in the United States, Harvard University Press (2009), pp, 211-12,
9. ↑ Aaron Devor, PhD and Nicholas Matte, "Building a Better World for Trans People: Reed Erickson and the EEF," International Journal of Transgenderism, Volume 10, (2007). Online publication, Oct. 15, 2008.
10. ↑ "Mrs. Zelda Suplee," Chapter 5, in Ingo Swann, Remote Viewing, the Real Story, An Autobiographical Memoir (1997). Online publication at: https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vision_remota/rv_story/RealStoryCh05.html
11. ↑ Relayed by Kay Brown in "On Science of Changing Sex," online blog: sillyoleme.wordpress.com.