Edna and Casey Stengel: 50 Years in Love
By Joe Guzzardi
When Casey Stengel, a New York Giants’ star outfielder, first laid his eyes on Edna May Lawson, he immediately fell in love. Edna, a lanky 26-year-old California woman who knew nothing about baseball, would later recall that once she met Casey, “there was never anyone else.”
Van Meusel, the wife of Stengel’s Giants’ slugging teammate Irish Meusel, set their vacationing California neighbor Edna up with Casey. In Edna’s unfinished 1958 memoir which Marty Appel included in his biography “Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character,” she wrote that Van urged her to date Stengel, “who was a lot of fun, a big spender, and the life of the party.” Van told Edna that “You two will get along great.”
Van and Edna went to a Giants game where Casey said he spotted his wife-to-be from his outfield position. As soon as the game ended, Casey rushed to Van and Edna’s box seats for a formal introduction.
As Edna fondly remembered the day that would change her life forever, she described Casey as a fashion plate, one of the best dressed men she had ever seen. Stengel, grinning expansively, and wearing an expensive brown suit, doffed his straw hat to young Edna. Hatless, Casey revealed his blond, slicked-back hair.
Edna wrote that the 32-year-old outfielder “wasn’t handsome, but he had a quick grin, laughing eyes, and sharp features. Something clicked.” From that moment forward, Edna and Casey would be together for 51 years. Edna had no way to know that her love for and devotion to Stengel would lead her through 33 excitement-filled years that included visiting American cities from coast-to-coast, a honeymoon trip to Europe and the Orient, and to the peak of the baseball world, the World Series champion New York Yankees.
On their first date Casey, dressed to the teeth, hosted a large group of baseball friends to an evening of dinner and dancing. Edna’s takeaway: “Casey was a lavish spender, a jolly host, and a marvelous dancer. And my how he could talk! I was impressed.” But Edna, despite her attraction to Casey, didn’t encourage him. She clung to her fantasy that a wealthy, handsome man would sweep her off her feet. Casey persisted. Edna, looking back, realized that a tongue-tied Stengel wanted to propose, but his sentences were jumbled — -early Stengelese.
Although never romantic, a smitten Casey was determined to marry Edna. The future Mrs. Stengel wrote that Casey never formally proposed, and never said “Edna, I love you. Let’s get married.” Instead, alone in a friend’s house drinking coffee, Stengel blurted out: “Well, do you want to be married in a church or where? Should I become a Catholic or what?” Edna dodged answering, but a few days later, Casey went to a local jeweler to buy a wedding band; the couple wed in small Catholic Church ceremony. Days later, Casey presented Edna with a huge three-carat diamond. As Casey told the press, Edna was “the best catch I ever made.”
Marriage agreed with Stengel. In his first game after their wedding, Stengel’s Boston Bees played a doubleheader against the Chicago Cubs. The Bees swept the twin bill and Stengel went four for seven with two doubles, a home run, and four RBIs. Further proof that Casey wasn’t a traditional romantic evolved over their decades together. Between their 1924 wedding day and 1958, the last year Edna worked on her autobiography, Casey gave her two gifts, a gold fountain pen and a single orchid, but never a Christmas, birthday or anniversary present. What Stengel did give Edna, she said, was “his love and affection.”
Edna’s father built the couple a nine-room house in Glendale where they lived for 51 years. In 1974 Edna, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, moved into a nursing home. Casey, no longer driving, walked two and a half miles to visit his bride almost every day until he lost his mobility. Casey couldn’t take his annual trips to spring training, Cooperstown or the Old-Timers games that he had so treasured. At age 85, Stengel was failing. Doctors decided on exploratory surgery and found inoperable cancer. Casey died soon thereafter. Edna’s niece, Lynn Rossi, was at Casey’s bedside when he passed. Rossi said she was sure that as Casey drew his final breaths, Edna was in thoughts. Edna died three years later and is buried alongside Casey in Glendale.
In 1976, honoring Casey’s memory, the Yankees dedicated a plaque in the stadium’s Monument Park which reads: “Brightened baseball for over 50 years; with spirit of eternal youth; Yankee manager 1949–1960 winning 10 pennants and seven world championships including a record 5 consecutive, 1949–1953.”
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Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com
