Priscilla Hiss


Priscilla Hiss, born Priscilla Fansler and first married as Priscilla Hobson, was a 20th-century American teacher and book editor, best known as the wife of Alger Hiss, an alleged Communist and former State Department official whose innocence she supported with testimony throughout his two, highly publicized criminal trials in 1949.

Background

Priscilla Harriet Fansler was born on October 13, 1903, in Evanston, Illinois. Her father was Thomas Lafayette Fansler, mother Willa Roland Spruill, and older brother Dean Fansler, a teacher of English at Columbia University and acquaintance of Mortimer J. Adler. In 1924, she graduated cum laude from Bryn Mawr College. Her roommate Roberta Murray became for a time her sister-in-law as Roberta Fansler. Later, she obtained an MA in English literature from Yale University.

Career

In the mid-1920s, Priscilla Hiss was working as an "office manager" at TIME magazine. When the Hiss family moved to Washington, DC, she taught English at the Potomac School.
For 1933–1934 and 1934–1935, her Bryn Mawr alumni records show that she engaged in "Research": for 1935–1936, she occupation is blank.
When they moved back to Manhattan in 1947, she worked the Dalton School, as the alumni record confirms.
After her husband was convicted and imprisoned in the early 1950s, she worked in a bookstore and then as a book editor for publishing houses. In 1966, her alumni details show her working as copy editor for Harcourt, Brace & World. In 1972, she was a senior editor for the Golden Press children's imprint of the Western Publishing Company.
Later in life, she worked with Manhattan Community Board 2 in Greenwich Village, Village Independent Democrats, and the Democratic County Committee of New York County.

Hiss Case

During two criminal trials against Alger Hiss, Priscilla Hiss defended her husband with her own testimony. There were two principal areas of interest in her testimony. First, had she typed documents found in the "Baltimore Documents" ? Second, had she, like her husband, met with Whittaker Chambers after January 1, 1937? She denied both allegations.
Before any trials proceedings began, Alger Hiss's lifelong friend and attorney William L. Marbury Jr. interviewed the two:
I warned both Alger and Priscilla that if there were any skeletons in the closet of either one of them, they would certainly be discovered if suit were filed, and they both assured me there was no cause for worry on that count. However, I found my interview with Priscilla somewhat mystifying. I had asked to see her alone after Alger had left for the office, and we talked for nearly an hour. I got the impression that she felt that in some way she was responsible for the troubles which had come to Alger. However, she stoutly supported Alger's story of his association with "George Crosley" and flatly denied that either she or Alger had ever been connected with a Communist Party apparatus.
At both trials, FBI typewriter experts testified that the Baltimore Documents from Chambers's matched samples typed in the 1930s by Priscilla Hiss on a Woodstock model number N23009 typewriter that the Hiss family had owned.
On March 17, 1978, the New York Times published a letter from her:
Miscarriage of Justice
To the Editor:
For more than a quarter of a century, I have kept silence amid the clamor concerning the conviction of Alger Hiss. Recently, statements have appeared in print to the effect that I have made remarks indicating that Alger Hiss was guilty. I fear that if I do not now speak out, my silence will be Interpreted as confirming these statements.
At all times. and with my every fiber, I have believed in the innocence of Alger Hiss. I have never spoken a word to the contrary. To me the conviction of Alger Hiss represents a cruel miscarriage of justice.
I do not intend to make any further statements concerning this painful subject.
PRISCILLA HISS
New York, March 10, 1978

Personal life and death

In 1925, Priscilla Fansler married Thayer Hobson, a New York book publisher. In 1926, they had one son, Timothy Hobson. In 1927, they divorced; her alumni records show here "divorced" in 1928.
In 1929, she had an affair with William Brown Meloney V, became pregnant with his child, and underwent an abortion. Priscilla in the same year married Alger Hiss,
On December 13, 1929, Priscilla Fansler Hobson married Alger Hiss in Washington, DC. On August 5, 1941, they had one son, Tony Hiss. In 1959, they separated but did not divorce. They had met earlier, in 1924, on an ocean-liner to England. Their nicknames for each other were "Hill" and "Prossy".
In 1932, she registered as a Socialist to vote in the U.S. Presidential election. After the Hiss Case, she was a Village Independent Democrats supporter. As one anecdote tells, during the Great Depression, "when a friend of Alger's remarked how pleasant the day seemed... Priscilla snap back that it might be nice day for people with homes."
Her Bryn Mawr alumni details include addresses over the years, including:
Fansler, Priscilla Harriet A.B. 1924
Mrs. Alger Hiss,
  • 12/31: 180 Claremont St., Cambridge, Mass.
  • 11/33w: 3411 "O" St., N.W., Washington, D.C. or 378 Central Park West, N.Y.C.
  • 2/35: 2831 - 28th St., Washington, D.C. – Perm: 1427 Linden Ave., Baltimore, Md.
  • 1/39: 3415 Volta Place, N.W., Washington, D.C.
  • Full: 12/43: 3210 P. St., " " 7 "
  • 12/47: 22 E. 8th St., NYC. 3.
The alumni details also state she had received an MA in English literature from Columbia University in 1929.William L. Marbury Jr. wrote of Priscilla Hiss:
I carried away an impression of a rather self-assertive woman, who had no intention of letting Alger "steal the show"...
I got the impression that he felt it wiser that his mother and Priscilla should not be too near one another. Mrs. Charles Hiss was a rather masterful character in her own right, and Priscilla was not exactly the type of a submissive daughter-in-law.
After the Hiss Case, Priscilla Hiss used to leave son Tony to stay at the home of Alger Hiss's personal attorney Helen Lehman Buttenweiser and psychiatrist Dr. Viola W. Bernard.
Hiss died age 81 on October 14, 1984, at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan.

Works