Evangeline Adams practiced astrology in her New York Carnegie Hall studios from 1905 until her death in 1932, reading thousands of charts, with many more processed for mail order work by her assistants. One of these was Lynn Wells, who wrote the introduction to the 1970 edition of Adams’ autobiography The Bowl of Heaven. I could never find much information on Lynn Wells, until I located the publisher’s files and discovered that she actually used a pen-name.
Wells’ father, Clarence C. Smith, worked at Carnegie Hall and became its manager around 1911. The family lived next door until the Hall was sold in 1925. Lynn’s mother was friendly with Evangeline, who draw up her chart when she was a baby. She became interested in astrology, and beginning at age 17, “I was trained by Miss Adams and worked with her for many years.”
Lynn married in 1925 and started her own astrology practice with her husband. In 1946 they were pictured as some of astrology’s “top practitioners” in a Life magazine feature that said: “Most dignified of astrologers are Mr. and Mrs. Charles R. Wells, who have an early American apartment in Greenwich Village, deal chiefly with professional men, are considered a little high-hat by competitors. They married soon after Evangeline Adams predicted they would.” Adams’ home was done in an early American style, too, so maybe she inspired Wells. Holden and Hughes in Astrological Pioneers of America say that both Lynn and Charles wrote for astrological publications in the 1950s.
In The Bowl of Heaven, Lynn said that Adams “referred hundreds of people to me.” A newspaper article in 1940 stated that Evangeline “left Miss Wells a collection of some 7,000 to 8,000 charts.” But in her reply to an astrologer in 1982, Wells said that Adams’ “files contained at least 50,000 charts of clients, these no doubt lost or destroyed by now as I destroyed my own thousands of charts when I retired a few years ago.” I have never found any trace of Adams’ charts or office files; all are probably gone.
Lynn Wells was born on February 23, 1901 in Norwalk, Connecticut, according to her marriage record. In The Bowl of Heaven, she said that “my chart indicates that I cannot be a successful speculator.” The couple also appear to have had no children. So I’ve somewhat arbitrarily placed Uranus in her 5th house.
Leo rising would explain the way Wells inserted her own story into her introduction to Evangeline’s book, as well as the somewhat high-handed manner in which she responded to the astrologer in 1982 who asked for information about Adams’ Windsor Hotel forecast. Unable to answer the question, she offered, for no apparent reason, “I note your chart contains the Part of Fortune and the Moon Nodes, which I consider superfluous now being invented by earlier astrologers searching for the source of Uranus and Neptune influences…” I don’t know who would agree today.
If she was born at about 4:00 p.m., Lynn’s Venus in Aquarius would conjoin her 7th house cusp, and her husband was an Aquarius with the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars all in this sign. Lynn also seemed to have a compelling need to identify herself through her relationship with Aquarius astrologer Evangeline Adams (Pluto in the 11th trine Venus). In accepting the assignment to write the introduction to Adams’ autobiography in 1969, she wrote the publisher, “The original Bowl of Heaven is inscribed to me by Miss Adams. Also her Astrology, Your Place Among the Stars is inscribed, “For Mollie, with sincere regard and affection from her teacher and co-worker.” In a P.S., Lynn added that “Mollie was my young nickname.” (Neither book was dedicated to Wells; by “inscribed” she means that Adams signed a copy of the book for her.) Decades after her death, she continued to remind folks of her association with her famous employer.
The name rang a bell for me, and I recalled two pictures of Adams sold on Ebay addressed to “Mollie,” both were dated after Wells had her own practice. One said, “For ‘my girl’ Mollie with much affection and all good wishes – Evangeline Adams, 1929.” (Adams was warm, if not effusive, in all of the signed photos I’ve seen from her.)
In fact, Mollie Smith was Lynn’s birth name, and Mollie Wells was her married name, according to her marriage and Social Security records. “Lynn” appears to have been a pseudonym. With Mercury in Pisces square Neptune, the difference between the two was blurred.
It seems rather strange that I came across two pictures Mollie owned. What are the odds? How many must Adams have signed for Mollie/Lynn in the first place? Lynn’s Sun opposite Mars fell right on Adams’ Nodes, and her Mercury conjoined Evangeline’s Ascendant, showing points of connection and identification. Her Moon conjoined Adams’ Pluto, hinting at the potential for an obsessive focus on the older woman. As Adams was the best-known astrologer of the time, their association served as something of an endorsement.
Mollie/Lynn Wells and her husband had moved to Florida by the 1960s, and later to North Carolina. Lynn died at the age of 90 and left quite a bit of money to her local library to expand its building.