Cubbi Thompson Van Wylde May 2026

Cubbi — born Cordelia Beatrice Thompson in 1899 to a Pittsburgh steel fortune — earned her nickname as a toddler when she couldn’t say “Cuddly” and called herself “Cubbi” instead. The name stuck. By eighteen, she had rejected debutante balls, bought a Stutz Bearcat with her own inheritance, and announced she was moving to New York to “write novels and make enemies of boring people.”

Two weeks later, the car was found parked neatly off an unpaved road near Kelso Dunes, keys inside, tires full of air. The journal was on the passenger seat — still locked. No footprints led away from the car. No ransom note. No body. cubbi thompson van wylde

— M. Forrester, Strange Histories

But it’s what happened after the divorce that turns Cubbi from a footnote into a mystery. Cubbi — born Cordelia Beatrice Thompson in 1899