Wood, and the couple moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and then Chicago, Illinois, where Arthur sold insurance for the Travelers Insurance Company, inventing a coupon annuity life-insurance policy which paid the policy holder an income after a certain age.

Stilwell was out, but the discovery of a giant oilfield in Texas in 1901 ensured the railroad's future success.

Although progress was made, financial problems and the Mexican Revolution caused this company to be forced into receivership in March 1912.

[2] After that, the Stilwells moved to New York, where Arthur spent his time writing books, plays, poems and hymns.

His distraught wife, Jennie, committed suicide by jumping out the window of their New York apartment thirteen days later.

His writing attracted attention because in them he maintained that he had based many of his life and business decisions on the whispers of what he called fairies or brownies.