PART 2 OF 3 -- THE FINAL ALASKA LETTERS

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018-19

April 9, 2019

Part 2 of 3 – The Final Alaska Letters

ABOVE – Fox Island Scene from the site of the Kent cabin ruins. I took this photo back in 1996. Within a year or two the twisted snags had disappeared. It always reminded me of Rockwell Kent’s painting below. The fierce north wind during winter in Resurrection Bay whips up the salt spray which shapes and structures the landscape, wears it down, and changes it radically year to year. Capra photo. BELOW – Tierra del Fuego, Admiralty Gulf 1922-23 by Rockwell Kent.

On Feb. 25, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: I love you ever ever so dearly and you must be a very happy girl till I get home and need no one else to keep you good. That “no one else” refers specifically to his friend, George Chappell who has been looking out for Rockwell’s family, ironically at the artist’s request. Indeed, the artist has asked George to look after his family if something happens to him in Alaska, and his friend has graciously agreed. But Kathleen’s deep friendship with him disturbs Rockwell. No one can replace him in any way, Rockwell feels, and Kathleen has told him only George is able to listen to her without misunderstanding. BELOW -- George Chappell.

Feb. 15, 1919 Kathleen to Rockwell: I was dreading spending this evening alone for the mood was still lurking in the background. Once again I and you…have George to thank for bringing me away from blue and despondent thoughts. I very, very often feel that nobody looks my way, and then George appears, and I realize that I have, beside a dear husband who loves me madly a dear and true friend who (would do anything) he could to make me happy. Yes, I am happy tonight, in your great love and George’s wonderful friendship. Darling, I hope we will have no more tragedy in our lives, we have had enough to last us for always and always. The whole issue of friendships emerges in these last Fox Island letters. Rockwell has issues with some of Kathleen’s friends, especially Bernice and Billy, and Elizabeth. They are spying on Hildegarde for her, providing misinformation, he believes. They are also encouraging Kathleen to challenge him, he is certain, instigating a breakup of their marriage. Rockwell expects his friends to be her friends, Kathleen tells him – and, thus, she expects him to respect her friendships.

Feb. 18, 1919 Kathleen to Rockwell: I wrote to George because (he is the) one and only person I can unburden my soul to. I haven’t been able to locate any of Rockwell’s or Kathleen’s letters to George Chappell. Perhaps they no longer exist. Even though he trusts George, Rockwell cannot tolerate Kathleen’s dependence upon him. The fact that George is the only person Kathleen can unburden her soul to is completely unacceptable to Rockwell. And he doesn’t know precisely what they’re talking about – although it must be about him. From one of George’s letters to Rockwell, it appears that Kent is questioning his friends loyalty. George responds with admiration for Kent and cautiously. As Zigrosser has suggested, those who know Kent understand how sensitive he can be to criticism. BELOW -- Kathleen as young wife.

Feb. 16, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: Is my love for you still of so little account and yours for me so feeble that your virtue hangs on the friendship of another man? After all that I have written, you tell me that still, if it were not for George, you would become a {BLACKED OUT WORD}. Oh, God! What is that blacked-out word? If I were to guess -- it might be “whore.” That sounds harsh, but it must be something as unacceptable because Rockwell rarely blacks out anything, even some very harsh criticisms. But, by this point he has promised Kathleen that he will try to tone down his letters, i.e. not write whatever pops into his head during despondent moment. This blackout is probably his attempt to be more mindful of what he is saying.

Feb. 14, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: But this is my decision now. It is simply impossible for me to leave you alone any longer. I shall paint now with all my energy and try and get some good-sized sketches done and then leave for home…Understand little wife that I have a very deep respect for your wisdom. Please be always better than I am. I want something to worship. When I blame you it is not as a woman but a rare heroine who “nods” a little once in a while. I know it’s darned annoying to be worshipped but that’s your job and you must just make the best of it.

Feb. 14, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: I see that you may misunderstand my response to George in regard to your promise to me. He demanded she send her promise to him in a telegram. His question: Will you be faithful to me always? The answer he wanted was “Yes, always,” and Kathleen did send a telegram with those words. I mean nothing wrong there. I know that it is his friendship and good cheer that you mean have kept you straight; but nevertheless I will not trust your soul to the friendship of another man. If you had said that your love for me was too deep for you to think of, then I would have been content. You realize, don’t you, the hideous danger that you have told me hangs continually over your head?

ABOVE -- Typical rain and fog like what Kent experienced on Fox Island during his first two months there. This shot is taken from the ruins of the Kent cabin. Capra photo.

Feb. 15, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: I am scheming to return again sometime {to Alaska}. Of course, if I do you’d have to come too unless you’d consent to be locked up in jail…And in that letter of New Year’s Eve you speak of the future, but not once of what you will do for me or what you will bring into our life there in the country. But of what you will “require” of me. I require many things of you and things you have not given in the past. I want a strong, brave, true wife with ideas that do not falter from day to day.  I need comfort often and mothering and sympathy. I can’t stand alone. 

March 15, 1919 Kathleen to Rockwell. A month later, Kathleen responds to Rockwell's demands above: You have asked me months ago to tell you my dreams of our new life together, and you are peeved because I have not told you things that I am going to do for you. As in the past, I have given and done everything {for} you that I know how and it did not bring us happiness; this is what I {will do} in the future. I am going to have a little world of my own with which ___ I ___ only __ humbly and entirely at my will...You get disagreeable and make me unhappy; knowing that, you will be {awfully} careful, if you really {need me}. Does that please you? No, it doesn't, I know. You want me to be entirely yours, body and soul, and mind. But I'm not going to be, for that brings us only unhappiness. See how precious I am to you when you are away from me. You had too much of me and tired of me as we do anything we have too much of. That's enough on that subject. And now, sweetheart, here's a kiss goodnight, a thousand of them, and oceans of love, from your Kathleen. Kathleen has developed a voice and the courage to use it. Of course, it's one thing to talk to Rockwell like this from thousands of miles away. It's another thing to face his powerful persona face to face. But she's made a few things clear. She's willing to give their marriage another chance, but on terms that will satisfy her as well as him. We don't know for sure whether Kent got this letter before he left Alaska. He left on March 30th. The earliest he could have picked up the mail in Seward would have been on Friday, March 28th. Thirteen days could have been enough time for this letter to arrive. If it didn't arrive on time, he wouldn't have read it until its return perhaps two weeks after his return.

Feb. 16, 1919 Kathleen to Rockwell: Your next letter is more about my coming. No, dear, I feel that it is better that I stay right here till you come back. I have had many qualms that your great love and worship and need of me are merely passion. Passion is a code word for sex. Let’s be up front and honest here. Seward is a small railroad town, but it has a thriving red-light district. Rockwell is rarely in Seward and not for very long periods. He’s befriended the locals and has earned their respect. It’s most likely he’s been without sex during the entire Alaska visit, and very unlikely he’s made a trip to Seward’s “Line.” That’s not Kent’s style. Kathleen realizes his condition and is concerned with his “mere passion.” On the same day while on Fox Island, Rockwell constructs the narrative he wants Kathleen to accept for his return, the story she must tell everyone. It will be somewhat hard to explain this {Rockwell’s early return} to our friends and I must ask you to let me tell the true cause. If I said that I was tired of it or too homesick it would discredit me and make it hard to get money for another venture at any time. For this money has been pretty much wasted. I shall write to Dr. Wagner and to Carl and simply say that you are in so despondent a mood that I cannot leave you alone and must come home. Don’t mention my coming to anyone. I’m too ashamed of it.  Please, dear, don’t put the blame for this on me when you speak of it to others afterwards – unless you care at the same time to tell them what you have written me and wired me. Please don’t misrepresent my actions to Mother. Tell her simply that you have written me such blue letters that it drove me to come back. We see his concern of his mother’s opinion. Rockwell is ashamed, especially concerned that his mother get the “correct” narrative for his return. He’s fearful the whole trip has been a failure, the money wasted. Most of his important paintings are unfinished. In Wilderness, in the Feb. 17th entry, he writes “It has become necessary to go back to New York very soon. I told Rockwell of this to-day and his eyes have scarcely been dry since. He gives no specific reason for his return. In It’s Me O Lord, his 1955 autobiography, Kent writes: Kathleen, deaf to my pleas that she join me – leaving the children, as she might have done, with her mother and mine – and, seemingly, unconcerned at the swift drainage of our resources which her unnecessary life in New York City was effecting, made it increasingly evident that both to save our marriage and support the family I must quite Alaska and go home. It’s all Kathleen’s fault. If you’ve been following this website so far, and reading Kathleen’s letter excerpts, you see how false is this narrative Rockwell has created. Indeed, Kathleen scrimps and saves and feels guilty that she’s spending money Rockwell could use for his Alaska trip. Kathleen is instrumental in getting Dr. Theodore Wagner as a patron for $2000 to allow Rockwell to stay in Alaska over the summer. Kathleen socializes with other connections in the art world like Marie and Albert Sterner to help promote her husband’s career. She circulates his illustrated journal, distributes his Chart of Resurrection Bay and other pen and inks. She is instrumental in his achieving the success he finally does. I don’t know for certain, but I would guess that Rockwell did not delve into all the personal letters from his Alaska period in research for his autobiography. By 1955 the real story was set in his mind. As Zigrosser has suggested, he obliterated that part of his life. And why not? His early return didn’t matter. His fear had been groundless. The Alaska venture had been a success. The end result had been his fame.

BELOW -- Carl Zigrosser in 1970 leaving his Pine Street residence in Philadelphia. Photograph by Adrian Siegel, from Zigrosser's memoir, The World of Art and Museums (1975)

Rockie is devastated to learn they must leave early. So is his father. He’ll have no trip to Bear Glacier, and no excursion along the coast to see the fjords and paint that extraordinary land and seascape. Kent’s been defeated, part of him feels. Not only by his inner insecurities, but also by the wilderness itself – the weather, the seas, the north wind, the isolation, the darkness.  Zigrosser notes that after Kent’s house in Upstate New York (Ausable Forks) burned in 1969 – Rockwell was 86 years old – “his immediate response was to rebuild it in the same form and shape as it formerly had been…He wanted to blot out the memory of the calamity and live as before…He had terrific will power and an unshakable belief that he could accomplish anything that he decided to do. This feeling of invincibility carried him successfully through most of his life. Whatever he could not meet and overcome – he was very competitive – he would obliterate and act as if it had never existed. Had he lost is faith, the whole structure of his life would have crumbled.”

In 1919, Rockwell could not abide the truth of what he considered his defeat in Alaska – the real reason for his early return. This new narrative was his way of obliterating it. In It’s Me O Lord Kent briefly summarizes the published Alaska story. Zigrosser wrote: “As with most autobiographies, it is in fact an apologia pro vita sua and contains the usual amount of inaccuracies, half-truths, and evasions. In saying this I do not minimize the obvious merit of the book. It is a marvelous projection of a personality and a record of a full life lived on many levels. The book is the man. But from the fulness of my knowledge I can not accept his legend entirely at its face value, nor refrain from expressing my sympathy for some of those who have experienced his disfavor.” There were subjects that even his close friends dared not discuss with Rockwell. Zigrosser wrote: “It was not, however, Rockwell’s temperament, when he had convictions, to refrain from expressing them forcibly on all occasions. I found it expedient, therefore, to avoid, as far as possible, arguments on certain issues, debates in which neither could convince the other, and which could lead only to the aggravation of tempers for no good reason.” This temperament most certainly applied to Rockwell’s narrative of his personal life. Zigrosser had written a portrait of Rockwell in 1942 for The Artist in America. Kent loved it. Zigrosser later revised it and read it to Rockwell in 1967. “He begged me so earnestly not to publish the work that I had no choice but to comply. I did not promise never to publish it, revised of course, but to postpone it until a later date, which might be after his death. I was surprised by the vehemence of his solicitude.” This work probably became the chapter in Zigrosser’s memoir, A World of Art and Museums, published in 1975 – four years after Rockwell’s death. The Zigrosser quotes in this and the last entry come from that book. Few people knew Kent as long and as well as Zigrosser. “When I was young,” Zigrosser wrote, “I admired him uncritically. As I grew older, I saw him as a human being endowed with certain frailties that I was prepared to accept. I felt, however, that to acquiesce invariable was dishonest: I had my own opinions and was not just a yes-man. I viewed him now in perspective: my regard was tempered but also deepened. I admired him with more understanding. Such a new dimension in friendship was a more worthy tribute to him and to me than uncritical admiration. Thus the bonds of our friendship were never broken…” Zigrosser represents one of the best sources for understanding Rockwell Kent’s complex personality.

BELOW -- Kathleen, with little Kathleen, Clara and Rockie  at Brigus, Newfoundland in 1914. Photo from the Kent/Whiting family photograph album reproduced from Vital Passage: The Newfoundland Epic of Rockwell Kent with a Catalogue Raisonne of Kent's Newfoundland Works by Jake Milgram Wien (2014)

March 7, 1919 Kathleen to Kent: I am well excited about your coming back so soon, we all are, but I suppose you have misunderstood my letters to expect my thinking it unwise to leave me alone any longer. However, I will bear the blame and if it gets too heavy for my shoulders, then not only in my letters but our life together. This is the reason I think that my love for you is not as (easy) as yours for me. It has suffered a relapse after the struggles. Kathleen agrees to Rockwell’s narrative of why he’s returning home early, even if the burden gets too heavy for her to bear. She will take the blame. But she’s also clear in the letters that he has no reason to distrust her fidelity to him, and that she can take care of herself. Consider – she’s been alone with the children during much of their ten-year marriage. She’s raised the kiddies pretty much on her own, looked after bills, cooked the meals while doing the shopping, and working to promote Rockwell’s career. Kathleen also makes it clear that asking her to accept conditions like this makes it difficult for her to give him the love he wants.