August 16-17, 2018

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100 YEARS LATER
by Doug Capra © 2018

While Rockwell and Rockie are still in Yakutat, I’ll backtrack a bit. Notice how I spelled his son’s name. While reading through the letters I’ve noticed that Kent spells it both with a “y” and an “ie.” His wife, Kathleen, spells it Rockie.

So far I’ve been quoting mostly from his letters to Hildegarde Hirsch. Those letters will run through 1919 as Kent is on Fox Island, and a bit further. As I’ve said, Hildegarde’s letters to Kent have not survived, so we can only surmise from his letters how she may be responding. 

It may appear from what I’ve written so far that Kent is only writing to Hildegarde. That’s not the case. He is sending Kathleen and his children many letters and postcards from the train and the ship. By Aug. 19, 1918 Kathleen has received a letter from Yakutat and writes him there from Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine where she and the three girls are living. He doesn’t get the letter until weeks later. “I am happy at hearing from you so often. I hope it will last,” she says. Kathleen is following his trip closely, even going to the schoolhouse to find Yakutat on an out-of-date map, assuring her husband he is spelling the name correctly. “I had a discussion a few nights ago with the commander of one of the patrol boats {probably the U.S. Coast Guard} as to just where Yakutat was and I’m glad to find I was right and not wrong.” She wants to be with him, she writes. It wasn’t just the danger of traveling with the three little girls, the risks, and the cost. “If we could only forget and forgive the horrid past and start out new…with our little family and love one another truly and faithfully,” she writes. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I hope continually that that time will be here soon.”

Kathleen’s letters contain reminders like that as well as the mundane struggles and activities connected with raising three young girls alone while Kent is off somewhere else. Is she sometimes purposely trying to make him feel guilty? Probably. Does she resent all his love affairs? Most certainly. Does she still love him and want their marriage to work? Absolutely. Is she trying to understand why he is how he is and does what he does? Certainly. Does she accept his explanations? Not really. 

As Kent is preparing for his Alaska trip we see all of this in her correspondence with him, especially in a July 12, 1918 letter: “I get terribly lonely for a man’s protection and love,” she tells him, “and when I feel too badly I cry out and I cry out for you, for there is no one else, but at other times I fully realize that you cannot give me the love I want – and – I cannot give you the love you want! You have said so.” Kathleen then goes on to remind Kent that the captain of the island mail boat was trying to seduce her. “I’m sure you’d object to his attentions!” She’s getting fed up with his double standards – if he can have his women, she can have her men. “Please remember that it is not my fault. Please remember that I have been very patient & very devoted & faithful to you for many years.”

A few days later, on July 15, 1918 Kathleen has second thoughts. “Dear, dear Husband,” she writes:

“Please don’t feel badly over my last letter. I want you to be happy while away. We don’t either of us know how we’ll feel about all this when you get back, and so if it’s necessary for you to be happy to work well, you’d better do all that is possible to be happy. Please don’t leave without settling any money matters; also tell me how many months storage you have paid on the furniture. Have you a receipt for it? Have you sublet your studio? Don’t forget to get Rockie some warm underclothes. I will mail your shirt tomorrow with this letter. I’ve not been able to get any fuel yet. The groceries have not come and I can’t get any sugar on the island.— Love from us all. Your Kathleen.”

With Kathleen’s letters, Kent is constantly reminded not only of their failed marriage but also of the difficult position he has left his wife in with three young children and little money. In that last letter from Kathleen it’s clear to both Hildegarde and his wife that they are connected with each other whether they like it or not. As in geometry, Kent is the apex of this love triangle. He tries to keep the two women in touch with each other. “The dress and the stockings have arrived,” Kathleen writes. “Please thank H. for the stockings.”

Her letters to her husband go back and forth – making him feel guilty and jealous and later regretting her words. On July 18, 1918 she writes: “I’m very sorry my letters have not seemed nice. Please be happy and contented and don’t worry about me. And take the best care of our little son. I started a pair of woolen stockings for him today.” She follows that with stories about the children: “Kathleen…{their daughter}…and I went bathing this morning with the kiddies. The water was horrible cold, so cold that my legs got perfectly numb then started to ache like a toothache. You can bet we didn’t stay in long.” Next comes the difficulties of surviving on an island with war rationing: “We are having a little difficulty getting sugar. For days there has been none on the island.”

The storekeeper, Mr. Shaw, finally acquired some sugar but would sell only two pounds per family regardless of the family’s size. Kathleen wanted to complain but held her tongue, “for if I don’t keep on the right side of him I’ll surely not get any coal.” Kathleen had wanted to get their laundry done, but she had no coal for hot water. The only cereals she could get were oatmeal and cornmeal. Fortunately, there was plenty of milk for the children – but a larger order of groceries she had ordered from off island hadn’t arrived in weeks. “I think I have told all our little worries,” she ends the letter, giving “Love and kisses to both my Rockwells.”

To appreciate the understory of Rockwell Kent’s “Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska,” one must see the book within the context of his marriage, his love life, the Great War, his socialism, his financial and artistic struggles, and his relationship with Rockie and Lars Matt Olson. 

As we leave him today, he and his son are still at Yakutat. Next time we’ll delve more into the letters he’s writing.

PHOTOS

1. Rockwell Kent, Kathleen and his children at Brigus, Newfoundland in 1914. Photo courtesy of the Rockwell Kent Gallery at Plattsburgh, N.Y.
2. At Brigus, Newfoundland in 1914 – Kathleen with children Kathleen, Clara and Rockie. Photo courtesy of the Kent/Whiting Family, from webpage by Heather Barrett at https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/kent-cottage
3. Kent at Brigus in 1914 holding Clara, with Kathleen standing. Same credit as above.
4. Actress and Ziegfeld Follies girl Hildegarde Hirsch. Courtesy of the Rockwell Kent Gallery at Plattsburgh, N.Y.
5. Last year I discovered this 1920 passport photo of Hildegarde Hirsch. This is the first time it’s been published.