Part 2 - CHRISTMAS & LATE DECEMBER 2018 --PART 2

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018

Part 2 -- Christmas & Late December 2018

Aerial view of the entrance to Resurrection Bay looking south into the Gulf of Alaska. The entrance is at the upper center of the photo. There you can clearly see three islands. First is Fox Island. Across from Fox Island you can see Callisto Head and Bear Glacier, which begins the eastern boundary of Kenai Fjords National Park. South of Fox Island, smaller Hive Island seems to blend into larger Rugged Island. Further out is Cape Aialik and around that corner Aialik Bay with Holgate and Aialik Glaciers. Beyond Cape Aialik you can begin to see the entrance to Harris Bay and Northwestern Fiord.

Before I go further into these letters between Kent and Kathleen, I want to clarify a few things and risk exposing some of my opinions. These are very personal letters, My intent isn’t to disparage Rockwell or Kathleen. My main goal is to delve into the “Not-So-Quiet Adventure” happening not only on Fox Island with Rockwell, but also with Kathleen on the East Coast. I don’t believe Kathleen’s voice has been given enough attention as she matured between 1909 and 1919. And her letters show that she developed strong opinions – especially in the Fox Island correspondence -- and became much more intolerant of Kent’s attitude and behavior. And Kent began to realize he had to change his ways if his marriage was to endure. Almost all published accounts of Kent’s Fox Island experience say simply that to save his marriage he left Alaska early. The only one that goes into any detail is David Traxel in his biography of Kent. But he had neither time nor space to go into great detail. All accounts of Kent’s trip say that Kathleen reluctantly agreed to let her husband take Rockie to Alaska. In one letter she states clearly that Kent took their son with him against her will.

I’m trying to reveal the person Kent was in 1918-1919 when on Fox Island. He was not the Kent that some knew much later in life. We must never forget that we’re looking backwards from the perspective of the success and recognition he received after the acclaim of his Alaska paintings and book. He brought the baggage of his upbringing and his many conflicts with him to Alaska. On the one hand, he knew he had greatness in him and resented that the art world didn’t recognize it. On the other hand, he couldn’t depend upon his own assessment of his genius – he craved, indeed demanded confirmation and adoration from others – especially Kathleen, but also from friends like George Chappell and Carl Zigrosser. Since his marriage and affair with Jennie, and now Hildegarde -- Kent consistently flipped back and forth between his need for more than one woman and the guilt attached to an authentic love for his wife and children. Like some other men during those rapidly changing times, Kent hung on desperately to the dying world while still exploring the edges of a newly emerging one. He wanted a traditional and idealistic 19^th century wife and marriage, a young woman like Kathleen who would raise his children and support his career. He also wanted to experience the new-world’s playground, and the new-world women who inhabited it. Kent also exhibited typical Victorian attitudes toward sex and marriage. For many men (and women) of Kent’s class and upbringing, sex in marriage was for procreation not enjoyment. If the men wanted unbridled, passionate sex they sought it elsewhere – so did some women. There are moments in the letters when he and Kathleen really try to communicate honestly about their relationship. On Dec. 20th, Kent seems to be telling Kathleen that she isn’t responsive or engaged enough with him. She’s passive, and he wants her to be more active in their intimacies. That’s why he turns to others like Hildegarde. Kent writes:

“But will you pet me a lot when I come back? Do you know I think maybe I’ve never had my share of that. Will you think about this and write to me about it? I am surely demonstrative toward you and I know I love to be fussed over too. Have you ever done this? I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Mother darling, often I think that the cause of my unfaithfulness is (very much) in yourself. I’m not a bounder but I do want to be warmly, passionately, demonstratively loved. Isn’t there maybe much that you can cultivate in yourself that will make the future happier for us both. I have seen wives who caress their husbands and I thought that was beautiful. You, sweet affectionate little wife, have been ever so loving, have been ever so close to me but for me to pet you -- never I think to actively delight me. I have a memory of certain few beautiful moments when you threw your arms about me when you did the loving. Sweetheart, it is right to speak of these things. I want so much to be completely happy with you just as you want it with me. I want to be true and never again stray from you. But you must help by making yourself a real fountain of delight for me. This is not a one-sided wish. I must be no less to you. Try mother darling – from this moment. In true, ardent love for me in all your thoughts, in visions of yourself and me together in such loving happiness as we desire, you can cultivate your nature to show its love actively, now even, and fully when we’re again reunited.”

But the problem for Kent is that he has idealized Kathleen as a pure, noble vision of womanhood. Although he wants her to be more actively passionate and aggressive in their love making, he’s guilty about that kind of intimacy with her, his wife. Those kind of experiences are more appropriate with Hildegarde -- On Dec. 22nd, Kent tries to explain: “

“I think of the beauty of life in terms of you. Your form is to me WOMAN. You are to me the perfect mother…Never can I think of the great and noble women of romance and history without seeing you in your true place among them…It is your height, your strength, touch of your flesh, your lips. I crave your eyes to see me, your hands to caress me and your kisses to touch me all over…Do you know that it would be possible for me not ever to be unfaithful to you. And then, mother darling, somehow you fail me, and happiness is not quite realized in you. Is it the fault of my bringing up of you. – for I have brought you up? I think it largely is. You know I began years ago with tragically false ideals. I tried hard to see the absolute of good and evil. I struggled with myself – and to you I tried to give only the “goodness” of myself. And I wanted you to be so pure. God, what a fool I was. The most beautiful of all in you and in me I choked. And when finally it would come out it was in secret away from you – partly in shame of you and partly because I had made you in my own thoughts of you not fit to give me all that I needed…Mother, that is over. You shall be wife to me and concubine and I shall be husband and lover. Give me all, all that you hold for man within yourself and I’ll show you a heaven of passionate and divine love. I exact chastity of myself and I exact it of you. I give you my promise to be true and I ask – no I demand – that you be true to me. this question – this pledge – I want answered when you wire me. If you give it to me do it with all your heart {with the} seriousness of which you would prepare {for} death. It is that serious to me. And in your telegram begin with these words “Yes, always,” and I’ll know that the promise has been made and that forever it will be kept.”

Of course, Kathleen won't get Kent’s letter until late January and she finally sends him the telegram he demands on Jan. 30th. I've copied it below. Notice that she holds her ground by compromising with her husband. She doesn’t respond with a “Yes, always.” Instead she wires, “BE CONTENT. HAVE GIVEN MY PROMISE.”

I again want to remind readers that I delve into these two remarkable lives with great respect for both of them. The people we can hurt the most are those we love the most because we know their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. That’s what we’re seeing in these letters and in this volatile yet tender relationship. On Fox Island, Kent really wants to be faithful to Kathleen. He misses her and the children desperately, and this separation sometimes drives him to destructive distraction. He honestly begins to see how much he has hurt his wife. He honestly wants a new start with his marriage. Kathleen loves her husband, admires him, believes in his genius – but his behavior has often wounded her so severely that she tries to squelch her love as a defense mechanism to protect herself. Loving him causes her too much pain when she experiences his unfaithfulness and criticism. And as she tells him, when he senses her pulling her love away, he sees it as her unfaithfulness to him. She is dedicated to her children, wants her marriage to survive, and over the years has made many sacrifices.

But now she’s 27 years old it’s difficult for her to hold back the resentment that has been building. She’s not the young 17-year-old Rockwell married on New Year’s Eve 1908. She’s not the innocent “child” Kent says in his letters that he “raised.” While he’s in Alaska, who does she have to talk with about these romantic-loving-critical-demanding-toxic letters from her husband? Certainly not Kent’s mother. Or Kent’s friends, Carl Zigrosser. Perhaps with George Chappell, Kent's close friend. Notice the reference to Chappell in the telegram above. Kathleen probably confides with another woman who may be offering her advice about her marriage and how to deal with her husband. As we’ll see from the upcoming letters, I suggest that woman is the Bernice (and her husband, Billy) we find mentioned in the letters. And as we’ll also see, Kent even suspects his close friend, George Chappell of interfering in his marriage. Kent is even asking his younger friend, Carl Zigrosser, to check in on Kathleen. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any of Kent’s letters to George. But the few I have found from him to Kent, along with Kathleen’s and Kent’s letters – give us another perspective on this complicated story – as New Year’s Eve and 1919 approaches.