EARLY TO MID-DECEMBER 2018


ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100 YEARS LATER
by Doug Capra © 2018
Early to Mid-December 2018

 BELOW -- The sun directly over Fox Island at 11:50 a.m. on Dec. 17, 2018. Taken from the south end of Seward. Capra photo.


BELOW -- Pioneers (or Into the Sun), 1919. Oil on canvas, 28 x 44 ¼ in. In a Dec. 8, 1918 letter to Kathleen, Kent describes a painting that could be the one below: “A blue sunlit day with the mountains sharp and clear. A picture of our cove with the sun setting straight in the middle and reflected in a broad glare right at my feet. A little cabin is in this picture and there will be people and whales.” If this is the picture described, Kent decided to take out the whales.



SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE KENT ALASKA LETTERS

I’m writing this on Monday, Dec. 17, 2018. As you can see, I’m a few days behind in my attempt to keep right on the actual date. The process of transcribing the Kent Alaska letters is enjoyable, sometimes entertaining, frustrating, exhausting and extremely time-consuming. My wife, Cindy, reads the hard copies of the letters to me while I both transcribe and occasionally check questionable words on a digital copy. Kent has nothing but time while on Fox Island: time to paint, cook, cut firewood, listen and talk with Olson, supervise Rockie’s education and read to him, go for hikes – and of course, write letters. He writes and writes and writes. As an example, between Dec. 8th and Dec. 13, Kent wrote 27 pages just to Kathleen. He’s also writing to his friend Carl Zigrosser, Hildegarde, his mother, his children, and several others. In addition, he’s compiling an illustrated diary that he hopes to bind as a memory for Rockie. Here are some observations about the letters to and from Kathleen and those to Hildegarde (Hildegarde’s letters to Kent have not survived).

  Kent’s Victorian education and romantic nature is clear in both the content and style of his letters. He loved English and grammar studies. “I think I liked it particularly because, as it was then taught,” he wrote in his autobiography, “we diagrammed sentences, made pictures of them, showing them to be somewhat like living trees having the power to grow and, branching out, bear leaves and blossoms. And the more intricate a sentence was, the more I delighted in the interrelationship of its parts, articulating them, and making sure the sap could reach and nourish every last branch.”

 This is an accurate description of his letters, especially to Kathleen. The sentences are long, moving from clause to clause with various phrases and dashes in between. Some are so complex that when I transcribe them I’ve put in missing punctuation to make them clear to the reader. When he feels insecure, depressed and neglected while writing letters during the late evening and early morning hours (The Hour of the Wolf) – he rambles. The syntax becomes confusing as the sentences go on and on. I’ve had to take some of those sentences apart a phrase and clause at a time to figure out what he’s trying to say.

That covers the style – now for the content. He’s able to compartmentalize his ideas. There’s the overly, sentimental romantic love letter section to Kathleen and Hildegarde. There’s the section about activities on Fox Island and stories about Rockie for Kathleen. He may then move to more practical matters – items he wants sent to him or other chores he wants done at home. Then, with Kathleen, there are the rants, criticisms, and pleadings for her complete faithfulness to him. He wants long letters filled with the same kind of romantic rhetoric he’s providing her. While on Fox Island he reads his stack of letters from Kathleen over and over again. He studies them, analyzes them, sometimes even counts the words and compares them to how many words he writes to her. She always loses that competition. Kent is disappointed that Kathleen isn’t answering all the questions he’s asking. After reading a stack of her letters, he writes a long response with a list of very specific responses to very specific items she has covered. He wants her to do the same for him.

In a Dec. 8, 1918 letter to her he writes: “I think that in every letter I shall ask you to read over all my letters and answer one by one every question I have asked you and every request. Please. And please, darling, when you have written to the end of your last page of your day’s doings don’t skimp on those lines that are to me the best of all. You have often – for lack of space – had to write a short, a curt, goodbye squeezed in somewhere in a margin. Take, please, a new page and write as follows. {He underlines each word} I love you forever and ever with all my heart and soul. Believe me fiercely in my devotion, for every thought I love and every dream all tenderness and beauty that I have is yours alone and our children’s for now through all the days of our life.”

On Dec. 9, 1918 he writes: “I ask you now again to please read over all my letters and answer everything that I have asked you – enter into their spirit and talk to me of the things I have spoken of. And tell me just how many you have received, mention the photographs, the postcards, everything. Please darling do this even if you have to take a whole evening week for it.” Notice that he crossed out “evening” no doubt realizing that he’s already sent perhaps 200 pages or more to Kathleen that she'd need a least a week to analyze.

As my wife and I plow through Kent’s letters, we can’t imagine what it must be like for Kathleen to receive batches of letters – perhaps 30 or 40 pages at a time. When does she have time to read them all? And having read them, where would she get the time to give Kent the detailed responses he requires?

Most of Kathleen’s letters are maybe four pages with large handwriting and small paper sizes, especially when she’s on Monhegan Island with little support. She writes about their children, about the weather, about cooking and mending and cleaning. She does taunt him by talking about the dances she attends and the men she meets. Kathleen often reveals she’s writing late in the evening after all her work is done and the children are asleep. Once they move to the Berkshires with her family, it’s obvious Kathleen has help and more time. She goes on road trips to visit the fall foliage and attends parties. From there she writes Kent a few long letters filled with the kind of romantic language and admiration he craves. Unfortunately, most of those letters are either damaged or have faded and are difficult to read – but my wife and I have been able to get the gist of them. In his letters to her, Kent says he wants more letters like that. Once Kathleen moves to New York City she again has more support and help with the children. Her friends Bernice and Billy take her to Broadway shows and musical entertainments and she writes about shopping and other excursions. It’s clear she’s enjoying herself, and also clear that Kent doesn’t like it. If she has time for those activities, she has time to sit at home, reread all his letters, and write long detailed, loving responses to him.

Kathleen can write a letter and mail it that same day. Still, her letters can take weeks to arrive in Alaska though not always in large batches. Kent will spend two or three weeks on Fox Island writing dozens of letters. Then in Seward, after getting those on a steamship, he writes a dozen or so more so they can get off before he returns to the island. Kathleen and Kent are not communicating in any realistic fashion. If only you were here and we could talk, Kent often says. That’s one reason he wants her to join him. He’s told his wife that the affair with Hildegarde is over yet he continues to write to her through February 1919.

Meanwhile Kent continues to paint and is anxious to share his accomplishments with Kathleen – which he does in quite an interesting letter in which he also writes about Rockie’s potential artistic career.







MORE RESURRECTION BAY SUNRISES


Seward Small Boat Harbor. Photo by Nichole Lawrence




Photo by Jim Pfeiffenberger

















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