PART 3 -- NEW YEAR'S EVE 1918

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018

Part 3 - New Year’s Eve 1918

NOTE -- Beginning in late July 1918 as Kent headed west with Rockie toward Alaska, the days grew shorter. By the time he settled on Fox Island in late August, the daily light loss became more noticeable, especially with the rain and cloud cover. Through November and December, while Kent experienced his depression and nightmares, the shortest day of the year approached. He struggled to paint due to the darkness, focusing his artistic energies composing black and white sketches and pen and inks by candle light inside the cabin. He did experience a few sunny days and took advantage of them painting outside – but the sun moved so quickly as it set behind the Aialik Peninsula that he had to work deliberately and quickly. Now – in early January -- we’re gaining more that 2 ½ minutes of light a day. By February we’ll add more than 30 minutes a week. As I write this on January 5, 2018 – the sun is blinding and warm, a true light at the end of the dark journey through winter. It's very likely that like most of us in this part of Alaska, Kent's mood began to improve with more light and days like today's. Below: The sun to the left and above Fox Island on January 5, 2019 at 11:16 a.m. Notice the sea smoke rising from Resurrection Bay. Today the temperature hovered between zero and ten above. Capra photo.

New Year’s Eve 1918

New York City

Rockwell and Kathleen Kent’s Tenth Wedding Anniversary

Kathleen has read her husband’s two letters written many weeks ago – the ones he sent to his friend Carl Zigrosser to make sure his wife would get them for their anniversary. Now she writes back: “My darling, darling Sweetheart,Here I am all alone with you and the wonderful flowers you sent me. They are not roses but yellow and white narcissus, which fill the air with a wonderful perfume, and two other kinds of flowers, neither of which I know the name of, but they are beautiful. The flowers arrived hours before Carl came with the lovely drawings and your letter; but I knew right away that you had sent them.”

Kent had written: “Now my sweetheart. To-night you shall have roses that I send to you from some mysterious source, a picture of Rockwell’s that shows his vision of paradise – our cabin and such a place as he would take us to when we are old, and my vision of an earthly Paradise for all of us.”

Kathleen responds: “The drawing of your vision of paradise is, and has always been mine, too.”

Rockwell promises Kathleen that when he returns from Alaska they will take a trip in search of a new home far away from New York City -- a place in the country, somewhere in New England. It will be their own little island, away from the crowded world Kent has grown to despise while on Fox Island. A refuge where they can educate their children their own way, like he has been doing with Rockie in Alaska. A haven from the corrupt influences of the herd and their culture. Though not stated directly – it’s apparent that it’s clear to both Kathleen and Kent -- their new paradise will also be a sanctuary for Kent, away from Hildegarde and temptations. Rockwell has given his wife hope – the expectation that her years of suffering with his infidelities are over.   

Kathneen responds: “Rockwell dear, I can’t write you what I want to say; it is very hard for me to put my thoughts into words. I will tell you frankly, that up to now, I have not felt the sincerity of your letters of love and promise for the future, but tonight things have changed. I am intoxicated with your love and the scent of the wonderful flowers you have sent me. The two letters I had from you today are the first I have had without a breath of reproach in them, for a long while. I really begin to believe in your new self and in the beginning of a new life for us. The trip in search of a new house that you speak of shall not be out of my mind for a single day. It will be wonderful. Do you remember having promised me such a trip before? At last it will come to pass, I believe.”

Keep in mind that Rockwell mailed those two New Year's Eve letters to Zigrosser in early December to give to Kathleen. Kent won’t get her response until – who knows? Perhaps mid to late January. As Kathleen writes her response, Kent has no idea what she will say. He is profoundly sincere in all he writes. He wants to be a new person. He wants his marriage to endure. But what if Kathleen doesn’t believe that he has changed? What if her friends, like Bernice and Billy, represent a negative influence upon her? What if she decides to leave him?    

At the same time Kent mails those two letters to Kathleen, he writes four letters to Hildegarde – three on Dec. 2^nd and one on Dec. 3^rd. In the Dec. 2^nd letters he tells Hildegarde “I have chosen to go back to Kathleen and the children, to leave New York and leave it forever maybe, and go far into the country somewhere where no other people will be, to live on the least it can be done for and dedicate my time to work without end.” Does that mean the affair is over? “Write to me as you have written,” he adds, “and still I will find the same peace in the knowledge of your thoughts of me. There shall be no separation. I have loved you and I love you now too dearly to let you pass form me if you will be restrained.”

Sketch from an Oct. 7, 1918 from Kent to Hildegarde.

This is the letter Kathleen demands to see, proof that he has actually ended the relationship. “I haven’t written for weeks,” Kent tells Hildegarde. “I couldn’t write. I have dreaded doing this. {Ending the affair.} On the little Christmas picture that I sent you I wanted to put Liebe Hoff Glaube {Love Hope Faith} and I couldn’t. I have been false to you. Oh, I am ashamed!” Hildegarde will get this news about Christmas. “I couldn’t bear to send the news I had for you…that it would reach you on that wonderful day,” Kent writes in a second letter the same day. He ends it, “Tomorrow, sweetheart, I’ll write again. It is now 2:30 and I must go to bed. God be a friend to you now and may he lead you to forgive me. Lovingly, Rockwell.” He has reviewed all Hildegade’s letters, and probably recalls the one from Kathleen telling of Hilda’s other men. Kent asks, “Hildegarde, have you been true to me. Do not deceive me. Oh, I mustn’t question you but leave it to your honor to tell me even if you have done wrong. Now I feel so alone. From the only one, I believe, who loved me I have cut myself off. Can you ever forgive me? You must. I am really doing what I know to be best.” The last letter he writes to Hildegarde from Fox Island is on December 26, 1918:

Sketch of the Fox Island cabin in an Oct. 9, 1918 letter from Kent to Hildegarde.

 “Now I get terribly lonely. Your letters…have been the sweetest I have had…lately…With Kathleen there has been nothing but continual misunderstanding. She has written very little and what she does write is generally most unsatisfying… But still this is the life I love. I think I can never permanently return to the city. The beauties of this wild and lonely existence are a real discovery for me. I never knew before what freedom was. Day after day no one is seen to disturb the calm of existence. If only my inner troubles were stilled then I might really say that I had found the true conditions for peace and happiness. But those troubles, are they ever to cease for any of us?... Rockwell is lovely beyond praise. The sweetest, kindest brave little fellow that ever was. He realizes that there is trouble on my mind and does his best to (divert?) me. Every night we play cards together for a little while. It’s a waste of my time but it does a lot of good.”

{NOTE -- Having left Alaska, Kent writes several more letters to Hildegarde, the last letter on May 12, 1921, which he sent to her in Germany where she was visiting her family. See His Mind on Fire: Rockwell Kent's Amorous Letters to Hildegarde Hirsch and Ernesta Drinker Bullitt, 1916-1925 by Jake Milgram Wien, published in the Autumn 1997 issue of Columbia Library Columns. In the article Wien writes: "Though a half dozen letters to Hildegarde survive from 1919, all are written subsequent to the Kents' spring return from Alaska. A few convey the impression of an amicable disengagement and the return to Kent of clothing and belongings from their shared studio. Kent wrote his last letters to Hildegarde from from his studio (at 139 W. 15th St.) and his family's new Vermont farmhouse ("Egypt") in Arlington, {Vermont}. Five letters from 1920 and a final one from 1921 conclude his correspondence with her.")

Kent describes his Christmas Day to Hildegarde, and then tries to clear up the squabbles she and Kathleen have had about the furniture in the apartments – that controversial chair and the andirons and other "stuff". As far as Kent is concerned he’s ended the physical affair with Hildegarde – but there is still an emotional attachment he cannot yet abandon. What if Kathleen were to leave him? Who would be there to love him?

Back to Kathleen’s New Year’s Eve letter – She tries to explain to her husband how busy and housebound she is with the children and all her duties. Despite that, she writes, “I mean to make the most of being in the city, and every time I get an invitation to go out, I mean to make the most of it. You know I have had very few city pleasures in my life and I’m sure you don’t begrudge them to me now. Don’t have any more fears or dreams of any man seducing me. It will not be so! Please don’t feel, either, that other people are always influencing me.” Rockwell has been suspicious of Bernice and some other of Kathleen’s friends. He’s even questioned the intentions of his good friend, George Chappell, who has asked to try to explain to Kathleen what he needs from her.

Kathleen ends the letters: “You have grown wiser and changed, Rockwell, and so have I. I can love you and be a good true wife and mother; and also love my friends, which I do very much, and you must love them too, if for no other reason than, that they are my friends. This I have always done with you and your friends. Yes, dear, I want your letters to be love-letters, but with many tales of my dear little son in them, and no reproaches. You have asked me to write you a special letter telling of my vision of our future life together. First of all the country is the only place to really live and love. Isn’t it dear. What I expect from you is no more than the wonderful love you are giving me now: for if you feel that love for me, you will surely be more tender and thoughtful of my comfort & happiness that you have been at times in the past. Please don’t cry anymore, my darling Husband. I cannot bear to think of it and I not there to dry your tears. In my heart I have made many New Year’s resolutions, and you must help me to keep them by believing in me. Yes, if you love me and believe in me then what I do will be of no consequence for I have done it and you love and you believe in me. That is so, is it not? If your love is so great, believe in me and trust me. You have broken away from the past & are alone in a new world and can think and see clearly; I am here amid the ruins of the last few years and at times it is hard for me to see above them. You must forgive this. Darling, I must go to bed. Please hug and kiss my big boy for me and tell him how I love the pictures he made me for a wedding present. Goodnight my darling boys. I love you both so dearly. Forever lovingly, Kathleen.”

Looking out toward Fox Island at 2:15 p.m. on January 5, 2018. Capra photo.

Looking northwest into the town of Seward -- the setting sun glow on Mount Marathon and Benson Mountain at 2:15 p.m. on January 5, 2018. Capra photo.