PART 1 OF 5 - THE NOT-SO-QUIET ADVENTURE

THE NOT-SO-QUIET ADVENTURE

Unpacking Rockwell Kent's

Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska

by Doug Capra © 2019

PART 1 OF 5

         NOTE – This is Part 1 OF 4 of a somewhat revised version of the lecture I deliver at the Anchorage (Alaska) Museum of History and Art on Nov. 9, 2018 as part of a one-day Kent Symposium. If you’ve been reading this website you realize there is much more the story. This lecture focused mostly the relationship between Rockwell and Kathleen Kent as seen in their letters. While in Alaska the mail service was exceptionally slow and unreliable due to contract disputes between the U.S. Government and the steamship companies. Rockwell was away from home frequently during during the first ten years of their marriage, and he and Kathleen were used to using letters to communicate. That was impossible while Kent was in Alaska. The lag between writing a letter and receiving an answer was many weeks. There was no real communication and that became frustrating for both of them and caused much confusion and misunderstanding. I’ll post Part 2 of this probably on Sunday, January 13, 2018.

American artist Rockwell Kent II (1882-1971) lived one of the best documented, fascinating and yet neglected lives of any 20^th century American artist. After stints painting on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine, at Winona, Minnesota, and in Newfoundland – Kent ventured to Alaska in July 1918 with his then 8-year-old son, Rockwell Kent III, often called Rockie. He had married Kathleen Whiting in 1908 and by 1918 had three daughters and a son. This article focuses some of his life before Alaska and the time he spent on Fox Island in Resurrection Bay. He chronicled the experience in his first book, Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska (1920). Beneath that book’s text, within the personal letters he wrote and received while on Fox Island in Resurrection Bay, is the story his personal demons during that isolation on an island in the Alaska wilderness.

The book sits on the ruins of Kent's cabin  on Fox Island amidst Dwarf Dogwoods. Capra photo.

As I wrote in my foreword to the 1996 reprint of Wilderness, the book is uplifting, inspiring and healing. It’s about art and life, childhood and old age, alienation and integration, the inner journey, simplicity and solitude. You can read and fully enjoy Wilderness without considering anything I write here. But on Fox Island, when Kent refers to his confrontation with the solitary “abyss” and describes the experience as “the terror of emptiness,” – he’s not talking about some abstract, philosophical concept.

Beneath his Fox Island experience -- and the art and book that emerged from it -- lurks the artist’s uncertainty, anger, insecurity, depression, and loneliness. There’s a significant contrast between the uplifting redemptive story he tells in his book and the inner agony and turmoil his personal demons bring him. As we look back from our perspective to Kent’s rapid rise to fame during the 1920’s, we must realize that on Fox Island he had no idea where his life was going, no assurance of his marriage, his love affair -- or his art career.

   

 Let’s begin unpacking some of the emotional baggage he brought to Alaska. About 1907, before he meets and marries Kathleen, Kent begins a relationship with a young woman on Monhegan Island off the Maine coast. He first meets Jane Bell Sterling – Jennie -- when he comes to the island about 1903. She’s about twelve years old. By 1907, when she’s 16 or 17, their relationship gets serious and they become a couple. In January 1908 while studying with artist Abbott Thayer in New Hampshire, Kent meets Thayer’s 17-year-old niece, Kathleen Whiting. They fall in love, get engaged, and marry on Dec. 31, 1908. Kathleen becomes pregnant about February 1909. Jennie and Kent revive their relationship. Kent once admitted: “I discovered sex late, and spent the rest of my life making up for lost time.” Their son, Rockie, is born on Oct. 25, 1909. When Kathleen learns of Kent’s affair with Jennie, she is stunned and devastated. She leaves with the baby to join her family in Western Massachusetts. “Oh, darling,” Kent writes to her, “with all my love for Jennie if only you can know that I do love you dearly.”

Kathleen eventually returns to him. In their letters, he apologizes and promises to do better. He fails, begs her forgiveness, assures her of his love, guarantees faithfulness, and fails once more. In 1910 Kent makes his first trip to Newfoundland to scout out the possibility of forming an art school and colony. Kathleen and Jennie, both the same age – about ten years younger than Kent – become pregnant within a few months of each other. Jennie gives birth to Karl on July 10, 1911. Kathleen has given birth to a daughter three months earlier. She and Jennie continue to meet and correspond. Kent wants them to get along and brings Karl to visit little Kathleen and Rockie. Neither woman is satisfied with the arrangement.  Kent is considering divorcing Kathleen and marrying Jennie.

On Oct. 11, 1911 Kathleen writes to Kent in New York. “Rockwell, dear, you must leave me and go to Jennie! I can’t ever be comfortable and happy with you, thinking how I am making her suffer. I can’t be happy at the expense of someone else…If you absolutely refuse to do this for me, you must promise to let me sell my diamonds and economize in every possible way so that Jennie can keep Karl with her…Don’t call this all nonsense,” she says, “for I mean every word I say…please do as I ask…for I must make definite plans for myself.” On Oct. 13 Kent writes back: “I do realize how earnestly you mean all that you say…But darling, let me tell you this…I really do not believe I could live if death or anything separated us. When I actually look such a possibility in the face, it makes life seem terrible to me. Do not, unless you really want to ruin my life utterly, ever try to leave me.” We’ll take care of this together, he tells her. “You cannot help Jennie by driving me off.”

To give you an idea of how quickly Kent and Kathleen’s life becomes complicated, consider this timeline:

1907 – Kent begins a relationship with Jennie

1908 – Kent meets Kathleen and becomes engaged

Dec. 31, 1908 – Kent and Kathleen marry.

Jan. 1909 – Kathleen gets pregnant with Rockie

1909 – Kent deepens his relationship with Jennie.

Oct. 25, 1909 --- Kathleen gives birth to Rockie

July 1910 – Kathleen gets pregnant

1910 – Kent in Newfoundland

Oct. 1910 – Jennie gets pregnant with Karl

April 19, 1911 – Kathleen gives birth to little Kathleen

July 10, 1911 – Jennie gives birth to Karl

1912-13 – Kent in Winona, Minnesota

1914-15 – Kent in Newfoundland with family.

After Jennie becomes pregnant, Kent takes most of his savings and creates a trust for Jennie -- to care for their child. About two months later, on Dec. 11, 1911, Karl dies. In 1912, Jennie marries a doctor, George W. Wibley, and moves to Portland, Maine. Kent claims the trust is for the baby and now that Jennie is married -- wants the money and property back. Jennie’s husband refuses. During 1912-13 he’s off to Winona, Minnesota to oversee construction of some mansions. Kathleen writes, telling him “if you really and truly love me and care for me, you will…give up Jennie and Monhegan Island and return.” Kent writes back, “I will be good…you and you alone are in my heart all the time…Poor little girl, you shan’t cry on my account ever again.” Kent struggles with what he later calls his “Better Self.”

In a 1915 court case, Jennie B. Whibley vs. William Cobb {the trust holder}-- Rockwell Kent is a defendant. They eventually settle and Kent gets some of the money back. So -- the Jennie issue drags on from 1909 until 1915. While in Newfoundland in 1914 with his whole family, including a new baby, the Great War breaks out. Kent is a Germanofile, fluent in the language and lover of the culture. In 1915 he and his whole family are deported from Newfoundland due to his pro-German sentiments and unwise provocations. Back in New York, he desperately struggles to support his family and advance his art career. Kathleen has forgiven him for the Jennie affair -- but never forgets. And then…

In June 1916 in New York, Kent meets a twenty-five year-old -- blond and blue-eyed Ziegfeld Follies dancer, Hildegarde Hirsch. Kent is 34. Kent keeps no secret of the affair from Kathleen. As with Jennie, the two women are the same age and get to know each other – as Kent wants. Kathleen’s tolerance for her husband’s transgressions diminishes. Kent’s frustration with his failed career accelerates. He’s working at an architecture firm to support his family and trying to keep both his wife and Hildegarde happy -- with little time or success with his art. In June 1917 he writes Kathleen: “I’m seriously considering not painting anymore or drawing for a long time, but getting a job somewhere at some other work.” He even has death wishes. He’s ripe for a new adventure. Kathleen is exasperated, too with memories of the Jennie affair -- and now Hildegarde. This combines with her constant struggle with money while raising four children -- often alone and separated from her husband. She writes: “If you want all the love that I feel, you will have to hustle some to earn it now. This last ‘affair’ has left a scar in my life that will not soon disappear. You cannot have the love I long to give you until you have shown me that I am not going to be chucked aside again in a short time.”  A year later, just before Kent leaves for Alaska, she writes: “I get terribly lonely for a man’s protection and love, 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.” 

 Kent often responds with comments like “Dear Kathleen: You are too good for any of us. I feel terribly ashamed of all the harm I have done you. I wish I could find a way to make you happy.” It’s not that Kathleen hasn’t told him how to make her happy.  She warms him that the Monhegan Island mail boat captain has shown interest in her -- “I’m sure you’d object to his attentions,” she taunts. “Please remember that it is not my fault…that I have been very patient and very devoted and faithful to you for many years.” By the spring of 1918, Kent has decided to go to Alaska.

July 1918 -- just before Kent leaves – Rockie is with Kent in New York, and he insists on taking his son to Alaska. Kathleen won’t go with him, even though Kent’s mother agrees to take the children. Perhaps her experience in Newfoundland has given her a taste of what life can be like with Kent under such conditions. The war is still raging on. Would they be tossed out of Alaska, too? She doesn’t want to leave the children and when she turns him down, rather than trying to convince her, Kent immediately tries for Hildegarde as his companion. More than anything else, Kathleen tells him, she feels, he just wants to get away from her. “No,” Kathleen tells Kent, you can’t take Rockie.  Kent responds: “How in God’s name can you turn upon me so…Come and get Rockwell. I’m heartbroken over it. I can’t face the thought of the loneliness I’m going into.”

Kathleen pleads: “I wish you and Hilda would go but leave Rockie with me. It seems strange to me to think you are taking him away from me without my consent, after my plainly stating I did not want him to go.”  I don’t care if you take Hildegarde, she tells him, “for I realize that she will always be a part of your life and that I must have a husband with a sweetheart or not have him at all.” Kathleen is no longer the innocent, naïve 18-year-old newlywed. She’s no longer the loyal wife who remained with him despite his affair with Jennie. By 1918 she is nearing 30, exposed through her husband’s friends to progressives and socialists, fully aware of the women’s movement and the new emerging world. His love letters no longer enthrall her. “Your letters…so full of love – never ring quite true in my ears.”  As he departs for Alaska, what can she do? Rockie goes with Kent. She doesn’t really consent, just accepts reality.

        

His love letters from Alaska – to both Kathleen and Hildegarde – are overly romantic and syrupy. As Kent’s third wife Sally said, Kent was an incurable romantic. Unfortunately, we don’t have Hildegarde’s letters to Kent. But the contrast in letter writing -- style, diction and syntax – between Kent’s and Kathleen’s letters is like the difference between Mark Twain and James Fenimore Cooper; between Longfellow and Emily Dickenson. Kent writes about flying angels sending kisses and hugs to him across ocean and land.  Kathleen writes about giving the children a bath, trying to find money for coal -- and attending dances with the coast guard men on Monhegan Island – which drives Kent mad. He expects his women – both Kathleen and Hildegarde -- to be faithful and demands passionate, adoring love letters.

Kathleen’s letters are mostly short, scribbled at the end of a hard day trying to raise their three daughters. His many letters to his wife are overly long and needy. He’s a high-maintenance lover. Between Feb. 12 and Feb. 15, 1919, Kent writes at least five letters to Kathleen totaling 44 pages of his fine penmanship which include his anguish, his demands and criticism of her. She receives batches of mail with several letters as long as the one below.

 She misses her son deeply and still resents that Kent took Rockie against her will. “Don’t you see, Rockwell,” Kathleen writes, “I have shared you against my will with someone else for many years and for the past year I have struggled to resign myself to the thought of life without you; just as I begin to get resigned to that, you whisk Rockwell away from me. Why should I give up so much of what there is in life. Rockwell? You know that I love you a great deal but I can never love you as I want -- and you want – if things continue as they are.” She wants Kent to be happy -- because she loves him -- and their children and wants their marriage to work. But also -- when Kent isn’t happy he can be demanding, depressed, and emotionally needy. And overly critical. In a Feb. 9, 1919 letter Kathleen presents Kent with a series of demands if their marriage is to survive. “Above all I want you to appreciate my good qualities, my deeds and my thoughts – and -- I want you to make your mother appreciate me.” Kathleen had quite an ambivalent relationship with Kent’s mother, Sara. But that’s another story.

TO BE CONTINUED