Feb. 19-21, 1919 - PART I KATHLEEN'S JANUARY LETTERS TO ROCKWELL

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018

February 19-21, 1919 – 2019

Part 1 -- Kathleen’s January letters to Rockwell

ABOVE – A pod of Orca wander by Bear Glacier near the entrance to Resurrection Bay. Rockwell Kent writes about and sketches both Orcas (the largest member of the Dolphin family) and Humpback Whales. Photo courtesy of Major Marine Tours. 

BELOW – One of Kent’s illustrated letters from September 1918 showing a pod of orca along the shoreline of his Fox Island beach. “This happened yesterday,” he writes at the bottom, “in our little harbor not 25 feet, some of them, from where we stood.” His son, Rockie, describes wandering even closer to them along the beach and touching their dorsal fins with his walking stick. Even today Orca rub their bellies on the shoreline of that beach, perhaps the descendants of the family group Kent sketched here. This letter from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute.

On Wednesday, Feb. 19, 1919, it rains and storms, but Kent is busy repairing his engine for their upcoming trip to Seward. His entry for this day is one of the most touching in Wilderness. Every moment now the two realize their days on their “beloved” island will soon end. Kent reflects upon what endears this place to both a young boy and an older man. They see life so differently. But Fox Island has been a spot where they have both met for one of life’s perfect, sympathetic moments. “It seems that we have both together by chance turned out of the beaten, crowded way and come to stand face to face with that infinite and unfathomable thing which is the wilderness; and here we have found OURSELVES – for the wilderness is nothing else. It is a kind of living mirror that gives back as its own all and only all that the imagination of man brings to it.” He finishes by telling how important Fox Island is to Rockie. He wants to come back to live forever on the island with even more animals. Or – “if he must grow old, and very old; here marry – not a Seward girl but one more beautiful – or an Indian! – here raise a great family – and here die.” They have both stood beside the emptiness of the abyss but not shuddered at it, he says. They’ve conquered it with “the wealth of our own souls.” They have subdued it. “this vast, wild land we have made a child’s world and a man’s.”

That’s the narrative Kent presents in Wilderness, and there is some truth to it. But as we’ve seen in the letters, the wilderness can claim its share of victory in this battle. But Kent's actual experience may be too difficult to articulate. There can be a kind of victory in defeat, a kind of win in loss, As Nietzsche has Zarathustra say in the book Kent was reading – Thus Spoke Zarathustra (from the Prologue, Section 4) – “Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman – a rope across an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking back, and dangerous shuddering and stopping…What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under…I love those who do not know how to live except by going under, for they are those who cross over…I love him whose soul is deep, even in being wounded, and who can perish of a small experience: thus he goes gladly over the bridge.” Kent has gone under but really believes he has not gone completely across. 

On Thursday morning, Feb. 20^th, they hike south around the headland separating their cove from Sunny Cove. Rockie explores the caves while his father paints. The wind picks up and Kent finds it difficult keeping his canvas dry on the way back. That afternoon he paints two more pictures out-of-doors. That evening they check their gear. The boat is ready, the engine works, and their supplies are stowed. They try for an early start on Friday, February 21 but, as usual, their engine gives them trouble. They finally get off by 11 a.m. As usual their dory leaks but worse than normal – so they stop at Hogg’s camp along Caines Head. Hogg isn’t there but Kent borrowed a bowl to bail as they continue on to Seward. Ahead the sun shines. Behind them Fox Island is “shrouded in clouds.”

More on their trip to Seward in the next entry. For now – to Kathleen’s letters from January 1919.

BELOW -- Photo of a young Kathleen from a Kent family album from Jake Wien's book, Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern (2005).

As I’ve discussed, Rockwell Kent goes through a period of personal enlightenment while in the darkness and isolation at Fox Island. After dinner and reading to Rockie, and while his son is asleep, Kent is often up until the early morning hours writing letters. This period has been called the Hour of the Wolf, time when our demons visit us. And Kent has his demons. He has gone under. He has been wounded. He begins to see more clearly why his marriage is in trouble and how he has made Kathleen suffer over the last ten years. Sometime in November1918 he sends off two special letters to Carl Zigrosser and George Chappell. His two friends are to give them to Kathleen on New Year’s Eve, the tenth anniversary of Rockwell and Kathleen’s marriage. Kent has decided to leave Hildegarde and return to Kathleen, go into the country away from New York, and dedicate himself to his art and his family. From this point on, their correspondence changes. They both become more honest with each other while trying to mend their marriage.

Immediately after reading the letters on New Year’s Eve, Kathleen writes: 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. Carl came just after I had run out for a few minutes, so I did not see him, but he left a very sweet note for me. The drawing of your vision of paradise is, and has always been mine, too. Rockwell dear, I can’t write you what I want to say; it is very hard for me to put my thoughts into words. Kathleen is admittedly less articulate and fluent, shy and often passive. After ten years of marriage, now with four children, she has suffered through two of Rockwell’s public infidelities – with Jennie and now Hildegarde. Now in New York City while Kent is in Alaska, her friends (especially a woman named Bernice) make sure she gets out on the town. She probably confides with Bernice. After all, Kent’s affairs are not secret. It is very likely they are influencing her as she stands up to Rockwell in her letters. His letters are filled with romantic words of love and kisses and angels and interspaced with many “darlings,” -- “little mother,” --“sweetheart.” In the New Year’s Eve letters, Rockwell empties his heart about his failures and honest language. Kathleen continues:

 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.

BELOW -- An early photo of Kathleen and three of the children. Rockie is at right. Photo from a Kent family album from Jake Wien's book Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern (2005)

In later letters, Rockwell is upset that Kathleen has not been believing in the sincerity of his letters – although she has told him that before. For now though, she is excited with his promise that on his return they will get out of the city, travel through New England together, and find a place to settle. It will be their special paradise, a place where he will be away from the temptations of New York, a haven where they can focus on each other and repair their marriage, a refuge from the world and the herd, a shelter where he can work on his art. In past letters, Rockwell has expressed jealousy over Kathleen’s outings that take time away from her letter writing and motherly duties; concerns about Bernice and others who may be negatively influencing her; and fears of other men seducing her. Kathleen responds:

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. 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.

Kent has given her hope with their plan to get out of New York and create a space for their family in the country.

She ends her first letter of the new year: 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 than 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. 

I must continue to remind reader, that Kent won’t get this letter until Feb. 11, 1919 when Olson finally returns to Fox Island with the mail after an absence of 38 days. Kent continues to write loving, honest, heart-felt letters to Kathleen, he has no idea whether she has accepted his change and resolve to make the marriage work.

Kathleen writes a letter to Rockie on Jan. 1^st -- I have at last finished your stockings that I have been working so long. I shall send them tomorrow by letter postage, so you ought to get them the same time you get this letter. I will send them in a candy box. Please don’t be disappointed when you open (it and find stockings) instead of candy. I hope they fit. Father didn’t say there was anything wrong with the others I made, so these are about the same only a little longer, I think. I love the picture you sent me yesterday for my wedding day. Father had Carl Zigrosser send me a large box of flowers and they are beautiful and smell so sweet. The flowers and the pictures and the letters made me very happy. Make lots of pictures while you are up there. Your little sisters are all well but they miss you very much.”

BELOW -- Kent and his family shortly after ouster from Newfoundland in 1915. Photo from the Rockwell Kent Gallery collection, Plattsburgh State University, New York

In Kathleen’s Jan. 3^rd letter, we get insight into how the mail issue is confusing their communication: “My precious Husband,” she begins. “The mails are certainly mixed up. Yesterday came the registered envelope from you with the journal, Carl’s letters, and the one of yours to me that went back, and your letter written Dec. 1^st.  I received later letters from you a week or more ago. This morning came the moccasins for me, “not to be opened till Christmas.” They are lovely and oh so comfy, and a great surprise. Thank you, darling, with a “love & a kiss.” About the letter that was returned to you. It was forwarded to Berkshire for you. That’s why it never reached me. They both begin to realize how the mail problem has been responsible for so much miscommunication and misunderstanding. Kathleen writes about the kiddies and about her concert attending and rendezvous with people like Mrs. Theodore Wagner whose husband is interested in supporting Rockwell’s Alaska trip.

By Jan. 6^th – “My lovely flowers are all gone, but…my love has not faded so quickly, even tho’ I have neglected {writing to you} for a few days. Kathleen has promised she would write every day – but already she has skipped a few. She attends a Joseph Hofman concert. The Wagner’s are especially friendly to her, often including her in their outings. Kathleen is making way within the art world cliques that appreciate her husbands art and sense of adventure – the Sterner’s, Mrs. Dick, Miss Briggs, Polly Steele, Mrs. DuBois. They love Kent’s Chart of Resurrection Bay and pen and inks. Mrs. Wagner “has completely lost her heart to “North Wind,” Kathleen writes. Their daughter, Clara, has the influenza “which has taken the form of rheumatism or flaebitis (sic) {phlebitis} in the leg.” Little Kathleen doesn’t look well either. Kathleen’s mother wants their daughter Kathleen to stay with them in the Berkshires and go to a school where the tutoring will be free. I haven’t done this partly because you would disapprove, and partly because I don’t like to part with her. However, if I thought you would approve, I would do it for her sake, for she was very happy & contented up there and it is much better for her health…Barbara is well; but she certainly ought to have been a boy, for she is full of the devil.”

Rockwell is happy when Kathleen is happy and these are happy letters. Their future looks hopeful: “I am continually making plans for our home in the country next year,” she writes. On Jan. 9^th Kathleen feels blue. Elizabeth visits and she is invited to dinner. After dinner observed a class in Eurhythmics. Their friend Bernice attends these dance/exercise classes. “It was very interesting and cheered us both up,” she tells Rockwell.

BELOW -- Eurhythmics in action. Kathleen's friend Bernice influences her in many ways and it annoys Rockwell. Here we see the kind of classes Bernice is taking, what Kathleen and Elizabeth observe. Article from the Green Bay Press-Gazette (Wisconsin), May 5, 1916,

Kathleen is attending chamber music concerts at Aeolian Hall and other events with Billy and Bernice, Polly Steel and Fred, and the Sterners. Musician and entertainer Kathleen Errol is playing Boston.

BELOW – I have been spelling Kathleen’s friend as “Enol” but she is probably actress Kathleen Errol. I’m trying to determine if she is connected to other Errols in the entertainment business of that time. Bert Errol was a famous female impersonator. Leon Errol was a well-known actor/comedian whose wife sang and danced along with him under the name Stella Chatelaine. If anyone reading this knows whether these entertainers are related, let me know. This photo is from the March 17, 1918 New York Herald, p.19.

Kathleen is planning a tea for Kathleen Errol. Kent’s friend, George Chappell, is active in the New York theatre in addition to his architectural work. Kent and Kathleen probably have connections in the theatre through George and others. Now in New York with exposure to the entertainment world, the stage beckons to Kathleen. She was a talented singer and musician at 17 when she married Rockwell and probably planned to pursue further studies and perhaps a career in music before marriage. As she gets older she wonders how her life would have turned out had she ventured in that direction. These concert and cabaret outings remind her of these longings even though she realizes that, with four children to care for, that life is now only a dream.