OCT. 16-18, 2019 PART 9: LARS MATT OLSON LEAVES VERMONT

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018-19

Part 9: Lars Matt Olson Leaves Vermont

Oct. 16-18, 2019

ABOVE – The End, a woodcut Kent created in Vermont. It’s interesting that he depicts a scene fromTuesday, Sept. 24, 1918 when he and Rockie try to make it from Seward back to Fox Island in their 18-foot dory in the midst of a storm that almost kills both of them. He describes that event in Wilderness, Chapter II, Arrival). Although this story is in the book, I don't believe he told Kathleen about the incident in any of the letters, or in his illustrated journal. She was worried enough about her son, and Rockwell realized how close they both came to death on that day. Image source

BELOW – Rockie on Fox Island, Photo by Rockwell Kent, Rockwell Kent Gallery, Plattsburgh State University, (NY).

Young Rockie had been invited to a boy’s camp for part of the 1919 summer, and attended again the next year. (That’s probably why we don’t see him in some of the Vermont family photos for those years.) As I’ve written in previous entries, several critics had noted his creative Alaska art. The four drawings the boy had exhibited with his father’s in the 1919 pen and ink exhibition in New York – all had been purchased by artist Arthur B. Davies. In 1920, some reviewers of Wilderness had noted how important his experience was to the book. Rockie was maturing and becoming more independent. As expected, Rockwell Kent continued to have high expectations for his oldest child, as he did for all his offspring – and his wife – and himself.  After the March 1920 show of Kent’s paintings, the publication of Wilderness, and Olson’s July arrival in Vermont, he was feeling not only the pleasure, but also the stress of his success. As they say, be careful what you wish for.

He was restless and in an angry mood. Olson had arrived during Kathleen’s pregnancy, and she gave birth to Gordon in October. While Kent had worked on an addition to the old farmhouse, his family spent some time with Kathleen’s parents in the Berkshires. Kent was anxious for them to return to their new home. How does a father feel at such a homecoming? -- Kent writes over thirty years later in It’s Me O Lord (IMOL). He answers his own question: He feels as young dogs act: his spirit bounds and yelps with joy; it leaps to lick their hands and faces; it tears around in circles; then, panting with ecstasy, leaps up again. Dear wife, dear children, dear little baby in his mother’s arms! Oh, it is wonderful – their homecoming! As the family enters the new living room, all Kent can recall of Kathleen’s reaction is Oh, you didn’t get the ceiling finished. Reality rarely lives up to a perfectionist’s expectations. There was both the joy and the stress of four children to care for and entertain along with a new baby.

ABOVE – The Kent house in Vermont. This and the photo below from a private Kent-Whiting family album.

BELOW – The living room of the Arlington, Vermont home.

NOTE – Throughout the draft of this book, I have quoted Kent’s autobiography, IMOL. I’ve also stated that the book was written in the early 1950’s, many years after these events have occurred. This, and other factors must be taken into consideration when assessing its accuracy. Kent scholar Jamie Franklin wrote in a foot note in “Rockwell Kent’s ‘Egypt’: Shadow and Light in Vermont”: Typical of IMOL, Kent’s account of his acquisition of “Egypt” is riddled with factual errors. It’s important when studying Kent to verify all claims he makes in IMOL through other sources. I have tried to do this when possible when other sources are available. The reader here must realize that in IMOL we’re getting a good dose of Kent’s reconstruction of his life and art as he wants it to be remembered. Ironically – I must say – there are also some surprisingly honest admissions in the book that can’t be overlooked. Like Kent himself, the book is a complex piece of writing.

In Vermont, Kent’s career was on the rise, presenting him with more pressure. While he was in Alaska, his friend, Carl Zigeosser had sent him wood engraving tools and blocks, encouraging him to use them. And although I had made little use of them there, Kent wrote in IMOL, I now, settled in Vermont, went at the craft in earnest; and, with the near shipwreck of my little son and his father in mind, made the engraving I have named The End. {See the illustration that introduces this entry.} From that time on for many years, always with the encouragement of Carl and of the New York dealer, E. Weyhe, with whom Carl had become associated, wood engraving was to be second only to painting in the arts I practiced. Engraving, in my hands, became wonderfully consistent with the eccentricities of my own nature: with my general inability to distinguish what are termed the “finer shades”; my preferences for fair over foggy days; for clean, sharp lines; for clear perception versus mystical imaginings; for stark, uncompromising realism versus unreality. You’ve got to know your mind to work with steel on wood. (pp. 353-4)

ABOVE – “The Christmas Tree,” Circa 1918. Woodcut on thin paper, 7” x 5 1/8, private collection. Image and text with thanks to and permission from Jake Milgram Wien.

BELOW – Man Under Waterfall, 1920 – Wood Engraving, 2 ¾ x 1 3/8. Private collection. Photo from Rockwell Kent’s “Egypt”: Shadow & Light in Vermont (2012) by Jamie Franklin and Jake Milgram Wien.

With his reputation rising and his incorporation status requiring him to produce more art, Kent craved the solitude he experienced on Fox Island – at least the idealistic version of it he described in Wilderness. Despite some of the agony of that isolation, it had allowed him quiet time to be productive. Fortunately, a means of escape became available – for both him and his family. The philosophy of education he endorsed and used with Rockie in Alaska, ideas promoted by the socialist Modern School, had attracted attention. In IMOL, Kent writes: Among advanced educators, our Alaskan experience was regarded as an important and obviously successful experiment…This brought an invitation to them (his children) all to attend the Edgewood School in Greenwich, Connecticut, and, to the family, to occupy the gate house of the school estate. And so it was that beginning in the fall of 1920 they came to spend three, nine-month school years comfortably and happily housed in Greenwich. I wrote about this in these three past entries: 

End of September, 2018

Nov 17-19, 2018; 

July 14-18, 2019.

I have not been able to determine precisely how long Olson stayed in Vermont.  He probably left sometime in 1921. While he was at “Egypt,” Kent and his family had many visitors who enjoyed meeting him. After all, Olson was one of the attractions there – a real, live frontiersman from Alaska stepping out of the pages of a popular adventure book. Savvy visitors may have brought along a copy of Wilderness for Kent, Rockie and Olson to sign. We know that composer Carl Ruggles along with his wife and son visited “Egypt,” probably while Olson was there. Perhaps Marie Sterner did, and Egmont Arens, as well as several other friends and colleagues.

NOTE (as of Feb. 17, 2020) -- I recently found an article in the Autumn 1986 The Kent Collector that reprints a memoir written by artist Frederick Dorr Steele, known for his illustrations of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The reprint doesn't give a source but it appears to be a copy of an article or book. Steele and his family were good friends with the Kents.  His wife, Polly and Kent's wife, Kathleen, were good friends. Kathleen mentions Polly often in her letters to Kent while he was in Alaska. When Rockwell was in Vermont after his return from Alaska, Steele visited with his family. Steele writes: Kent at the time, had just returned from the Alaska adventure recorded in his first book, Wilderness. A year later, a gasping Model T Ford charged up a steep mountain-side at Arlington, Vermont, and expired at the gateway of the Kent home. All three characters of that book were gathered there, for the devoted Olson had traveled all the way from Fox Island to be with his idol; and all three "affectionately inscribed" by first edition, -- Rockwell, Rockwell, Jr, and (in a shaky hand) "Yours truly L. M. Olson." If this book has survived, it is most likely still in the Steele family, or it has been donated to an archive with the Steele papers, or it was sold and is in private hands.

ABOVE – A gathering at the Kent house at Arlington, Vermont, circa 1920. From left to right: Clara standing, holding a doll; unknown woman; Kathleen holding Gordon; Barbara sitting in front of Kathleen; Rockie standing behind Kathleen; unknown man, unknown woman. I'm pretty sure the man at the far right is Egmont Arens, and the woman to his left could be his wife. Photo from a private Kent-Whiting family album.

BELOW – My personal copy of the 1970 special edition of Wilderness signed by Rockwell, Rockie, and Rockie’s son, Chris Kent. Unfortunately, I was born a little too late to obtain Olson’s signature.

In an earlier entry, I wrote about a visit to Vermont from Polly Steele, and her husband Frederick Dorr Steele, the famous illustrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories. They had been friends of Kent since his early Monhegan Island days. Indeed, according to Steele’s daughter Anne, her father had taught Kent the engraving process. While Kent was on Fox Island, Kathleen spent much time with Polly while they were both in New York City. Polly’s name comes up frequently in the Rockwell-Kathleen correspondence. The couple often took Kathleen out to the theater and to concerts. I found an interesting letter Polly wrote to Kathleen after an August 1920 visit to “Egypt.” In it she mentions Olson, as well how she and her husband enjoyed reading Wilderness, and how popular the Alaska book has become. You can find the earlier entry with Polly's letter at THIS LINK.

How many copies of the first edition of Wilderness could have been signed by all three of its main characters? How many survive today and where are they? I have only found one source that documents one copy signed by Rockwell, Rockie and Olson. Within the Kent letters on line at the Archives of American Art, there is a previously identified letter (No. 338) filed in a category titled “Illegible, 1914-1961, undated.”  The handwriting is difficult to read, as is the signature. Just like Polly Steele’s letter to Kathleen, this one is also dated from Aug. 1920 and written to Rockwell by her husband, Frederick Dorr Steele. NOTE – There is at least one other letter from Steele to Kent in that category (No. 345) that is probably dated 1927, though it could be 1937). I’ve transcribed the 1920 letter below:

                                                               Westport, Aug. 30, 1920

I want to write a few words to say how much we enjoyed our visit with you, and to talk of the book now that I have read it all, and much of it more than once – with the keenest pleasure.

It was a great idea to get the three signatures, and now it occurs to me that I would like to complete the volume by an addition (as an appendix) of a copy of the letter written to you (the part about Olson) by your Seward friend. Perhaps if that typewriter is still there you wouldn’t mind making a copy for me some evening, – though now that I’ve written it, it seems like a lot to ask.

Love to Kathleen and all the little people and kind regards to Mr. Olson.

                             Frederic Dorr Steele

Your friend Arent {Egmont Arens?} and his wife came to call yesterday, and we talked about you.

BELOW – The original Aug. 30, 1920 letter from FrederickDorr Steele to Rockwell Kent. Archives of American Art online Kent letters.

BELOW -- A drawing by Frederic Dorr Steel in the June 17, 1922 issue of Literary Digest.

Olson, no doubt, enjoyed the attention, at least to some extent. Perhaps he too became tired of playing a parody of himself. Perhaps his sometime rants against New Englanders was more authentic than his audience suspected. Regardless, he most likely did become wearied of Kent’s testy mood. Kent wrote in his autobiography that Olson’s tenure of it {the cabin} and his stay with us were, by his own choice, of but a few weeks’ duration. He went out west again, to end his days with friends in North Dakota. Olson probably did choose on his own to leave after he experienced Kent’s other side – the “anger, scorn and slashing blades of criticism” – a part of the artist’s personality Olson had not witnessed on Fox Island. If Olson didn’t live up to Kent’s expectations, neither did Kent live up to Olson’s. Traxel says of Olson that, a few weeks after his arrival, after an angry exchange over the proper weaning of Kent’s calf, the proud old sourdough packed up and left for his youthful grounds in North Dakota. This part of the story always bothered me. What had really happened between Kent and Olson in Vermont? Fortunately, while searching through Kent’s correspondence on microfilm, I found an enlightening letter from a Seward resident written to Kent back in 1967. Kent answered the letter and I learned much more.

On January 10, 1967, Mrs. Ray (Luella) James, who came to Seward in 1921 as a teacher, wrote a letter to Rockwell Kent. She had recently met with Alaskan artist Claire Fejes, a painter from Fairbanks. They talked about Kent. Fejes had corresponded with Rockwell and he had advised her and helped with her career. (I’ll write more about this relationship later.)

Luella thought Kent would like an update on Seward and Fox Island. I do have your wonderful book Wilderness, she wrote, which I cherish to the point I will not allow many people to touch it. She had talked with a few locals, like John Rosness, an engineer for the Alaska Railroad, who remembered Kent from his 1918-19 visit. He knew Mr. Olson very well, she wrote, and yesterday he told me about how Mr. Hawkins had given Mr. Olson the goats which he had on the island. She wrote about Don Carlos Brownell, “dead several years now,” in whose home Kent had spent many evenings. I think my most vivid memory of him {Brownell} is of meeting him on a mountain trail with a cow bell hanging around his neck. He explained to me that it served to keep bears away! Luella wrote. She mentions L.V. Ray, prominent Alaska attorney, who knew Kent while he was in Seward.  He had died years earlier, but his wife, Hazel, along with daughter Patsy (Pat Williams) were in Seattle. Mrs. James wrote to Kent that Hazel fondly recalled Kent’s visit. They {Pat and Hazel} too have Wilderness and count it one of their treasures. As I wrote earlier, Pat told me that she didn’t know about the existence of Kent’s book until she found it in her college library. Apparently, the book remained available but underground in Seward for a time.

Only three years before Luella’s letter, the Good Friday Alaska Earthquake had devastated the coastline, obliterating Seward’s economy. There are landslides on Fox Island, she wrote, and the Island itself sank down to the point where I believe the spot where your cabin stood is under water. Parts of local coastline did drop six to eight feet – and it’s possible that for a time the Kent cabin ruins were under water -- but that is not the case today. Luella talked about how Seward was unifying during the rebuilding process, and encouraged Kent to revisit Alaska and Seward. She also asked him to send his autograph for her to put in her copy of Wilderness. I would send the book to you if I were not scared to death of losing it!  she wrote. It must have been mid-afternoon that January day in 1967 as Luella finished her letter and gazed out her window. I am looking at Fox Island as the sun sinks to the west of it. It is lovely in this soft winter afternoon light.

Kent responded on January 17th.  Still fresh in his mind was Seward’s image of itself in 1918 as a town with a confidence of a great future, he wrote, whose Chamber of Commerce promoted it as the future New York of Alaska.

ABOVE – In March 1915 Seward was designated the terminus of the new Government Railroad to Alaska’s Interior. That summer, the well-known travel writer, Frank Carpenter, visited Alaska to write a series that ran through the spring of 1916 in many newspapers across the country. This story is from the April 1, 1916 Minneapolis Star Tribune.

BELOW – Lars Matt Olson, circa 1916.

 Kent recalled Don Carlos Brownell, with whom he had some correspondence over the years. He vaguely remembered John Rosness, and regretted that he wouldn’t be able to visit Alaska since he would be visiting Europe in April. Kent mentioned his correspondence with Alaska Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening, at that time in the U.S. Senate, for whom, due to his stand on Vietnam, I have the greatest admiration. I hope the people of Alaska will be wise enough to reelect him to the Senate in 1968. (This is another story. Kent had a lengthy correspondence with Gruening)

Fortunately, Kent finally gives us his version of what happened between him and Olson in Vermont in his letter to Luella:

Olson did eventually come to stay with me. It was maybe a year after I had left Alaska. I had bought a farm in Vermont and I built a separate cabin for him near the house, hoping that he would live there and pretty much look after himself. But he preferred eating with us, and he made himself useful around the place. We had one cow and she in due time had a calf. But Olson, who took care of the little bovine family, was so reluctant to wean the calf – thereby threatening the mother’s value to us as a milk cow -- that I had at last to peremptorily tell him that it had to be done. He sat for a long time mulling over this, finally to say provokedly {sic}, “Well, have it your own way.” Two days later he told me he was leaving and asked me for his money, which I had deposited for him. He was going to stay with friends in Idaho, or Montana, I believe. I couldn’t change his mind, and he left, never by me to be heard from again. Within a few years I learned that he had died.

 Kent added: My little son who was with me on Fox Island is now six feet three or four inches tall, a physicist who taught for some time at M.I.T. and is now operating his own spectroscopic laboratory near Boston. He is married and has eight children. He told me a year or two ago that his year on Fox Island with me was the happiest time of his life. It was certainly one of the happiest of mine…It was most kind of you – perhaps realizing that Fox Island would always be dear to me – to write to me. May this new year be a happy one for you and a successful one for the people of Seward in the rebuilding of their little city.

We might reasonably surmise that the conversation between Kent and Olson wasn’t as civil as described above, that Kent’s I had at last to peremptorily tell him that it had to be done, probably wasn’t uttered kindly. In fairness to Kent, he did have baby Gordon who needed the milk, and Olson could be stubborn as well. It’s likely that as Olson sat for a long time mulling over this, he may have realized he made a mistake by moving to Vermont. Both Kent and Olson couldn’t reproduce their relationship in the “Northern Paradise” that Fox Island represented. The context had changed dramatically. Vermont wasn’t a remote island in Alaska, and it wasn’t just the three of them. Kent now had his whole family to deal with while teetering on the edge of his longed-for rise to fame. When Olson responded to Kent’s command of what had to be done with his provocative Well, have it your own way, it may be that other words were spoken that caused both men to realize their Alaskan adventure couldn’t be reenacted amidst a tame Vermont landscape.

So, we learn from Kent’s letter that Olson left Vermont and returned somewhere out West. In the letter, Kent says he went to Idaho or Montana. In IMOL, he says Olson went to North Dakota. Perhaps stopped by in those places. But that’s not where he died. And where is he buried? I was determined to find his grave. One more mystery to solve.

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OLSON OF THE DEEP EXPERIENCE

HIS FINAL YEARS