DECEMBER 6 - 10 KATHLEEN AND FRANCES: DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL
100 YEARS LATER
by Doug Capra © 2018

Part 6 – Kathleen and Frances: Divorce and Remarriage

Dec. 6-10, 2019

ABOVE – Rockwell Kent, as he appeared on his 1922 passport, the one he obtained for his trip to South America.

BELOW— Rockwell Kent’s drawing for It’s Me O Lord (IMOL)of the family home in France.

 a stick of raw, unseasoned wood

If I may liken marriage to a piece of cabinet work, I was a stick of raw, unseasoned wood that had been built into it; and I had warped and cracked and sprung to such an extent that the piece was at last coming apart at the joints.

         Rockwell Kent in IMOL (1955)

In the last entry I wrote that Fridjolf Johnson in his 1981 Anthology said that Kathleen was the one who called for the divorce. I haven’t found that letter or Rockwell’s reply, but my guess is that Kathleen didn’t ask for a divorce but rather said that they just couldn’t live together anymore – more like a separation. This from France some time before Nov. 28, 1924 -- giving her letter time to get to Rockwell in the states and for his return letter – taking into consideration that Rockwell was not writing many letters to Kathleen during this period. It appears that Rockwell agreed that they couldn’t live together anymore but asked for a divorce right away, probably because he was involved with Frances.

On Nov. 28, 1924 Kathleen wrote to him:

Rockwell darling:-- Your letter was so sweet and much a comfort to me. I wanted to answer it right off, but I have not been well, and didn’t want to write you when I was sick.

It is such a comfort to know that you see this situation as I do: but what to do is the problem. Yes, it is wrong for us to try to live together. You know that I am very very fond of you and there is no one who knows better than I how charming and wonderful you can be when you want to; but real wife’s love for you I have not felt for many years. You know this dear, that I had to kill it in self-preservation, or be eaten up with jealousy. I hope with all my heart that you will always be my dearest & closest friend and not my enemy just because I cannot give you a sweetheart’s love.

If you think divorce is the best thing, why alright, but must we do anything in a hurry? Perhaps you will fall really in love, then the divorce can be put through with a happy end in view. Or perhaps I will fall in love with someone who will have the courage to marry a divorcee with five children! How will you feel then? Will you still be my friend and help me to happiness or not? Do not think that I am past looking anymore for it is true that I want a man to love, exactly as much as you want a woman, tho’ it may not be in the same way.

In any case you must have the children with you part or half of each year; that is, if you want them. They still get frightfully homesick at times for the farm. If you will forgive me I would like to say a word about money.

BELOW – The first page of Kathleen’s Nov. 28, 1924 letter to Rockwell. Archives of American Art.

Even now with Rockwell’s success, money remained an issue for Kathleen. It’s not that her husband financially abandoned her and the children, but it’s likely he didn’t have a clue how much it really cost to raise five children, especially in France after the war. Kent had many unrealistic expectations of others, and he probably expected Kathleen to manage on an unworkable budget.  Rent was cheap but food wasn’t. And there were many other expenses. Rockwell just didn’t get around to sending out her monthly check on time. He expected his children to be tutored while in France, but never sent Kathleen enough money to pay the tutor -- Walter Overton, whom Kathleen affectionately called Pop. She always gave Pop something from each check, but very little. She asked Rockwell for more school books for the children and they had not arrived. She had to ask again. Kathleen was so broke at one point that she appealed to Kent’s friend and publisher, George Putnam, for money. Funds were coming in to Kent and Putnam was probably puzzled, thinking Kathleen’s plight had something to do with marriage problems. He notified Kent that his family needed money and then sent Kathleen a hundred-dollar draft of his own, but asked her not to cash it unless she got into a pinch. Kathleen wrote to Rockwell: Well, after receiving your letter enclosing the cable I had forwarded to you, blaming me for having drawn $400 on your account, therefore you would not send me more, I had to cash George’s $100. What happened next is a mystery, even Kathleen couldn’t explain it. It is a “Greek” to me as ever, she wrote. Apparently, Rockwell’s mother got word of Kathleen’s plight, perhaps from Putnam, and sent her some money. Rockie was leaving France for home, and Kathleen sent along some of Rockwell’s clothes with him – except for a pair of shoes. She gave those to Pop, who she said was destitute.

With food and rent expenses, five children to take care for, and a small staff to oversee, Kathleen is busy.  Life at the dinner table goes on as usual, though. It would be interesting to learn if any of the Kent children wrote memoirs of those days in France – especially the older two – little Kathleen and Rockie. There may be answers for future researchers in the Archives of American Art letters or in private family collections.

BELOW – Little Kathleen is 13-years. In February 1924, she sends her father an essay about her littlest brother. The original letter is below, from the Archives of American Art, followed by a transcription.

The Way Gordon Eats

When Gordon first sits down at the table he passes up his plate and asks for his food before anyone else has seated themselves.

He holds his spoon just like a man and brags about it. When he is through with his first helping which is before anyone else has taken about three bites, he says, “Give me some more quick, sil vous plait.

Then when he is ready for his fruit he jumps up from the table and says, “I want some nuts, an orange, an apple, a banana, and some figs and dates.

After all that then he says, “I am through now.”

There is also the question of Kathleen’s health. You may recall that back Oct. 1920, after Gordon’s birth, Rockwell is anxious for her to get back to the Arlington farm. He’s busy with his art and finds that all the work that Kathleen does around the farm is now his job. He’s anxious for her to return. In her letters she keeps telling him that she’s weak after the birth and needs time to recuperate. Finally she informs him that she will take extra time to rest for herself because she needs it. As it turns out, we learn in France that Kathleen had complications after Gordon’s birth. Now in France, she is often sick and occasionally bedridden. She consults a doctor there who recommends surgery. Kathleen writes to Rockwell on Dec. 22, 1924 explaining the problem and the cost for surgery – 1440 francs, or about $72 in 1924 values. She asks for the money, figuring it would cost less to have it done in France. (I have not followed the letter trail to learn whether Kathleen had the surgery in France or at all. But Kathleen’s health problems on top of other money issues along with her family responsibilities, helps to give her story (and the children’s) more visibility within the context of her husband’s art career.)

Back in the states, Rockwell Kent has many other things on his mind. He meets Frederic De Witt Wells, a Columbia University graduate and former justice of the New York Municipal Court. In 1924 the judge realizes he has reached age fifty with no adventures in his life. He decides to find a sailboat and follow the same route Leif Ericson had taken in the year 1000. With no sailing background, however, he needs experienced sailors – and who better to take the lead than the man who wrote Wilderness and Voyaging, a fellow Columbia alumnus, Rockwell Kent. They meet and Kent decides to he was up for another adventure that he could combine with a trip to Europe to visit his family.

BELOW – Judge Frederic De Witt Wells, from the May 10, 1915 New York Times.

 In May 1924 the two leave for Europe aboard the S.S. Homeric. Right away they both realize that their personalities don’t match – and if they can’t get along aboard this large ship, they’d never make it together on a long journey aboard a small vessel. Like the great bard after whom their ship was named, Kent is not shy about telling tales of his loves and adventures. Though the judge enjoys that part of his new friend’s personality, he doesn’t like his flirting. David Traxel writes: Interpreting some of Wells’s actions as indications of homosexuality, the artist began spending most of his time with a young Swiss governess. Traxel quotes a letter Wells writes to a friend on May 23, 1924 about Kent: He never reads the newspapers & disregards history. He does not care to see anything in Europe, neither the Louvre, Paris, Pictures, Scenery or Architecture but would like to look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, visit the grave of Goethe & find a friend who used to live in Bremen. Architecture he had studied & pictures are not important as there are only three great artists, Blake and Michael Angelo. {The implication being that the third is Rockwell Kent?} History & the development of races are repetitious & only the mountains, the sea, uninhabited regions and icebergs are significant…I began to feel rather old. In Paris the two part ways – the final straw being Kent’s yodeling with that Swiss governess on the train from Cherbourg. Wells left for Copenhagen to find a vessel.

BELOW – The obituary of Judge Wells in the Dec. 20, 1929 New York Times.

For a time at Antibes, Rockwell joins Kathleen and the children in France, relaxes in the sun, plays tennis, and entertains and enjoyed his children. Feeling guilty about abandoning Judge Wells, Rockwell decides to rejoin the expedition and heads for Denmark. On the way he visits Weimar and Frankfort, and meets up in Bremen probably with an old Seward, Alaska friend -- probably Otto Bohem, who had worked with him in Vermont and in later years joins him at his dairy farm in Upstate New York. In late June he arrives in Copenhagen to meet up with Wells. Their meeting reminds Rockwell of his antagonism towards the judge, and he has second thoughts about the trip.  It is late summer – close to hurricane season – and Wells had hired some extra crew members which doesn’t sit well with Kent. He slips away, asking one of the crew to inform Wells he has pulled out of the venture. On June 20, 1924 he writes to Carl Zigrosser about his happiness at being free from the nauseating old judge, the sourbellied, grumbling, growling, lascivious old monster, free from him and his project. Rockwell’s quiet departure from the expedition causes some confusion. Word has already gotten to the press that Rockwell Kent would be sailing on the Wells expedition, and later newspaper accounts include him.

BELOW – AP article from the June 28, 1924 Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY). The press assumed Rockwell Kent had left with Judge Wells on his adventure.

In Copenhagen Wells purchases a two-year-old, 47-foot cruising ketch made of teak and built in Shanghai by a Chinese workman -- designed by an Englishman after a Scandinavian lifeboat. Three young Danes had paid for its construction and then sailed it 17,000 miles around Africa to Europe, winning the Cruising Club of America’s Blue Water Medal. Wells decides to follow the same route Leif Ericson had taken, and tries to hire the Danes who had completed that exciting voyage -- but they decline. It would be the vessel’s last voyage, and Judge Wells got more than the adventure he sought. The next year he published an account of the journey – The Last Cruise of the Shanghai: Being the Story of the Teakwood Boat Over the Viking Trail. According to a review in the Philadelphia Inquirer (July 11, 1925), Judge Wells and his son, and a cousin and three sailors set out in the “Shanghai” to cross the Atlantic by the “Viking Track,” north of England, by the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, and Newfoundland. The ocean traverse was a comfortable one, but – she was blown ashore and broke up on the Nova Scotia coast in the storm of August 26, 1924. And one of the sailors, Ask Bryndelson, saved the lives of the whole party…It is of incidental interest that the “Shanghai” sailed part of the way with William W. Nutting, Arthur S. Hildebrand, author of “Magellan,” and John O. Todahl, all Americans, in their missing yacht, “Leiv Eirekson,” for which search is now being made.

BELOW – A review of The Last Cruise of the Shanghai in the July 11, 1925 Philadelphia Inquirer.

After doing some traveling in Europe Kent returns to the U.S., followed by Rockie a bit later who enrolls in a private school. Kent goes to meet his son upon the ship’s arrival in New York City -- but his Rockie isn’t aboard. Kent learns his son has been let off in New London for the ship’s convenience so it could refit. With no money, Rockie seeks Travelers Aid and makes his way back to the city on his own. Kent is outraged and begins a public, legal war with the Fabre Line. Seeking a $50,000 settlement which the company considered ridiculous, Kent himself appears at the gangplank of one of the line’s departing ships with a legal notice preventing it from leaving port. David Traxel writes: The music died, the flags stopped waving, the good-bye embraces ended. Lawyers from the Fabre Line appeared…While the champagne went flat, the ships agents scurried about trying to raise a $50,000 bond. Newspapers gave the story extensive coverage; the passengers gave everyone hell. It was Kent’s first experience in using the law to confound and confuse his enemies…the case dragged through the courts for more than a year. Kent finally settles. With his new book Voyaging Wilderness, and his name and art now more known, Kent is learning how to exploit the law and the media to fight for causes and promote himself. He tells his version of this story in “Chapter XVIII Lost Boy” in It’s Me O Lord, his 1955 autobiography. Traxel covers it in An American Saga on pp. 148-9.

ABOVE – Article from the Dec. 10, 1924 Burlington Free Press (Vermont)

BELOW – Article from the Dec. 10, 1924 Bennington Evening Banner (Vermont).

BELOW – American newspapers say a decree of absolute divorce was granted to Kathleen in Nice by the middle of March 1926. The announcement caused little surprise in Arlington where rumors had been circulating for some time. This article is from the March 13, 1926 Boston Globe.

BELOW -- Records from France seem to show that Rockwell and Kathleen filed for a divorce in Nice on June 18, 1925. Archives of American Art. NOTE – If any French speakers are reading this website, I would appreciate if you’d translate this document and post it as a comment with this entry. 

Rockwell Kent marries Frances (Higgins) Lee in Weschester County, NY on April 5, 1926, less than a month after the divorce was granted.  In Chapter XIX of his 1955 autobiography, It’s Me O Lord, Kent reflects on his divorce from Kathleen:

If, as have reluctantly written, I had become unhappy in our marriage, Kathleen, and with good reason, was unhappier. More than once, in the past, I had said to her that she ought to have married a good, sensible, steady fellow, one who would stay at home and work and give her and the family the security that was their due. Kathleen deserved such a man; she didn’t have one. Kent is being honest. In one of his letters to Kathleen from Alaska he tells her that she should have married the type of man he describes above. Kent continues:

It is possible that few couples are enduringly happy on a plane above that of tacit, mutual endurance; if that is true, mere ordinary common sense, resting on a realistic view of life, would dictate its acceptance. I lacked that common sense and, rejecting the premise, persisted in a doubtless juvenile belief in a romantic Absolute – as in the gastronomic field, did Aesop’s dog who dropped his bone to grab for its reflection. If I may liken marriage to a piece of cabinet work, I was a stick of raw, unseasoned wood that had been built into it; and I had warped and cracked and sprung to such an extent that the piece was at last coming apart at the joints.

         The licentiousness and general demoralization of the post-war decade, -- or, to continue our figure of speech, the dry climate of Prohibition – was all that was needed to hasten the disintegration. And when Kathleen, facing up to reality, wrote suggesting a divorce whenever either of us, with a second marriage in mind, might ask for it, I – far too readily it seems to me in retrospect – accepted it; I held myself from then on to be free. (p. 397)

Most of us researching and writing about Rockwell Kent are cautious of IMOL. He’s good at rationalizing, reinventing and omitting, but that’s not unusual in most autobiographies and memoirs. Yet -- I find parts of the book, like the excerpt above, to be most enlightening and frank. He admits he didn’t have common sense in those days, that he was juvenile in his idealistic, romantic absolutes. Like Aesop’s dog, he ignored reality and sought the illusion. Kathleen was the one who faced up to reality – and from the letters we can observe her struggle. This is reminiscent of what George Chappell wrote to Rockwell on Fox Island in January 1919 – a warning that he had better learn to appreciate the beautiful wife and family he had before he lost them, instead of yearning and seeking for the ideal that didn’t exist. The licentiousness and demoralization of the times didn’t help his poor judgment – but he doesn’t use that as an excuse. Although Rockwell became unhappy with his marriage he admits that Kathleen was unhappier – and for a good reason. He wasn’t the man she deserved to have. Rockwell Kent is writing this in 1955, fifteen years into his third marriage. Rockwell and Frances divorced in 1940 and he married Shirley Johnstone (Sally) within a month. 

NEXT ENTRY

ONWARD TO 1935

WITH ROCKWELL KENT'S RETURN TO ALASKA