Norman Rockwell (64 page)

“hasn’t changed”  Tom Hochtor interview, May 2000.

“Apart from”  NR letter to Mark Augurt, Dec. 28, 1965.

“They knocked”  
MAI,
45.

The newspaper account  “Squall Hits Local Dories,”
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
summer 1913.

“I am working”  “Who’s Who,”
Tatler,
Mar. 1914, 25.

“I know”  Ibid., 25.

“Actually”  DR interview, Sept. 1999.

a personal log  JR, Sept. 1914.

“I expect”  Ibid.

“Norman not”  Letter from “Marian” to JR, Mar. 14, 1915.

“he and Norman”  JR letter to Carol Cushman, Sept. 23, 1915.

“He just never”  Mead Schaeffer, audio interview conducted by Susan E. Meyer, Sept. 30, 1980.

he resorted to painting  
MAI,
107.

“One might see”  
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
Nov. 1918.

“Aunt Nancy” and “she had”  MAO interview, Sept. 27, 2000.

“People used to say”  
MAI,
27.

Tom Rockwell believes  TR interview, Sept. 15, 1999.

But the conventional pretty girl  Irene Rockwell answered several letters on her husband’s account as to why he painted so few girls; she explained that he just knew more about boys, but that he certainly liked girls as well.

“without class”  Jan Cohn,
Creating America,
25.

And he was proud  
MAI,
51.

When word reached  Cohn,
Creating America,
146–47.

The liberal assumptions  Ibid., 148.

“specious sense of mastery”  Ibid., 142.

as cultural historian  Jan Cohn,
Covers of the Saturday Evening Post,
49.

“in an outlandish”  Quoted by Eric Segal, ibid., 635.

In an ad  Ibid., 640.

“often energies spent”  Sue Erikson Bloland interview, May 25, 2000.

“girls were” and “more polite”  
MAI,
67.

“make no mistake”  I heard a variation of this statement from at least four people who knew him in Vermont or Stockbridge from the period 1940–78.

10: Becoming Somebody

“I was”  DR letter to author, Oct. 12, 2000.

“When Norman”  DR interview, May 1999.

“I didn’t know”  Audiotape, NR to TR, May 1959.

“I have the ability”  
MAI,
82.

“Canadian”  Margaret McBurney interview, Nov. 7, 2000.

Following the ceremony  “Miss O’Connor A Bride Weds Norman Rockwell, A Well Known Artist and Illustrator,”
Courier Freeman,
July 5, 1916.

Theatregoers  Linda Pero, “Hooray for Rockwell’s Hollywood,” NR Museum, Stockbridge, June–Oct. ’99.

“resolved”  
MAI,
121.

His antics  
MAI,
121.

the disapproving accounts  Jeannette Hochtor interview, May 2000.

Considered the most  John Tebbel and Mary Ellen Zuckerman, eds.,
The Magazine in America, 1741–1990
(Oxford, 1991), 63.

Only twenty-five years old  Linda Pero, “In Rockwell We Trust,” NR Museum, Stockbridge, March–Aug. 2000.

11: A Stab at Adulthood

“apart from”  NR letter to Michael Smythe, Nov. 3, 1956.

“People used”  Tom Wolfe, review of
America’s Great Illustrators,
by Susan E. Meyer,
New York Times Book Review,
Nov. 24, 1978, 3.

“were too rich”  Tom Hochtor interview, Apr. 2000.

“Pop knew” and “But in 1960”  TR interview, Apr. 3, 2000.

“one of the best”  Theodore Pratt, “Norman Rockwell,”
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
July 27, 1919, 2.

“neither time nor expense”  Clyde Forsythe, “Who’s Who—and Why: Serious and Frivolous Facts About the Great and the Near Great,”
Saturday Evening Post,
Dec. 18, 1926, 24.

“He cared about”  Quoted in Susan E. Meyer,
Norman Rockwell’s People,
154.

  “peculiar appeal”  Harold J. Kline, “Making the Grade,”
Globe,
May 29, 1923, 8.

“Norman Rockwell is not a Greenwich Village artist”  Theodore Pratt, “Norman Rockwell,” 2.

“arts people,”  anonymous,
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
July 1920, 5.

“a great technician”  NR, “Rockwell on Parrish,”
Berkshire Eagle,
Aug. 10, 1968.

“[It is as] if her thoughts”  Brochure from the Rockwell Society of America, Kathleen Grant, 1983.

“a dominant force”  Jan Cohn,
Creating America,
177–78.

Although intellectuals  Ibid., 177–78.

“a raucous affair”  
MAI,
24.

“everyone was drunk”  Ibid.

“Norman would call”  Connie Lewis Reitz letter to the Rockwell Society of America, July 8, 1984.

“I am always busy”  Irene O’Connor Rockwell,
Watertown Daily Times,
reprinted from
Normal Magazine,
Nov. or Dec. 1921. Archival material from Massena Public Library “Rockwell File.”

12: Building a Home on a Weak Foundation

“seven-year itch”  Robert Berridge interview, Feb. 4, 2001.

“ran off”  Margaret McBurney letter to Tracey Middlekauff, Jan. 13, 2001.

“You have sold”  Louis Frohman, “Know Anybody in New Rochelle?”
International Studio,
Sept. 1923, 522.

“Mr. Rockwell went to Paris”  Amy Forbes King,
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
July 1922, 4.

“Mothers are” and “Perhaps it was”  Ibid., 3.

“Before leaving home”  Louis Frohman, “Know Anybody in New Rochelle?” 522.

“inferiority” and “the fine thing”  Clyde Forsythe, “Who’s Who—and Why,”
Saturday Evening Post,
Dec. 18, 1926, 34.

His canny modesty  Jan Cohn,
Creating America,
274.

“at the age of eleven”  Harold Kline, “Making the Grade,”
Globe,
May 29, 1923, 8.

“unlike the usual beginnings”  Louis H. Frohman, “Know Anybody in New Rochelle?,” 519.

“his feet”  “Norman Rockwell,”
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
Oct. 1923, 23.

“Even the suggestion”  Frohman, “Know Anybody in New Rochelle?,” 520.

“especially likes”  Ibid., 519.

“success has not”  Ibid.

Although most of his early endorsements  Linda Pero, “In Rockwell We Trust,” NR Museum, Stockbridge, March–Aug. 2000.

“the name of Norman Rockwell”  Frohman, “Know Anybody in New Rochelle?,” 520.

“modernist art strikes Rockwell”  Ibid.

“Anyone seeing his work”  Ibid., 522.

“huge, white, cold”  
MAI,
169.

“Pop also told me”  TR interview, May 2000.

13: Cutting a Fine Figure

“wise cracks”  Clyde Forsythe, “Who’s Who—and Why,”
Saturday Evening Post,
Dec. 18, 1926, 34.

“A strong histrionic strain”  Henry C. Pitz,
The Brandywine Tradition,
120.

“younger people”  “Perfectly Equipped Golf and Country Clubs Border on New Rochelle,”
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
Apr. 9, 1927, 24.

His son remembered  TR interview, Apr. 3, 2000.

“arch-Americans”  Benjamin Stolberg, quoted in Jan Cohn,
Creating America,
171.

he and Irene bought  “Studio, Once Occupied by Norman Rockwell, Moved,”
Massena Observer,
Mar. 24, 1927.

“He studies . . . work, work, work”  Clyde Forsythe, “Who’s Who—and Why,” 34.

“My father had probably had a bit”  PR interview, July 2000.

“As an artist . . . consideration”  “Art Association to Launch Memorial Exhibition for Coles Phillips at Library,”
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
Jan. 11, 1927, 5.

“a woman came”  PR interview, July 2000.

“outlying”  Ruth Boyle, “A House with Real Charm,”
Good Housekeeping,
July 1928, 45.

“I think my father”  Betty Parmelee (Aaronson) interview, June 2000.

“My father loved”  Ibid.

“I heard that”  Ibid.

“Orienta Point”  Ibid.

“I thought it kind of odd”  Nick Rockwell interview, June 3, 2000.

“John and Dick entirely off”  Carol Cushman Rockwell, “The Wall Street Crash,”
Cosmopolitan,
Dec. 1930, 197–98.

“Baba” and “pretty, brunette”  DR interview, Mar. 2000.

“the bidding”  
The Little Acorn,
Nov. 1927.

“I often think”  Ed Howe, quoted in Tebbel,
George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post,
161.

During his most productive years  Michael Schau,
J. C. Leyendecker,
25.

“I don’t even have time”  
Westchester County Fair,
Oct. 1927, 10.

“Howard Pyle said”  Ibid.

“Billy . . . time”  Armstrong Perry, “The Boy on the Cover,”
American Boy,
Aug. 1928, 23.

“they were clambering”  Ibid.

a young man  Ibid.

“for having become,”  Quoted from
Judge,
in Perry, ibid., 23.

implied in the encomiums  Françoise Mouly, “Covering
The New Yorker,
”
Cover Stories,
Supplement to
The New Yorker,
Feb. 2001, 22.

14: Losing His Way

“Mrs. Norman Rockwell”  Earl Pattison,
Potsdam News,
Aug. 29, 1928, 4.

“I just don’t think”  PR interview, Aug. 22, 2000.

  “my father bore”  TR interview, Mar. 14, 2000.

The postcard shows  Connie Lewis Reitz, letter to the Norman Rockwell Society of America, July 8, 1984.

“Norman was kind”  “Reflections of Norman Rockwell: An Artist’s Legacy,” Ralynn Stadler,
New York Times,
Sept. 23, 1980, 23.

“The best artist’s”  Norman Rockwell,
Lehn and Fink Hour
radio speech, Jan. 10, 1929.

“a sextette”  
Westchester Home Life,
Apr. 1929.

“she would never have bothered”  Robert Berridge interview, Feb. 2001.

By the time Irene  Psychotherapist Alice Miller, who has spent decades studying the lives of great achievers, believes it necessary to pause at the site of their origins in order to make sense of their later histories. Too often, she believes, biographies proceed as if the lives “of famous artists . . . began at puberty. Before that, we are told, they had a ‘happy,’ ‘contented,’ or ‘untroubled’ childhood, or one that was ‘full of deprivation’ or ‘very stimulating.’ But what a particular childhood was really like does not seem to interest these biographers
—
as if the roots of a whole life were not hidden and entwined in its childhood
” (emphasis mine). Alice Miller,
The Drama of the Gifted Child,
3–4.

“Jerry came home about five”  Carol Cushman Rockwell, “The Wall Street Crash,”
Cosmopolitan,
Dec. 1930, 198.

“[they] are no worse a strain”  Ibid.

“When the 1929 panic”  JR, “From Wall Street to Biddle Street,” foreword to Holgate Toy Company yearly brochure, 1968.

“bums and drunkards”  
MAI,
256.

Twenty-five years later  PR interview, Aug. 2000.

  “[Rockwell] believes”  Harold J. Kline, “Making the Grade,”
Globe,
May 29, 1923, 19.

“The strangest thing”  Ibid.

the Depression well may have triggered  William Graebner, “Norman Rockwell and American Mass Culture,” 325.

According to what  Brad and Kay Hertzog interview, Sept. 28, 2000.

And even as this schism  See Michele Bogart,
Artists, Advertising, and the Borders of Art,
23.

“when Aunt Nancy spoke”  MAO interview, Sept. 23, 2000.

“I thought I was seeing things”  Mary Quinn interview, Jan. 2001.

15: A New Beginning

“Everybody knew who she was”  Nancy Barstow (Wynkoop) interview, Apr. 25, 2000.

“He always reminded me”  JR interview, Dec. 1999.

“an old codger”  
MAI,
263.

“rawboned”  Ibid.

“the door of the studio”  Ibid.

He encountered many associates  Ibid., 295.

“You see”  Mary Rockwell (hereafter MR), letter to her parents, Mar. 8, 1932.

“It was the oddest thing”  MAO interview, Nov. 12, 2000.

“how sweet Mary was”  DR interview, Apr. 3, 2000.

“There probably never has been”  “Norman Rockwell of New Rochelle,”
New Rochelle Standard-Star,
Feb. 4, 1931.

“tall, lean”  Ibid.

“delighted that you are going”  NR letter to Bessie Riddell, Feb. 10, 1931.

“Draw all day . . . sort of stuff”  NR letter to Nancy Barstow (hereafter NB), July 20, 1931.

“that vital necessity”  N. C. Wyeth, quoted in Susan E. Meyer,
America’s Great Illustrators,
34.

“There’s one thing”  NR letter to NB, ibid.

“I am so sad”  Nancy Rockwell letter to Harold and Ida Hill, Sept. 15, 1931.

“He bragged”  Daisy Rockwell interview, Mar. 2000.

“after years of trying”  Charles L. Mee, Jr.,
Rembrandt’s Portrait,
187.

“It has a direct”  MR letter to her parents, Mar. 8–Mar. 15, 1932.

“I am beginning really”  Ibid.

“little villa”  MR letter to her parents, Apr. 10–18, 1932.

“I love Paris”  Ibid.

Mary grew up winning love  Nancy Barstow (Wynkoop) interview, Jan. 1999.

“And now the best thing”  MR letter to her parents, Apr. 10–18, 1932.

“For the first time”  Ibid.

“has found the courage”  MR letter to her parents, Apr. 26, 1932.

“[T]hat is his last thought”  MR letter to her parents, Apr. 26, 1932.

“. . . the important thing”  MR letter to her parents, May 3, 1932.

All that Mary’s younger sister recalls  Nancy Barstow (Wynkoop) interview, Jan. 1999.

“Please do not be worried”  MR letter to her parents, June 10, 1932.

“I have one big”  MR letter to her parents, June 20, 1932.

“By the way”  Ibid.

“my longing for familiar”  MR letter to her parents, July 5, 1932.

“Norm has just sent off”  MR letter to her parents, Aug. 10, 1932.

“Everything he does now”  MR letter to her parents, Aug. 15, 1932.

“The difficulty is”  MR letter to her parents, Aug. 18, 1932.

“He was always off working”  Betty Parmelee (Aaronson) interview, June 20, 2000.

“I really do adore”  MR letter to her parents, Aug. 18, 1932.

At the
Post
  John Tebbel,
George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post,
199.