Jackson Pollock

by Steven Naifeh

  Alexander and Martha Pattison McCoy; stopping in Knox, Ohio: Marjorie Cook. Jackson County, Missouri: Now called Cass County. Description of Alexander and Rebecca McCoy: Josephine Eighme. Marriage: Crippen. Family moving: Josephine Eighme. Wall, p. 160: There was a precipitous drop in farm prices in 1870. McCoys losing effects: Margaret Eighme; Josephine Eighme. Bottom of ladder: Bennett. Birth of Nina and Roy: Crippen. Tuberculosis: Nelson; Houston. Death of Nina and Becky: Crippen; Crippen to FLP, Apr. 26, 1983; May 1, 1983.

  Census of 1880: Vol. 28, sheet 21, line 26. Story that both of Roy’s parents died: MJP to Crippen, Aug. 30, 1978. Formally adopted: ACM. McCoys and Pollocks related: Crippen. Deathbed declaration: R. L. Archbold; Crippen. “I can’t give my son away,” Rebecca said; q. by Nelson. Act of compassion: Clair Heyer; Ringgold County Tour bulletin, July 27, 1975. “A bit on the scruffy side”: Clair Heyer. Soon after Nina showed symptoms of tuberculosis, Becky may have sent LeRoy to the Pollocks’ house as a precaution. Lizzie Pollock was a logical choice: she had only a single, adopted child in the house (Crippen), lived near the McCoy farm (Crippen), and knew Becky well (R. L. Archbold). At the time, she was forty-three years old and pregnant, in what must have been her last try at a child of her own. A severe but loving woman, Lizzie adored LeRoy from the time he came into her home in 1878. By the time Becky died a year later, she had become fiercely attached to him. Instead of demanding his son back immediately upon Becky’s death, Alexander yielded to the current of events, allowing LeRoy to stay with the Pollocks while Elizabeth McClelland, exhausted from caring for her daughter and grieving at her loss, recovered in his house. When Lizzie Pollock’s infant son died in March of 1880 (“Died, March 13, 1880—Matt Pollock’s little boy,” newspaper clipping in possession of Clair Heyer), her frustrated maternal love closed around young LeRoy.

  Description of Matt Pollock: “Obituary—J. M. Pollock,” Tingley Vindicator, Dec. 2, 1909. The Pollock family was originally from Nova Scotia, then moved to Marysville, Ohio, and finally in 1853 to Mercer County, Illinois. At age twenty-six, Matt enlisted in Company C of the 36th Regiment, Illinois Veteran Volunteers, and served until the last day of the Civil War. Upon discharge, he returned to Marysville and, on January 8, 1865, married Elizabeth Lewis, whom he hadn’t seen in twelve years. Adoption of Frank: 1880 Iowa census, vol. 28, sheet 21, line 26. Frank, who was born in Ohio, probably the orphan of settlers who had died on the trip west, was adopted about 1870. Wheelbarrow: MJP to Crippen, Aug. 30, 1978. Lizzie was born Elizabeth Lewis. She and Matt left Illinois for Ringgold County, Iowa, in 1871, settling in Eugene, where, after five years, he saved up enough to make a down payment on a small farm of his own, close to the little cluster of homesteads around which the town of Tingley would soon coalesce. Further description of Matt Pollock: “Obituary—J. M. Pollock,” Tingley Vindicator, Dec. 2, 1909. Matt’s mother was from Virginia; Crippen to FLP, May 1, 1983. Matt’s holdings: Ringgold County Agricultural Census, 1880, in possession of Clair Heyer. Pollock owned 60 improved acres and 21 unimproved acres, valued at $1,500, with $50 worth of implements and machinery and $300 worth of livestock. In the same year, Alexander McCoy owned only 32 improved acres and 8 unimproved acres, valued at $700, with $30 worth of implements and machinery and $180 worth of livestock. Heyer, “Hometown before Pollution”: “Total valuations placed [McCoy] sixth from the very lowest among the township’s 96 farmers.” Matt unpopular: Clair Heyer, recalling Ethyl Smith Romans.

  Lizzie doing “God’s work”: R. L. Archbold. “Strong and courageous”: Marietta Eighme. “A religious fanatic”: MJP. President of WCTU: Listed first in meeting of Apr. 22, 1909; TCHC, p. 76. Description of Lizzie: Marietta Eighme: “Now, Mrs. Pollock, she was angular in every way, the beaky nose and deep-set eyes, kind of gnarled hands.” “She was very strong”: MJP. “Made everybody toe the mark”; “didn’t approve of everybody”: R. L. Archbold. Mouse story: Josephine Eighme, the woman in the story. According to Jay, when Lizzie’s grandsons wanted to play on Sunday afternoons, she railed at them. “You might have to work on Sunday, feed the cattle and things like that, but if you wanted to go out and play baseball in the back yard, that was out. She would sit in the chair and read the goddamned Bible all day. … That kind of woman must have made life miserable for a young boy like him.” “She had a very loyal”: Marietta Eighme: Just before her death, Lizzie Pollock confided in a friend, “I love them boys more than life itself.”

  Image of small boy: ACM. “To an unnatural”: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Death of Alexander McCoy: Martha Dawson. Soon after his return to Missouri on April 26, 1881, he married Mary Jane Thompson; Martha Dawson; marriage certificate, Bates County, Mo., Recorder’s Office, July 22, 1881. Henderson Clark (Martha Dawson; The History of Cass and Bates Counties, pp. 365–68), Mary Jane’s first husband, was murdered by Richard T. Isaacs on August 26, 1978, for the cattle he was driving to St. Louis. Isaacs proceeded to St. Louis and, three days later, sold the cattle for $955.20. Isaacs seems to have stolen the cattle because his fiancée, a Miss Chilson, had rejected his previous proposal, saying that he could not support her adequately. Isaacs was captured on September 5, sentenced on September 25, and hanged on October 25. “This case presented one of the most remarkable known in the history of the county for cold-blooded cruelty and atrocity.” Clark’s death left Thompson with two small sons and 360 acres of prime Missouri land; Martha Dawson; Lynch; Robertson. Under Missouri law, the land automatically became Alexander’s property when he married her in 1881. During the three years of their marriage, Alexander and Mary Jane had two children, Mabel Edith and Mary Zenetta, the second born after Alexander’s death in an outbreak of diphtheria that also killed Mary Jane’s two sons by Henderson Clark. Mary Jane had one child by her third husband, a tyrant named Andrew Jackson Dugan, who is alleged to have murdered her.

  Roy receiving nothing: FLP. Walter Edie: Ringgold County Tour Bulletin, July 27, 1927. Walter Edie’s farm was located in section 17. Strong for his size: ACM. Package deal: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Farming boys out: Wayne Overholtzer. Orphans: Crippen. “Sometimes a kid wouldn’t get along”: Clair Heyer. Gangs working farms: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Panoramic photo: ACM

  Roy running away: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959; O’Connor (“The Genesis of JP,” p. 2), incorrectly cites this interview as evidence that Roy moved to Arkansas. There is, in fact, no evidence of such a flight. Solomon (p. 18) writes that Roy ran away to Missouri and returned home after two weeks starving. Although we were told the story of such a flight (by Arloie McCoy, JP’s sister-in-law), we found no further evidence of it. “Horses straining”: TCHC, p. 102. “A craftsman of the soil”: CCP.

  “Liquor difficult to obtain: Wayne Overholtzer. Iowa Prohibition; “We promise to abstain”: TCHC, p. 76. Lizzie was a member of the Tingley chapter; TCHC, p. 76. Cheering for Weaver: CCP. Iowa Grange membership: Sage, p. 189. Farmers at mercy of bankers: Sage, p. 212. Iowa farmers resisting Populism: Wall, p. 143. Voting Republican: Wall, p. 154. LeRoy embracing socialism; Roy’s politics; celebrating Russian Revolution: FLP: Roy “was very much interested in the Russian Revolution, in the idea of the workers taking over a state.” Only 25 percent graduating: Clair Heyer: As of 1890.

  Inspiration for raft trip: FLP to Crippen, Apr. 26, 1983: “Mark Twain’s stories were doubtless the compelling force behind this adventure.” Roy and Ralph setting out: Tidrick, “Ralph Tidrick,” in TCHC, p. 294. Stopping to earn money: CCP. Work at a hotel: Tidrick, recalling letter from Aunt Etta Foster. Learning French: Tidrick. Tidrick falling ill; boys returning; Tidrick enlisting: Tidrick, “Ralph Tidrick,” in TCHC, p. 394; Tidrick. Adoption: Ringgold County, Iowa, Recorder’s Office, book 14 of Misely, p. 594. Tingley attitude toward adoption: Crippen. Adoption for control: SLM, int. by CG, c. 1956: It was done “in order to control him.” “Throw his suitcase”: Tidrick.

  McClures disappointed: Bennett, recalling Stella’s brother Les McClure. Social pecking order; “ne’er-do-well”: Bennett. “On the trashy
side”: Clair Heyer, recalling his mother, Daisy Smith Heyer. McClures warming to Roy: Bennett. “A very quiet man”: ACM, int. by Vallière, n.d. “People were able”: Clair Heyer. John McClure training Roy: Bennett. “Lone Socialist”: Q. by SMP, q. by MLP. Anna almost dying: Margaret Eighme. Mary a nurse: Frances Overholtzer. Mary accompanying Anna; Anna returning to die: Margaret Eighme. John Keicher; death of Anna; Mary’s marriage: Honeyman, p. 61. Keicher a conductor: Solomon, p. 16. But Margaret Eighme says he was a rancher. Stella finding work; becoming engaged: Josephine Eighme. Stella’s pregnancy and marriage: Marriage license and certificate, Box Butte County, Nebr., Recorder’s Office, Jan. 13, 1903. The marriage took place on January 14; Tingley Vindicator, Jan. 29, 1903: “Word has been received by Tingley relatives of the marriage of Mr. Roy Pollock and Miss Stella McClure, which took place January 13 [sic] at Alliance Nebraska. They are now living in Wyoming.”

  This sequence of events was unknown to JP and his brothers, who always assumed that Roy moved to Denver to join Stella and that they were married there in January 1902. On the marriage certificate, Roy is listed as residing in Tingley, not Denver. Clearly, the family story was fabricated, presumably by Stella, to cover an awkward situation.

  3. STELLA’S BOYS

  SOURCES

  Books, articles, documents, and transcript

  Burke, Buffalo Bill; Encyclopedia Americana: 1985; Honeyman, The Willson Family Tree; McWilliams, Southern California Country; Morison, The Oxford History of the American People; OC&T, JP; Patrick, The Best Little Town by a Dam Site; Solomon, JP; Wyoming State Archives Museums and Historical Department, More Buffalo Bones.

  Park County Enterprise, Jan. 31, 1912; Park County Enterprise, Nov. 16, 1912; “The Big Store that Sells Everything,” Cody Enterprise, July 1, 1972; “Fruit Cost $34,000,000,” NYT, Jan. 13, 1913; “Obituary—J. M. Pollock,” Tingley Vindicator, Dec. 2, 1909.

  Maricopa County, Ariz., warranty deed, Sept. 15, 1913; Wyoming State Board of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics, Cheyenne, certificate of birth, file no. 1912, registered no. 2656, May 31, 1938.

  SLM, int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, 1959, Time/Life Archives.

  Interviews

  Sam Allen; Margaret Louise Archbold; R. L. Archbold; T. P. Benton; Catherine Carlin; Steve Cotherman; Mary Ellen Engle; Gottlieb Friesinger; Francis Hayden; Doug Langdon; Donna Mack; ACM; ABP; CCP; CCP (int. by SWP); FLP; MJP; MLP; Charles Porter; John Queenan; Nene Schardt; Lucile Schoppe; John Van Alstine; Ellen Waggoner.

  NOTES

  Buffalo Bill: See Burke. Charles and Jay remember meeting Buffalo Bill: “We didn’t know him,” says Jay, “but we played marbles with him.” Wealthy landowners: Patrick, p. 10. Description of Cody in 1903: Photo in possession of ACM; Patrick, p. 73. Recruiting Buffalo Bill: Patrick, p. 16. “Look out for wild Indians”; smelling salts: Patrick, p. 27. Indians: Patrick, p. 5. Mountain lion: Patrick, p. 81, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, Feb. 1905. Paddy McGinnis, a miner who was in the shop at the time, grabbed the lion by the throat, threw it across the shop, then killed it with a steel bar. “Occupations”: Cody Enterprise, Dec. 1902, q. in Patrick, p. 57.

  “Enterprise, energy”: Cody Enterprise, Dec. 1902, q. in Patrick, p. 57. Canal and dam: Patrick, p. 69. Irma Hotel: Patrick, pp. 45, 56, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, July 1901 and Dec. 1902. Cherrywood bar: Van Alstine. Film companies: In June 1912, a “Kinemacolor man from London, England,” came to make a “natural moving picture film of Cody”; Cody Enterprise, q. in Patrick, p. 160. “Eastern gentlemen”: Patrick, p. 136, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, Apr. 1909. Remington: In May 1907, R. F. Elwell, an artist from New York, told the Cody Enterprise, “that one would find a $500 Remington (of Wm. F. Cody, scout) hanging on the wall of a store so far from the big centers is certainly convincing proof of the townsmen’s artistic tastes.” “School marm” tours: Patrick, p. 139, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, July 1909. “Dear Sir”: “Girl Wants a Cowboy,” Northern Wyoming Herald, Dec. 1910, q. in Patrick, p. 150.

  Bank killing: “Murder Most Foul Committed at Cody,” Meeteetse News, Nov. 2, 1904, q. in Patrick, p. 78. First movie house: The Electric Theatre; Patrick, p. 136, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, Apr. 1909.

  Roy working at hotel: CCP. Salsbury Avenue house: Hayden; MJP. For the 1901 town plat, drawn by Bronson Rumsey, see Patrick, p. 22. View of river: CCP. Marvin Jay: Honeyman, p. 60. Marvin Jay was born on May 27, 1904, and called “Mart” until his wife, Alma, decided that she preferred the name “Jay.” As a boy, Charles was called “Chas.” Sunlight Copper Mining Company: Patrick, p. 73, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, Mar. 1904; in this article, “Pollock” was misspelled “Pollack,” an error that fills the Pollock literature to this day.

  Rock-crushing plant: CCP. Roy part owner: CCP; FLP; MJP. Charles and Jay say Gideon Hayes owned it; Frank says Tom Archbold. Aunt’s house: Schoppe. Description of parlor: CCP; photos in possession of ACM. Ladies’ Home Journal: FLP. Cody Trading Company: “The Big Store that Sells Everything,” Cody Enterprise, July, 1, 1912. Jay says he and Charles traded gunny sacks for penny candy at the store.

  Ladies’ Emporium; small diamond; “Poker Nell”: Patrick, p. 63, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, July 1903. The paper explained the diamond as “a flashy eye-catcher, something that could be a distinct advantage for a card dealer.” Stella following fashions: CCP. Photo of family: In possession of MJP. Hierarchy of privileges; refusing to speak to Roy; tantrum: MJP.

  Roy cutting hair: MJP. Photo of Charles and Marvin: In possession of MJP. Buggy ride: CCP. Orange Athletic Club: Patrick, p. 112, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, Feb. 1907. Sometime during this period, a large, “unsociable” bull buffalo escaped from Colonel Cody’s corral and “ran berserk up and down Sheridan Avenue.” After trying unsuccessfully to rope it, the cowboys opened a corral gate near the center of town and baited it with several domesticated cows. “The idea may have had some merit,” a local historian observed, “but neither the cattle nor the buffalo could see it. The fence was strained at both sides of the corral as the cattle tried to leave in one direction while the bull tried the other;” Patrick, p. 85, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, Aug. 1905; CCP. The commotion brought out all the townspeople to watch, including Roy and Charles. From the high vantage of his father’s shoulders, the sight of the penned animal—eighteen hands high—made an indelible impression. In the next few years, Charles would recount the story to each of his brothers as they became old enough to admire and envy him; CCP, int. by Shorthall, 1959. The sight must also have come back to Roy, time after time, as he began to feel his family moving in one direction while he tried the other. Frank born: Honeyman, p. 60: Frank Leslie was born on August 9, 1907.

  Sant Watkins ranch: Hayden. A second section of the ranch—with a house and sheds for handling the sheep and a lambing shed—was located about three and a half miles south of Cody. Hart Mountain: Solomon, p. 19. About $400 a year; alfalfa: Hayden. Johnson County War; “hired killers”: Morison, p. 759. Five people killed: Encyclopedia Americana: 1985, 29, p. 587. Linn’s Sheep Ranch raided; “blasted him”: Patrick, p. 118, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, May 1907. Similar raid; “ran the herder off”: Patrick, p. 130, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, May 1908.

  Description of Sanford Watkins: Hayden. Sanford Pollock born: Sanford LeRoy was born on May 26, 1909; Honeyman, p. 60; see FLP. Camp herders’ life; Hayden. With 10,000 sheep: FLP. JP’s tales of the West: Benton. Images of frontier life: E.g., Going West, c. 1934–38, OC&T 16, I, p. 16.

  Roy beginning to drink: MJP. Number of bars: Hayden. “Boys buying whiskey”: Northern Wyoming Herald, Nov. 1911, q. in Patrick, p. 147. “Shooting up the town”: A. C. Thomas, editor, Meeteetse News, Apr. 1906, q. in Patrick, p. 98. “An overdose”: Meeteetse News, June 1908, q. in Patrick, p. 132. “Ladies of the town”: Patrick, p. 94, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, Feb. 1906. “Let’s Trample Evil”: James Hook, editor, Cody Enterprise, Feb. 1906, q. in Patrick, p. 94. Primary cause o
f death: Patrick, p. 134, extracted from the Cody Enterprise, Nov. 1908. Hunting trips: CCP. Roy rarely caught drinking: CCP; MJP; FLP: “Dad very probably did drink when he was away.” Winter of 1910–11: R. L. Archbold. Roy short of breath: FLP. Tom Archbold ill: R. L. Archbold. Health designated reason: FLP. Charles disagrees that Roy’s health led to their departure from Cody, but Dr. Friesinger says his endocarditis would have been affected by the cold. Lower Sage School: Hayden. Stella initiating move: CCP. Death of Tom Archbold: R. L. Archbold: He died of tuberculosis. Pollocks wanting girl: MJP.

  Roy going for Dr. Waples: Solomon, p. 19. January 28, 1912: Certificate of birth, Wyoming State Board of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics, Cheyenne, File No. 1912, Registered No. 2656. Annie Howath: Hayden; ABP. Jay and Alma later visited Cody and met Annie Howath, who remembered midwifing three Pollock boys. But Alma remembers Stella telling her that, because of the difficulty of JP’s birth, the doctor had to be called in.

  Description of Dr. Waples: Hayden. “That’s nothing new”: SMP and CCP, q. by ABP. “Black as a stove”: SMP, q. by ABP. In births with this kind of complication, there is a high incidence of oxygenation and minimum brain damage, which can lead to difficulties in impulse control, irritability, and concentration—all problems that plagued JP in later years. Dr. John Queenan: “The baby may turn from a headfirst to a rear-end position and may get the cord wrapped loosely around the neck. Usually, this doesn’t make any difference in the uterus, but when the baby starts to descend in the birth canal during labor, then commonly the cord tightens. It would be just like somebody putting their hands around your neck and squeezing. It cuts off the blood flow—the oxygen supply—to the brain. The baby’s head would be cyanotic—blue to purple.” See also interview with Dr. Mary Ellen Engle. Jackson’s birth weight: “A fine son, weighing twelve pounds and a quarter, was born Sunday morning to Mr. and Mrs. Roy Pollock of this city. This makes five sons that have come to live in this happy family and the Pollocks are quite the envy of the whole community”; Park County Enterprise, Jan. 31, 1912.