“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.
16: No Solution in Sight
“What was missing” William Graebner, “Norman Rockwell and American Mass Culture,” 326.
But what else would we expect Ibid., 327.
“the surface of things” MAI, 355.
“She paced” DR interview, Feb. 2000.
“as I really feel Norman’s” MR letter to her parents, Nov. 1933.
“everyone in Providence” MR letter to her parents, Nov. 28, 1933.
“I recall that I posed” Betty Parmelee (Aaronson) interview, June 5, 2000.
“[Provincetown] is an artists’ colony” MR letter to her parents, spring 1934.
“blowing right in our faces” NR personal diary, Sept. 4–12, 1934, NRM archives, Stockbridge, Mass. All subsequent quotes concerning the camping trip come from this source.
“Recently admitted patients” S. B. Sutton, Crossroads in Psychiatry: A History of the McLean Hospital, 45.
“His assertions” TR interview, Sept. 1999.
“that pretty girl” Susan Merrill interview, Oct. 2000.
“For the first time unsure” John Tebbel, George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post, 203.
“At the moment” MR letter to her parents, n.d.
17: Reconfiguring
“Just once” PR interview, July 2000.
“Although some may say” The Heritage Sandglass, Number 4D, 1938.
“He has excellent technique” George Grosz, quoted in The New Yorker, Mar. 24, 1945, 44.
“He told me that” NR, quoted in Arthur Guptill, Norman Rockwell: Illustrator (New York, 1946), 107.
“nothing but contempt” Edward Hopper, quoted in Gail Levin, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, 95.
“Last year” F. T. Russell letter to NR, Jan. 10, 1939.
“You have” John Tebbel, George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post, 116.
“For many years” Ibid., 293.
“He was a man” Ibid., 304–6.
One of the last editorial decisions Ibid., 160.
18: Plotting Escapes
it was a nightmare Jarvis, Tom, and Peter Rockwell have all repeated this story to me several times; the event was, they all believe, traumatic to the entire family.
“I recall random things” JR interview, June 2000.
One of Tom’s TR interview, Sept. 1999.
“He was just bubbling” JR interview, June 2000.
“grappling in search” “Levine Boy Shot in Head, Squire Believes,” New Rochelle Standard-Star, June 2, 1938, 1.
“as a group” Ibid.
“Somehow, at age seven” JR interview, Jan. 22, 2000.
“Dad’s fame” Sue Erikson Bloland, “Fame: The Power and Cost of a Fantasy,” 34.
Yes, responds JR interview, Feb. 2000.
“I wanted to connect” JR repeated this in various interviews and phone calls.
“even though . . . girls instead” MAO interview, Apr. 2, 2000.
“I beg you” George Macy letter to NR, Apr. 6, 1939.
“You should see the swimmin’ hole” MR letter to NB, July 1939.
“We are not staying” MR letter to NB, Oct. 31, 1939.
“She thought nothing” JR interview, Jan. 22, 2000.
“Now I’m painting” NR letter to NB, fall 1939.
“democratic history painting” Dave Hickey, “The Kids Are All Right,” in Maureen Hart-Hennessey and Anne Knutson, eds., Pictures for the American People, 125.
“win us back” Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 414–17 (first published as serial 1836–37).
PART II: NEW ENGLAND
19: New Roots in Old Vermont
The letter she wrote MR letter to NB, Jan. 25, 1940.
“I don’t see how” Jack Atherton, quoted in Susan E. Meyer, Norman Rockwell’s People, 89.
“For three months” JR interview, Jan. 4, 2000.
“full color reprint” Niblets corn advertisement, Family Circle, Mar. 22, 1940.
“I have tried to be pleasant” George Macy letter to NR, Apr. 1, 1940.
“Your changing” Ibid.
“Cruikshank, Abbey” “Norman Rockwell, Painter for America’s Millions,” American Artist, May 1940, 11.
“supplementary aids” Ibid., 12.
“girls in back” Mead Schaeffer audio interview conducted by Susan E. Meyer, Sept. 30, 1980.
20: Another War to Paint
“propaganda, sentimental trash” Susan E. Meyer, America’s Great Illustrators, 89.
“A Will Rogers” Susan E. Meyer, Norman Rockwell’s People, 76.
“although you’ve been acquainted” “He Paints the Town,” Family Circle, Mar. 1941, 20–21.
“My father would suddenly” PR interview, June 2000.
“Rockwell’s paintings” “He Paints the Town,” Family Circle, 20–21.
During a summer Celia Mendelsohn, American Artist, Aug. 22, 1941.
“contents of your” Sidney Mendelsohn, editor of American Artist, letter to NR, Dec. 30, 1941.
“My grandfather” JR interview, Apr. 26, 2000.
“It was clear” PR interview, June 2000.
“And with her” JR interview, Apr. 26, 2000.
“He wasn’t twenty” Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, 239.
“about a Scotch boy” MR quoted in N. R. Howard, “The Editor’s Column,” Cleveland News, Nov. 20, 1946.
21: “The Big Ideas”
“Those 4F’s” NR memo to self, Aug. 1942.
“I just cannot express” NR letter to Ben Hibbs and Jim Yates, Sept. 20, 1941.
“Time really is” Ben Hibbs letter to NR, Nov. 16, 1942.
“there is something” Arthur Danto letter to author, Dec. 6, 1999.
“He robs” Ibid.
its likely source Susan E. Meyer, Norman Rockwell’s World War II, 88.
“is an extremely delicate” Ibid.
“I’m not interested” Todd Purdum, “Unsettling the Art World for a Living,” New York Times, Sept. 4, 1999, B7.
“They were received” Rufus Jarman, “Profiles: U.S. Artists,” New Yorker, Mar. 17, 1945, 34.
22: Square Dancing on the Village Green
“Farming is a hard life” Susan E. Meyer, Norman Rockwell’s People, 106.
“One time” Buddy Edgerton interview, July 2000.
“giving his son a baseball lesson” “Norman Rockwell Sometimes Jumps,” Boston Sunday Globe, May 30, 1943.
“Jerry was more of a loner” Buddy Edgerton interview, July 2000.
“That difference between us” JR interview, Apr. 2000.
“The boys would own” Buddy Edgerton interview, July 2000.
“I could no longer procrastinate” Pete Helck letter to NR, May 30, 1944.
Whatever lessons PR letter to author, Mar. 7, 2001.
“raised a small tempest” “Controversy,” Saturday Evening Post, Sept. 7, 1940.
“no boy” Ibid.
In late July “The Arts Take a Holiday,” Boston Daily Globe, July 28, 1943.
“The general attitude” JR interview, July 2000.
“sailed easily” MR letter to NB, n.d. but probably Nov. 26, 1944.
“white birches” MR letter to NB, Jan. 25, 1944.
“Rockwell defined” Neil Harris, “The View from the City,” in Maureen Hart-Hennessey and Anne Knutson, eds., Pictures for the American People, 134.
“pull off any number” As Susan E. Meyer points out in America’s Great Illustrators, 67.
“I’d get a call” Linda Pero, “Three Rockwell Photographers,” NR Museum, Stockbridge, April–June ’95.
“It was Christmas Day” Gene Pelham interview, Dec. 1999.
“If your models feel” Don Spaulding, audio interview conducted by Susan E. Meyer, Nov. 17, 1980.
He paid his models Ibid., 68.
“Aunt Nancy wasn’t disturbed” MAO interview, Mar. 2000.
23: As High as He Could Fly
“melancholy brown eyes” Rufus Jarman, “Profiles: U.S. Artists,” New Yorker, Mar. 16, 1945.
“We didn’t even” JR interview, July 2000.
“Between fourth” PR interview, Nov. 1999.
“He loved costume parties” George Hughes on Susan E. Meyer’s audiotaped interview, Sept. 1986.
“great pleasure” Letter from John R. Fisher, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, NR, MR, to President Millis, June 3, 1948.
Rockwell corresponded Stuart Murray and James McCabe, Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms: Images That Inspire a Nation, 66.
“He purposefully makes” Dorothy Canfield Fisher, quoted in Arthur Guptill, Norman Rockwell: Illustrator, xi.
Rockwell’s debt Ibid., vii.
“great genre painters” Vrest Orton, Vermont Life, Summer 1947, 20.
“the brilliant way” Michel Witmer interview, July 18, 1999.
“what a country boy” “The Editor’s Corner,” Cleveland News, Nov. 20, 1946.
“Any event was” Mary Schafer, quoted in Susan E. Meyer, Norman Rockwell’s People, 116.
what did he most like? Ibid.
“My parents” PR interview, June 22, 1999.
“it was the boy thing” JR interview, Jan. 2000.
“way out beyond” PR letter to the author, May 14, 2001.
“I can’t recall” JR interview, Oct. 2000.
“See, George likes” George Hughes, audio interview conducted by Susan E. Meyer, Nov. 17, 1980.
“Their presences made” Ibid.
“communist initiated” U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Information and Privacy, appeal no. 2305, July 24, 2000.
“teener” Norman Rockwell, “When I Was a Teener,” Newark Star-Ledger, July 3, 1948, 11.
“a pose that” “People,” Time, Sept. 6, 1948, 44.
“most exciting figure” NR, quoted in Los Angeles Times, Dec. 10, 1948.
24: Signs of Stress
“We’d never seen” JR interview, June 1999.
“My mother was sobbing” PR interview, June 2000.
“I remember going” Joy Edgerton interview, Sept. 2000.
Nancy Rockwell had started telling tales MAO interview, Dec. 1999.
“She was always” Gene Pelham interview, Nov. 1999.
“She wasn’t” Ibid.
“I was twelve” PR interview, June 2000.
“It wasn’t exactly” Ibid.
“she was insubstantial” JR interview, Nov. 1, 1999.
“I know that later doctors” Nancy Barstow (Wynkoop) interview, Mar. 1999.
“I remember my grandfather” PR interviews and letter to author, Mar. 5, 2001.
Norman Rockwell Page 61
