There is much interesting to read on the Forum back through the years of posting, about Clark as a person and the events in his life, as generously shared by Dr. W. C. Farmer and others.

I wonder about Clark's relationship to the behaviors and manners of adulthood and parenthood. When Clark moved in with Carol, did he take on a role of acting father for her children, doing things like helping with homework, advising and scolding? Or was he more like a friend of the family, who kept some distance?

Did he ever express sorrow about not having childring of his own, and the family branch being cut off?
I am sure he could philosophise past it, in a cosmic perspective, but he was after all also human.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 15 Nov 08 | 07:38AM by Knygatin.

Carol's kids were "rebellious teenagers" as quoted elsewhere in a de Camp intro I think. The kids were not at home hardly ever after Clark moved in, and were difficult - as I am sure it was difficult for them to have Mom bring home a stranger from remote Auburn - there was no pre-marital meeting with them that I recall, it was just "here he is" - Carol was by the standards of the time a groupie to the "artsy", Bohemian world of Carmel and environs - loved to sun bath nude in the tiny back yard with the almost high enough fence - Clark did not do much in the way of child rearing but try to "lie low" and hope they stayed out of his hair - I did not meet the son (now College Journalism prof, but good-looking athletic blondie as a boy; the daughter was an excessively nubile 16 year old whom I met (mercifully) only once -- more exposure would have been far too distracting, and would have lessened the time spent with Clark - remember the niece of the Bishop of Chichester in the Limerick? ah me, wasted youth. Clark was more than reconciled to his bachelor state (though not celibate!), his circumstances of caring for elderly and dying parents were a greater priority, slightly ahead of his writing sometimes - He (and Carol) referred to me as their "spiritual son" in an inscription of a book -- Clark wanted to be in relationship with the young very much in the manner Sterling had had with him - mentor, encourager, and one who delighted in the bright creative mind of someone who might be able to (however slightly) momentarily wear the magic glasses allowing him to see the universe through his eyes, and revel in it. He never expressed regrets about not fathering children -- He was a supremely practical man within the limits of the life he had chosen, and there were plentiful examples (including his own) of the strain of a penurious existence - I think he knew that had he become a father, his profound sense of personal responsibility would have meant the need to find a source of steady income beyond writing, pruning, and picking fruit -- he was, after all, within the social contract,had he opted to sign it, a Victorian.

Thank you for that glimpse into his life!

Thank you for that brightly illuminative little piece of CAS history! It would have made a wonderful element in a full published biography.

thanks, feel free to use it - footnoted of course - I wonder if anyone is left besides myself, Don Fryer and Rah Hoffman who ever visited the cabin in Auburn -- most have gone on I'm sure - the Sully's, Roy Squires, the Novaks, and the denizens of the Happy Hour bar -

Well, if you were to write a CAS biography, as a combination of personal experiences and research, I would buy it on the spot. Although I am not sure such digging is your field of interest. You certainly seem to have enough energy though, in spite of all.

"--He was a supremely practical man within the limits of the life he had chosen,.."

Being a poetic dreamer and practical at the same time, is a rare and fortunate combination. He must have been practical, to be able to get all those richly soaring fantasies down on paper. "Artist" is probably a better definition of CAS than "fantasist". Since an artist is a worker with actual tools, assembling together a definite material manifestation, even though that sharply defined composition may give the illusion of something ethereal and limitless, or points towards otherworldy spiritual realms.

He was not practical to the extent of being mentally occupied with materialistic workings, values, and material possessions, as an end in itself, like many simple people are. His abhorrence of cars is a clear indication. And not in the least impressed by gaudy contrivances and gimcrack. He was practical to be able to handle the absolute necessities of life, and in his art was practical only as a means to reach a higher spiritually exalted end. A Dreamer, with practical abilities. (My bold claims about a man I never knew.) Although, he obviously enjoyed some things sprouting up from old Earth for their very own sake, like a good wine and female curves.



I could go on asking forever about Clark's life, but I feel I have to rein myself or I'll become a damned nuisance...

...But then again, it's for the shared enjoyment of everybody, and anyone is free to answer, or not, so I guess I'll go ahead anyway...

What is the winter climate in Auburn like, or at the time Clark lived there? Was it below freezing point, and snow on the ground? It must have been tough, and taken much of his attention just keeping the cabin tolerably warm.

Could anyone provide a simple drawing of the cabin, with the basic outline of the rooms and their rough measurements? And perhaps furniture, wall hangings, creaking floorboards,... etc. It would be very interesting, both from a cultural perspective, and to get an idea of how living and working in the cabin was, and the social situation.

I have a photo of the cabin approached from below - very small, 4 rooms, screened porch, many objects like wooden boxes adapted for use as table and chair - wicker bottom chairs (2 or 3) - calendars of various years on the walls - kerosene lanterns, both table and hanging type - don't know about the beds except that clarks's boyhood bed was the typical frame and rope base with feather tucker on top -- home made quilts - not fancy, but serbicable - outhouse, one-seater - no corn-cobs but magazines, catalogs, and newspaper - small outbuilding which had been chicken house, closed up for storage - seen in photo in "Sword of Zagan" photo taken while making fire-breaks - hand dug well, with very stout well-house about 5 x 5 - thick door and thick walls insulated with tightly rolled newspapers ( I helped redo some of these walls one day where the insulating wads had sunkdown - the room was very cool and served as refrigeration (I grew up in the South with a similar arrangement - basket which could lowered into the well to keep milk, eggs, and butter cold - rope lowered bucket for water -

Climate - Clark's cabin slightly above the mean altitude of 1200 feet -
Auburn bragged at being "above the fog, below the snow" - though I have experienced fog there so dense one had to drive with the door open to see the line on the pavement - occasional freeze, but rare - snow sometimes, but again, infrequent, and short lived - just enough that the nasty 8th graders could hit us first graders with snowballs with rocks in them. Since the cabin was on the rim of the canyon, they had some slightly more ominous winds than in the main town, and slightly lower temperature, but not significant - most of the year the weather is excellent - and evenings in late spring through the summer into late fall are perfect for sitting in the yard in whatever state of semi-dress one might desire until the wee hours of the morning with little or no chill to the air - 'twas a grand place indeed - and ideal for the weak-chested and tubercular - many a citizen had moved there precisely for that reason. The cabin was heated with standing Kerosene heater -
a lovely place for an iron kettle of water for tea, shaving, cooking, whatever - the house had a wood stove for cooking, properly banked it could warm the house, but would drive you out on a warm day - Clark spent a good deal of time keeping the stove wood properly cut and supplied, and indeed was justly proud into older age of his skills with an ax.

Invaluable! Thank you!

From this inventory I have the impression that life in and around the Smith cabin was really quite good, despite its simplicity!

If Clark was able to chop off the chickens' heads, then I am forever convinced that he was a genuinely and thoroughly practical man. But I doubt it. I can't picture him doing that. Also I remember reading somewhere, if it was in Farmer's memoir, that the chickens were kept for eggs.

The Auburn climate is truly Arcadian. I can imagine the long sunsets there, filling the glens with golden elfin light. It must have had an important impact in the shaping of his fiction. I'm sure there were fauns scurrying in the bushes and dryads flitting between the trees, normally unconcerned with humans, but stopping to curiously observe this remarkable man as he penned down his otherworldly visions in the shade of the leaves.

(This is my singular favorite image of a bucolic scene. Link. In the distance a man is driving an ox. There is plenty of time to finish work, pace of life is slow. The young shepherd (Endymion?) resting in the arbour, without worries.
The English Romantic painter Samuel Palmer's (1805- 1881) work reminds me, by the way, somewhat of CAS's drawing and painting style.)

I was amusingly half-expecting that the walls in Smith's cabin would have pictures of dragons, trolls and faries. Like many of today's fantasy fans have. But NO, of course not! Inane. But old calendars? That sounds decrepit, unless they featured pretty pictures. Didn't Clark's paintings grace the walls?

Were the rooms divided into a larger common room with the stove, and three smaller bedrooms (or former bedrooms, for each person in the family)? How was Clark's room arranged where he sat and wrote?

Several q's to answer: When a hen stops laying, she goes into stew, some eggs are allowed to hatch (Clark and I both agreed that hens without a rooster is unthinkable), and hens raised to replace aging ones, and rooster chicks raised as future dinners - the necks are wrung first, and, after appropriate amount of flopping about, chopped off, then the fun part of plucking - feathers saved to make or restuff bolsters - and yes, Clark was adept at all of the above. No Clark art on the wall when I knew him - his art work had begun to acquire some value, and was kept in a small trunk - loosely - the carvings were arrayed along the inside shelf (2x4) that framed the screened porch.
The building was about 24 x 20, the rooms of equal size - 10x12 or thereabouts - sitting room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms - Clark's room was not,per se, "decorated" - other than with books currently checked out from the library, and his own work in progress, or storage. The calendars were variously of the decorative type received by his Mother as bonuses for clients of her magazine business - therefore, traditional outdoor scenes or artwork in the late 18th century style of idealized life (charming girls with curls and ribbons, in full period dress, merrily frolicing on swings hung by floral ropes, etc. - greeting card sentmentality - the important decoration was a good bottle of cheap burgundy or madeira (more accesible in those days than now - Haak vinyards is my only source in Texas - but a gallon of Loomis burgundy was 69cents, and the standard wine bottle size, commonly emerging from Clarks's modest paper sack of groceries esd 28cents.
Clark, by the time I knew him well was not writing much and was just about the Marry - however he commonly carved under the Oak by the wood stove he fired them in - there was a ramshackle four legged table which served as dining table and writing table - his supplies (foolscap, envelopes, stamps, pencils and pens, were, however, meticulously organized each in its place - a practice which persisted after the move to Pacific Grove.

Thank you for another beautiful piece of CAS life. Delicious! I am almost sitting there in the cabin now! On a wicker chair, looking at one of the calendars?, and another.

Couldn't help laugh out loud at the chick handling. I was shocked! At the same time it further increases my respect for this man. I wonder if Lovecraft also would have handled that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 21 Nov 08 | 06:43PM by Knygatin.

People lived closer to Nature back then, and Clark probably grew up seeing wringing of chickens necks before he could walk. Today we are all separated from Nature, eating what's on the plate, but not knowing where it came from.

America was fundamentally an agrarian society until WWII, At the beginning of which, Poland had a larger military than we did. I am 70 and lived in North Carolina - small town of about 600 - it still is - the nearest town, the county seat had about 20,000 at that time and the Capitol, Raleigh about 50 miles away had a population under 100,000.
Every one raised a garden and had chickens, and someone in the family raised hogs - every fall, the families gathered to butcher the hogs, make barbecue and the fabulous sausage (yes, we washed and used the intestines for the sausage - the saying is that the only -part of the pig you can't eat is the "oink") - the biggest shock in my young life was moving to Auburn where most people ate in the back yard and went to the restroom in the House! Clark's family when he was quite young kept a steer and/or pig - gardening was tough because when the rain failed his Mom had to bring water from the well bucket by bucket and ration the water rather than actually irrigating - Cole crops were a major part of any garden - cabbage, turnips, onions, collards (especially)- the tuber also - anything that could be stored by hanging it from strings hung between the beams under the house - then we children could crawl under and get them when granny wanted something for dinner - the greens would keep in the garden almost all winter - in fact collards and mustard greens are best after a frost - Clark's mother was a southerner and learned these skills as did Clark - the photo you see from time to time on this site of Clark with his cigarette holder and a dramatic chest pose next to a fence with his carvings on it was taken by myself in the small fenced in yard behind the house at pacific grove.
What you cannot see is the tiny planter boxes with several of the above mentioned plants growing in box planters and pots on the ground and shelving below and around - the Smith's knew little to nothings of commercially canned food - and later in life after marriage to Carol, discount and damaged goods stores where more could be purchased for less was the "necesitas" for life - Clark did not bake bread after his mother died, but only because much of it would have gone stale before he had eaten it - but he knew how.

"the Smith's knew little to nothings of commercially canned food"

However easier canned food may have made life, I'd say it's a good thing overall that they did not. I am no doctor, but I have little doubt that Lovecraft's short life was in large measure due to his wretched "canned food diet".

Of course, CAS did not live so long as he should have, either, but he seems to have had a hereditary tendency toward hypertension, which obviously was not treated very intelligently in his day, and which in turn leads later to strokes.

Anyway, these vignettes are fascinating. My father, who is about ten years Calonlan's senior, had a similar upbringing to CAS's during parts of the Depression. He still has vivid and unpleasant memories of fattening captured opossums for later butchering by feeding them sweet potatoes!

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "the Smith's knew little to nothings of
> commercially canned food"
>
> However easier canned food may have made life, I'd
> say it's a good thing overall that they did not. I
> am no doctor, but I have little doubt that
> Lovecraft's short life was in large measure due to
> his wretched "canned food diet".

On p. 628 of H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, Joshi notes:

"Interestingly enough, in view of the amount of canned food Lovecraft ate, studies have shown that modern food additives and preservatives may actually inhibit intestinal cancer. It is not that the preservatives in the canned food Lovecraft ate caused his cancer, but that their possible absence may have done so."

Yrs
Martin