Georgia O'Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part II: Walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch Land

By Nancy Hopkins Reily

The time is 1946. From Georgia O’Keeffe’s old hacienda sitting on a bluff in Abiquiu, New Mexico, she could see my aunt and uncle, Helen and Winfield Morten’s property across the Chama River. Georgia had begun the restoration of her property. The Mortens, in the final stages of purchasing land along the Chama River, had recently completed their restoration of another old hacienda they called Rancho de Abiquiu. As one of few Anglos in the Chama River valley, Georgia ventured over to Rancho de Abiquiu to introduce herself and a private friendship resulted with the Mortens and their family. In this close family circle, Georgia revealed herself and proved that beneath her bare face there was more to her than just an artist of legendary proportions. Nancy Hopkins Reily spent many of her childhood days walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch land. She explored the canyons, the White Place, Echo Amphitheater, the mountains, and the Chama River by walking the trails worn by earlier moccasined feet. In a seamless, clear, and straightforward narrative of excerpts from their lives, Reily presents Georgia in a time-window of her age. The book features Reily’s youthful experiences, letters from Georgia, glimpses of the family’s memorabilia and photographic snapshots—all gracefully woven into the forces of the contemporaneous scene that shaped their friendship. In addition, there are insights into the land’s beauty, times, culture, history and the people who surrounded Georgia, as well as many minute details that should be remembered and which are often overlooked by others when they speak of Georgia O’Keeffe. NANCY HOPKINS REILY was born in Dallas, Texas, and attended Gulf Park College in Gulfport, Mississippi, for one year. She graduated from Southern Methodist University with a B.B.A. in Retail Merchandising. Since childhood she has divided her time between Texas, Colorado and New Mexico. At a young age, the colorful New Mexico landscape captured her heart and gave her a sense of place. She continues to enjoy its beauty. Reily makes her home in Lufkin, Texas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunstone Press
• Release date: Sep 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781611390087

Nancy Hopkins Reily

Nancy Hopkins Reily was born in Dallas, Texas about mid-way between the Great Depression of 1929 and 1941 when the United States entered World War II. She was named after a McCall’s magazine story with the heroine named Nancy, a name her mother liked. With two brothers she didn’t play dolls, but played baseball and football in the neighborhood, caught fireflies at night and climbed the low branch tree in their yard. Since childhood, Reily has divided her time between Texas, Colorado and New Mexico. Her college education began at Gulf Park College, Gulfport, Mississippi and ended with a B.B.A. degree from Southern Methodist University. After college she joined the ranks of marriage, homemaker and motherhood. This led to a career of volunteering for many various organizations. She is also the author of Classic Outdoor Color Portraits, A Guide for Photographers; Georgia O’Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part I, Walking the Sun Prairie Land; Georgia O’Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part II, Walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch Land; Joseph Imhof, Artist of the Pueblos with Lucille Enix, and My Wisdom That No One Wants, all from Sunstone Press, and I Am At An Age, Best of East Texas Publishers. Reily makes her home in Lufkin, Texas.

Book preview

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

A Private Friendship

OTHER BOOKS

BY NANCY HOPKINS REILY

I Am At An Age, 1990, Best of East Texas Publishers, Lufkin, Texas

Joseph Imhof, Artist of the Pueblos, with Lucille Enix, 1998, Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Classic Outdoor Color Portraits, A Guide for Photographers,

2001, Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Georgia O’Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part I, Walking the Sun Prairie Land, 2007, Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

A Private Friendship

PART II

Walking the Abiquiu

and Ghost Ranch Land

Nancy Hopkins Reily

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

All dimensions of art work are listed as height followed by width.

Spelling and punctuation in letters are left as is, only corrected for clarification.

Any variance in mileages depends on the individual odometer.

© 2009 by Nancy Hopkins Reily. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic

or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems

without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer

who may quote brief passages in a review.

Sunstone books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department, Sunstone Press,

P.O. Box 2321, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-2321.

Book design Vicki Ahl

Body typeface GoudyOlSt BT

Printed on acid free paper

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reily, Nancy Hopkins, 1934–

Georgia O’keeffe, a private friendship / by Nancy Hopkins Reily.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-0-86534-451-8 (hardcover: alk. paper)

1. O’Keeffe, Gerogia, 1887–1986. 2. Painters—United States—Biography. I. Title.

ND237.O5R45 2006

759.13—dc22

2005037491

ISBN: 978-0-86534-452-5 (hardcover: alk. paper)

---

WWW.SUNSTONEPRESS.COM

SUNSTONE PRESS / POST OFFICE BOX 2321 / SANTA FE, NM 87504-2321 /USA

[phone] / ORDERS ONLY [phone] / FAX [phone]

DEDICATION

To my father, Robert Howell (Hal) Hopkins who used the talents his ancestors gave him. His efforts enabled me to recognize his values, to see behind all the glitter, to feel the pulse of my surroundings, and to make my adventures possible.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE EARLY YEARS OF OUR FRIENDSHIP, 1946–1949

1 Meeting Georgia

2 Texans Discover New Mexico

3 Walking the Abiquiu Land

4 Abiquiu House

5 Walking the Ghost Ranch Land

6 Getting Acquainted

7 Settling Stieglitz’s Estate

8 An Event at Fisk University

9 The Texans Route to Rancho de Abiquiu

10 The Last of Stieglitz’s Estate

OUR FRIENDSHIP CONTINUES, 1949–1966

11 At Last, Georgia Resides in Abiquiu

12 A Lasting Friendship

13 The Best and Worst of Times

14 A Friendship from Afar

THE LAST YEARS OF OUR FRIENDSHIP, 1967–1986

15 Lost Vision of Earth and Sky

16 Befriending a Young Student

17 More Awards

18 Time to Write

19 Last Years of Earth and Sky

DOCUMENTATION ABBREVIATIONS IN NOTES

NOTES

CREDIT FOR ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR QUOTED MATERIAL

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ILLUSTRATIONS/BLACK AND WHITE

Front cover: Georgia O’Keeffe Reclining on Bench, Campfire Outing, Ghost Ranch, Near Abiquiu, New Mexico, ca. 1940

1-1 Garden Gate at Rancho de Abiquiu

2-1 Living Room at Rancho de Abiquiu (Left to Right: Helen Morten and Winfield Morten)

3-1 Route to Abiquiu, New Mexico

3-2 View of Sierra Negra and White Place

3-3 First View of Cerro Pedernal

3-4 Poshuouinge

3-5 Poshuouinge Rocky Depression

3-6 Santa Rosa de Lima de Abiquiu, ca. 1935

3-7 Plaza, Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1947

4-1 View of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House during Restoration, Lower Room, Looking Northwest, 1945

4-2 View of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House during Restoration, Laying Foundations for the Studio, Looking East, 1946

4-3 View of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House during Restoration, Patio, Looking West, 1946

4-4 View of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House from U. S. Highway 84

4-5 Route to Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House from Bode’s General Store, 2003

4-6 Tour Route of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House

4-7 Zaguán, José Maria Cháves Residence (Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House), ca. 1917

5-1 Route to Ghost Ranch

5-2 Overlook to Chama River

5-3 Cerro Pedernal from Ghost Ranch, ca. 1935

5-4 Cerro Pedernal Viewed from the West

5-5 Ghost Ranch Logo

5-6 Route to Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center Office

5-7 Geological Column of Ghost Ranch

5-8 Ghost Ranch Hiking Trails

5-9 Route to Monastery of Christ in the Desert

5-10 Monastery of Christ in the Desert, 1968

5-11 Route to Rim Vista

6-1 Georgia O’Keeffe at the Women’s National Press Club Award

6-2 Rancho de Abiquiu before Restoration

6-3 Rancho de Abiquiu during Restoration

6-4  Rancho de Abiquiu during Restoration (Left to Right: Winfield Morten, Helen Morten, and Unidentified Person)

6-5 Rancho de Abiquiu after Restoration

6-6 Routes from Rancho de Abiquiu to Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House

6-7 Morada del Alto, ca. 1945 6-8 Reverse Oil Painting on Glass

6-9 Saint Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church and Dallas Hut, ca. 1940–1950

6-10 Saint Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church and Dallas Huts

6-11 Kachinas

8-1 Georgia O’Keeffe Seated at Fisk University

8-2 Georgia O’Keeffe after a Long Day at Fisk University

8-3 Fisk University Picnic (Left to Right: Marie Johnson and Georgia O’Keeffe)

8-4 Dining with the Johnsons at Fisk University (Left to Right: Marie Johnson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Doris Bry, and President Charles Johnson)

8-5 Georgia O’Keeffe and Doris Bry with Fisk University Students (Left to Right: Arthur Berry, James Jones, Georgia O’Keeffe, Anita Bracy, Doris Bry, and Margaret Johnson)

8-6 Fisk University Dedication Ceremony with Fisk University Choir in Background (Left to Right: Dean Sterling A. Callisen, Alfred Starr, Carl Van Vechten, and Georgia O’Keeffe)

8-7 Fisk University Dedication Ceremony (Left to Right: Georgia O’Keeffe, Maria Farinoff, and Carl Van Vechten)

9-1 Rancho de Abiquiu Garden Gate (Left to Right: Georgia O’Keeffe and Helen Morten)

11-1 Rancho de Abiquiu Dining Room Table (Far Right: Georgia O’Keeffe)

11-2 Rancho de Abiquiu, ca. 1945-1950 (Left to Right: Helen Morten, Agnes James, and Pauline Hopkins)

11-3 Indian Room at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House (Left to Right: Agnes James, Unidentified Person, and Georgia O’Keeffe)

11-4 El Rancho Motel, Sacramento, California, Summer, 1950 (Left to Right: Morten, Nancy, Hal, Robert, and Pauline Hopkins)

11-5 Georgia O’Keeffe under the Resolana at Abiquiu House, September 11, 1950

11-6 Garden at Rancho de Abiquiu, October 23, 1950 (Left to Right: Helen Morten, Pauline Corlett, and Georgia O’Keeffe)

12-1 Route to Cerro Pedernal

12-2 Invitation to Georgia O’Keeffe’s Johannesburg Exhibition, December, 1951

12-3 Living Room at Rancho de Abiquiu (Left to Right: Pauline Hopkins, Joanne Schneider, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Helen Morten)

12-4 Sheep Pens at Rancho de Abiquiu (Left to Right: Unidentified Person, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Joanne Schneider)

12-5 Rancho de Abiquiu (Left to Right: Unidentified Person, Unidentified Person, Georgia O’Keeffe, Helen Morten, and Unidentified Person)

12-6 Rancho de Abiquiu (Left to Right: Unidentified Person, Georgia O’Keeffe, Unidentified Person, Helen Morten, and Unidentified Person)

12-7  General Charles H. and Pauline Corlett’s House in Española, New Mexico (Left to Right: Helen Morten, Winfield Morten, Agnes James, Georgia O’Keeffe, Unidentified Person, and General Charles H. Corlett)

12-8 Santa Fe Rodeo Parade, July 10, 1952 (Left to Right: Norma Hurley, Nancy Hopkins, and Mary Hurley)

12-9 Nancy Hopkins, 1952

12-10 William Einstein Exhibition

12-11 Georgia O’Keeffe’s Handwriting, January 15, 1953

13-1 Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House (Helen Morten and Ladder to the Moon)

13-2 Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House (Left to Right: Unidentified Person, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Helen Morten)

14-1 Letter from Georgia O’Keeffe to Helen Morten and Winfield Morten, April 14, 1960

14-2 Indian Room at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House (Left to Right: Georgia O’Keeffe and Winfield Morten)

14-3 Indian Room at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu House (Left to Right: Georgia O’Keeffe and Vivian)

14-4 Starlight Night

14-5 Georgia O’Keeffe Receiving Honorary Degree at University of New Mexico

14-6 Visiting O’Keeffe Farm at Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, 1964 (Left to Right: Catherine O’Keeffe Klenert and Georgia O’Keeffe)

14-7 Georgia O’Keeffe at Opening of Deere and Company Building, Moline, Illinois

14-8 Georgia O’Keeffe

14-9 John Loengard Photograph, 1966 (Left to Right: Georgia O’Keeffe and Jerrie Newsom)

15-1 Georgia O’Keeffe Letter to Helen Morten, August 10, 1968

15-2 Sky Above Clouds, IV (Left to Right: Unidentified Person and Georgia O’Keeffe)

15-3 Georgia O’Keeffe Receiving Honorary Degree at Brown University (Left to Right: Georgia O’Keeffe and President Donald F. Hornig)

15-4 Georgia O’Keeffe Receiving M. Carey Thomas Award at Bryn Mawr College (Left to Right: Barbara Cooley McNamee, Mildred Dunnock, Harris L. Wofford, Hannah Arendt, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Hanna Holborn Gray)

15-5 Georgia O’Keeffe Receiving Honorary Degree at Mount Holyoke College (Left to Right: President David Truman, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jean Sutherland Boggs, Phyllis Williams Lehmann, Phoebe Baroody Stanton, and Ada Louise Huxtable)

15-6 Georgia O’Keeffe and Jingo

15-7 Sisters (Left to Right: Georgia O’Keeffe and Claudia O’Keeffe)

17-1 Georgia O’Keeffe Receiving Honorary Degree at Harvard University

ILLUSTRATIONS / COLOR DUST JACKET

1 Santa Rosa de Lima de Abiquiu, 2003

2 Red Rocks

3 Cerro Pedernal

4 Rim Vista

5 Echo Amphitheater

6 Morada del Alto, 2003

7 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Nancy Hopkins Reily at Abiquiu, New Mexico Sign

FOREWORD

Important—Georgia O’Keeffe.

—Winfield Morten

In Georgia O’Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part II, Walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch Land, I write of Georgia’s life when my family met her and afterwards.

To know Georgia in these later days is to chronicle the historical experiences of her times when she knew of the colorful beauty of the Texas and New Mexico plains.

As a young girl Georgia enjoyed the flat marshland of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. After her role-model mother’s death in May 1916, Georgia combined her art with a teaching career. In late August of the same year she moved to Canyon, Texas, nestled in the middle of the Texas Panhandle. That October her sister, Claudia, moved to live with her. The sisters ventured to New Mexico for the first time in August 1917. Georgia’s instant love of New Mexico compelled her to return again and again to the expanses of earth and sky complete with dramatic lighting that further glorified the rich colors and sculpted outcroppings.

As a young boy my uncle, Winfield Morten, came from the black land prairie of Dallas, Texas, to New Mexico with his family about the same time as Georgia.

A mutual appreciation of the clear, pristine visual impressions of the New Mexico landscape drew Georgia O’Keeffe as well as my aunt and uncle, Helen and Winfield, to an area where they were neighbors across the Chama River (Tewa for red river or here they have wrestled) at Abiquiu (Tewa for timber point).

Abiquiu is a tiny village forty-six miles north of Santa Fe (the site of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum) and five miles southeast of the ancient land known as Piedra Lumbre (Shining Stone), a one-hundred-square-mile high desert.

When I was a young girl, my parents, Pauline and Hal Hopkins, my mother’s sister Aunt Helen and her husband Uncle Winfield, and their friends welcomed me into their social life because they easily accepted different generations. They expected me to conduct myself properly although they never instructed me. Their conversations and storytelling reverberated with gusto, but always with my presence in mind. They never told me to leave the room. I absorbed the stories with the clear, unencumbered insight of a young girl.

When Georgia joined our social life I also became a privileged participant. As the years passed, the stories of the times Georgia and my family functioned as a part of each other’s world percolated through my mind and memory. As others documented Georgia’s life, it became clear that these select, private stories of Georgia and my family were for me to tell.

Aiding in the telling of these stories were the mementoes and letters Georgia presented Aunt Helen and Uncle Winfield and the letters and snapshots my family saved, all carefully collected and placed in an envelope with Uncle Winfield’s slanted handwritten notation on the front: Important—Georgia O’Keeffe. Eventually I acquired the envelope for safekeeping, with no instructions. Everyday mementoes filled the envelope: an invitation to the members’ preview at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, on October 3, 1960, of Georgia’s retrospective exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Forty Years of Her Art; letters to Aunt Helen and Uncle Winfield; and snapshots of Georgia and my family.

The mementoes serve as a reminder of events worth remembering. These keepsakes, a vestige of the times, catalogue Georgia’s decisions. The letters, the usual method of communicating at that time, supply evidence of the high regard Georgia and my family had for each other as they dealt with small and personal matters. The snapshots provide proof of my family’s and Georgia’s passion for life by recording the experiences of their friendship. These detailed snapshots occupy a proper and legitimate place as a record made by my family. Our snapshots also remind me of an ordinary but particular time. These little icons from a photographer’s darkroom don’t compete for attention with fine art photography but do add dimension to the variety of Georgia’s life.

All these materials from my envelope, viewed once so casually, now provide a real and worthy interpretation of the shaping of our relationship during the times we were a part of each other’s worlds.

These materials led to further research. But as I searched for additional facts to avoid repeating what others have written, every discovery suggested that my story is about more than Georgia and our family. Not to be forgotten is the essence of the land, with its distinct interaction of history, people, and cultures.

Already there exists a plethora of biographies, critical books, and essays on Georgia, some based on facts while others are based on speculation. In her later years Georgia even wrote of herself and would regret not keeping a journal to get it right.

As a child and adolescent I had a certain impression of Georgia that conflicted with how she was portrayed. In my research, for example, I discovered that Georgia had many friends for someone who claimed people bothered her. In my opinion, her friendliness emerged in her own way, but she chose isolation to stay focused on the force of her creativity.

With my experiences, mementoes, research, and discoveries, I have attempted to reconcile the differences between what I experienced as a child with unadorned vision and today’s icon status projected on her in the minds of so many.

I hope the reader will read these recollections of walking the land, perhaps, if lucky, by the light of a New Mexican sunrise or sunset or in the glow of a piñon fire tucked into an adobe fireplace. Wherever the reading, I have not presented Georgia as a bigger-than-life persona with distracting myths that sacrifice her humanity. I knew Georgia as a woman who only wanted freedom to put her easily-seen perceptions into a visual language focusing only on the essentials, and for her neighbors and friends to call her Georgia.

Time has not distracted me from telling of the Abiquiu neighbor we called Georgia.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In my continuation of writing of what I know and how I walked the land many people contributed to the journey. Thank you to: Jane Duncan Ainsworth, Clauda Carroll Baker, Lynne Lovinggood Bohn, Derek Bok, Dale L. Botsford, Denise Bowley, Pat Burton, Pauline Richardson Hopkins Castleberry, Amy Cook, Jane Ewing Cramer, Joan Norris Duncan, Marianna G. Duncan, Lucille Enix, Joy Anderson Fredrick, Napoleon Paul Garcia, Sr., Joyce E. Gray, Barbara Hays, Ellen Herring, Michelle Holt, Dorothy G. Hopkins, Edward Morten Hopkins, Jane Reynolds Hopkins, Joanne Schneider Hopkins, Robert H. Hopkins, Jr., Elizabeth Hyde, Caroline K. Keck, Melvin Kurth, Paula Devereaux Kurth, Abbot Philip Lawrence, OSB (Order of Saint Benedict), Gregory Letney, Herman Letney, Stanley Marcus, Eunice Mayhew, Jeanelle McCall, Carol Merrill, Jeff Mills, Helen Morten, Winfield Morten, Jeronima (Jerrie) Newsom, Allen Nossaman, Ann Paden, David Peterman, Willie Picaro, Linda Pogozelski, Lesley Poling-Kempes, Sara Smith McGuire Ratliff, Jean D. Reily, Gina Renfro, Versia Sanders, Michael K. Smith, Jane Starks, Sheila Sutton, Mary Jule Tatum, Doug Terry, Thelma Terry, Carl Tiedt, Sharyn R. Udall, Joelle Walker, Barbara Witemeyer, and Christopher With.

I am indebted to the many kind-hearted people who responded to my requests for information in the many reference departments of libraries, museums, and archive collections. They kept the book moving forward with my research of the land, people, culture, and times. Thank you to: Grace Salazar, Loretta Torres, and Isabel W. Trujillo, Abiquiu Public Library; American Watercolor Society; Marina Ochoa, Archivist, Archdiocese of Santa Fe; Bart Ryckbosch and Marie Krueger, Art Institute of Chicago; Kathleen Kleinholz, American Academy of Arts and Letters; Karen Finkelman and Clark Elliot, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Joe Sherrill, Bisti Wilderness Area; Lisa Long, Brandeis University; Raymond Butti and Gayle D. Lynch, Brown University Library; Marianne Hansen, Lorett Treese, and Barbara Grubb, Bryn Mawr College; Leslie Calmes and Shaw Kingsley, Center for Creative Photography; Peg Johnson, College of Santa Fe; Jocelyn K. Wilk, Columbia College; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; Dallas Public Library; Beth M. Howse, Franklin Library, Fisk University; Linda Conners, Drew University; Gretchen Dowling, Elizabeth Arden; Connie Thompson, Española Chamber of Commerce; Kevin Grogan, Van Vechten Gallery, Fisk University; George Eastman House; Roxanne Alvarez, The George Washington University; Sarah Burt, Eumie Imm-Stroukoff, Agapita Judy Lopez, Barbara Buhler Lynes, Georgia Smith, and Kelly B. Swickard, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum; Edgar W. Davy, Willie Picaro, and Barbara Schmidtzinsky, Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center; Kyle Carey and Brian A. Sullivan, Harvard University; David Witt, Harwood Foundation; Leslie J. Stegh, Deere and Company; Jennifer Bennett, Carmen K. Little, Julie Massey, Dr. Don McManus, Kurth Memorial Library, Lufkin, Texas; Laura Giammarco, Life; Los Alamos Historical Society; Michelle Arldredge, The MacDowell Colony; Janice E. Braun, Mills College; Lucinda Naylor, Minneapolis College of Art and Design; Patricia Albright, Sara Jamison and Dawn Lavallee, Mount Holyoke College; Musuem of Modern Art; Mary Jebsen, Museum of New Mexico; Tomas Jaehn, Angélico Chávez Library, Museum of New Mexico, Palace of the Governors; Arthur L. Olivas and Richard Rudisill, Photograph Archives, Museum of New Mexico, Palace of the Governors; Warren Lee Brown, Jill Cowley, and Brenda Smith, National Park Service; Gini Blodgett, National Press Club; Dana Spanierman, National Women’s Caucus for Art; John Armijo, New Mexico Film Office; Mark Adams, New Mexico State Library; Betty Bustos and Michael Grauer, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum; Jane S. Knowles, Archivist, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College; Chris Denvir, Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce; Sheila M. O’Brien, Archivist, Salve Regina University; Kate Mendillo, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; Santa Fe Public Library; Daniel Kurnit, School of American Research; Aimee Shapiro, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; Cynthia Franco, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist Univesity; Peter Klein, Sun Prairie Historical Museum; Dr. Paul M. Pearson, Thomas Merton Center, Bellarmine University; Patsy Chávez, Coyote Ranger Division, Forest Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture; Carroll L. Botts and Terry Gugliotta, University of New Mexico; Jill Sahl and Anne Skilton, University of North Carolina; Steve Masar and Bernie Schermetzler, University of Wisconsin; Gerry Strey, Wisconsin Historical Society; and Patricia Willis, Adam Marchmand, and Karen Nangle, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Thank you to my family: Donald Earle Reily, Mark Hopkins Reily, Jane Read Reily, Donna Reily Davis, Read Hopkins Reily, Thomas Donald Reily, Carolyn Frances Davis, John Mark Reily, Julia Archer Davis, and Anna Catherine Reily.

For joining in the passage, I thank: Brenda Meeks for her tireless hospitality; Carl Condit for his valuable assistance; Vicki Ahl, who brought my text to life with the book design; and to James Clois Smith, Jr., who never promised me a single thing—only to do everything.

Lastly, I thank you, the reader, for walking the land with me as the past and present come together.

THE EARLY YEARS OF

OUR FRIENDSHIP, 1946–1949

1

MEETING GEORGIA

Hi, I’m Georgia O’Keeffe.

—Georgia O’Keeffe

No one in my family remembers the exact day we met Georgia O’Keeffe near Abiquiu, New Mexico. But, we recall the meeting as an event.

The early summer of 1946 bustled with activities for Georgia and for my aunt and uncle, Helen and Winfield Morten.

On the last day of December 1945, Georgia had purchased a dilapidated adobe house in Abiquiu. With a vision in her mind, she set forth to refurbish the house under the direction of her friend, Maria Chabot (1913–2001). Georgia had met Chabot in 1940 at Mary Cabot Wheelwright’s Los Luceros (ranch of the morning star) in Alcalde, New Mexico.¹ Georgia’s renovation progressed as she lived alone part time at her Ghost Ranch home only sixteen miles north of Abiquiu and in New York City with the photographer and promoter of modern art, Alfred Stieglitz, her mentor since 1916 and her husband since 1924.

In 1944, the Mortens began purchasing acreage near Abiquiu which included the Gonzales house across the Chama River from Abiquiu and within viewing distance of Georgia’s future spring and winter hilltop home and studio.² By June 1946, my father, Hal Hopkins’s ability to supervise Winfield’s nearly completed vision into a reality ended with renaming the Gonzales property to Rancho de Abiquiu.

As this particularly busy 1946 summer day ended, Aunt Helen, Uncle Winfield, Mother, my two brothers, Robert and Morten, and I adhered to our routine of ending the work day at 5:00 p.m. As was the custom in polite society, we dressed for dinner. We gathered on the south portal (porch) of our ranch house and began a social hour before being served dinner in the dining room.

Aunt Helen and Mother celebrated the day’s end in Agnes James’s calico Fiesta dresses, shunning the black uniform that appealed to Eastern women. No matter the color print, the dresses featured full skirts trimmed with dust ruffles edged with rick-rack, braid, or eyelet. The dresses accented the shape of their bodies and served as James’s muse. Forceful, exquisite Native American silver and turquoise belts, squash blossom necklaces, earrings, rings, and bracelets accented their ensembles and drew people to them.³

Winfield looked distinguished in his tan gabardine trousers and shirt, somber brown handmade leather boots—heavy on attitude with pointed toes and high heels—a crafted, silver concho belt with leather backing, and a bolo tie. Robert, Morten, and I wore our best slim blue jeans and plaid cotton shirts. Our colorful boot tops were a matter of fashion, not function.

The Catholic priest, Father William Bickhaus from El Rito (The Ritual) Parish, joined Aunt Helen and Uncle Winfield for the late afternoon social event. Nearby, Robert, Morten, and I occupied Mother’s attention more than the adult gathering on the portal next to the flower garden of the U-shaped hacienda (property). A six-foot-high adobe wall with an open-frame wooden gate enclosed the south side of the garden. See figure 1-1.

1-1 Garden Gate at Rancho de Abiquiu

About that time Georgia walked unannounced through the garden gate in her usual practical black attire worn for ease of movement. I’m Georgia O’Keeffe, she said, not calling attention to the contrast in our attire. On that day, a considerable expanse of time had elapsed since the twenty-nine-year-old woman stated I am Georgia O’Keeffe, to identify herself to Alfred Stieglitz and to confront him for exhibiting her charcoal drawings without permission. By the time of our meeting she had long addressed and accepted the myths and legends surrounding her. As our meeting unfolded, she made it clear that she wanted to be known as a neighbor and to welcome us to the valley she had loved since 1931.⁴

We replied, Hi, Georgia, not unlike the nearby Ghost Ranch’s twenty-nine-year-old Phoebe Pack’s youthfully naïve greeting in 1935, but with the added assurance that Georgia would enjoy us.⁵

Recognition as an artist had come step-by-step as Georgia built on the advice of her varied mentors. As early as 1917, Stieglitz the mentor who guided her career, sold her first painting for $400. Recognition as a celebrity came in 1921, when Stieglitz exhibited several of his nude photographs of Georgia at The Anderson Galleries. In 1938, the College of William and Mary presented Georgia with an honorary degree, the first by the College in the fine arts. The University of Wisconsin awarded her an honorary degree in May 1942. In 1943, Georgia exhibited sixty-one works at the Art Institute of Chicago where she personally supervised the hanging of the paintings. The Women’s National Press Club in 1946 declared her one of ten women who had achieved distinction in their chosen fields. Georgia’s May 1946 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York further secured her reputation.⁶

Our family chose to seek success and recognition in the construction business (with the Army-Navy E Award for essential wartime industry), which was a guarantee that we would not be well known in the art scene. Yet we knew about Georgia’s visions, mentors, and muses.

Meanwhile, with the pleasurable spirit of our household resembling Georgia’s own family childhood experiences, Uncle Winfield invited her to join our group. The social conversation that day probably revolved around Abiquiu’s Saint Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church being a mission of El Rito Parish, guided by Father Bickhaus.

Perhaps the conversation included the refurbishing of Georgia’s Abiquiu house along with Winfield’s similar project. Georgia more than likely talked about the difficulty of obtaining building materials for the restoration. She informed us that all the building supplies had been taken thirty miles south to Los Alamos (The Cottonwoods) for the secretive Manhattan Project, a code name for a development so secret that the Vice-President of the United States, Harry S Truman, didn’t know of its existence.⁷ Unknown to Georgia, Winfield was participating in the Los Alamos project.

As our meeting unfolded, Georgia entered the conversation as if ready for a duel. Mother recalled, Georgia, in our conversation and in her manner of speaking, became snippy and tart, just shy of being bossy and sassy. Winfield in his most gentlemanly manner very politely put her in her place. After that we never had any more trouble with Georgia.⁸

I am certain that Uncle Winfield saw through the complexities of her persona and personality. Whether her tartness and snippiness came from repression, mischievousness, or taking pleasure in shocking statements and questions, Uncle Winfield with his old school manners informed Georgia that the directness of her social approach was not acceptable in our conversations. He hinted in his polite manner that she would not be allowed to spoil the easy-going mood of our gathering. We were not in awe of Georgia and she liked that about us.

Adding to Georgia’s enjoyment of our family was her flirting with Uncle Winfield, a young forty-two-year-old man full of energy and spirit. Georgia’s reputation for liking men better than certain types of women was evident. Yet, Aunt Helen and Georgia, thrown together by the coincidence of being neighbors, formed a keen friendship. Aunt Helen genuinely liked Georgia, who reciprocated her friendship.

My recollection of our meeting included her choice of clothes and, more importantly, her face. My youthful eyes only glanced at the contours of her face. Strong, angular surfaces made for a distinct form. I missed the perfectly shaped mouth with the gap between her two front teeth and the color of her brownish-hazel eyes. I didn’t recognize the aloofness she perhaps had acquired from her heritage. Maybe her impishness balanced the aloofness. I had trouble making the parts of her face come together. Yet, that day my youthful eyes took in everything I needed to know. Her naked face resounded as, allegorically, the naked woman represents Truth.⁹

In 1946 Georgia’s fifty-nine-year-old face showed only the first inklings of what dry earth and air does to skin.

Georgia’s 1916 face, when she was twenty-nine has been described by her unauthorized biographer, Laura Lisle, in her 1980 Portrait of an Artist, A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe:

As an artist he [Stieglitz] was interested in Georgia’s large, unusual features. He thought her prominent nose and firm chin formed an exquisite profile, and he was fascinated by what he called her enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. . . . As the photographer examined this woman who did not express herself in words, the camera recorded the circles under her eyes and the untamed hairs under her heavy brows. It also caught the beginning of an amused, dimpled smile playing around the corners of her beautiful mouth and a straightforward, casual, soft and interested look in her eyes.¹⁰

Lisle further described Georgia’s fifty-one-year-old face of 1938:

O’Keeffe’s handsome bone structure continued to attract almost as much comment as her pictures. One photographer, who snapped her for a magazine in 1936, noted that she indifferently refrained from glancing in a mirror before he began to shoot. Yet curiously enough, she has the basic qualities that make for spectacular beauty, he noticed. Her high curved forehead and hairline are similar to Merle Oberon’s. Her deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes, her delicate, high cheekbones are Dietrich’s.¹¹

Georgia radiated one kind of beauty and the two women in my family another. Mother and Aunt Helen, truly glamourous women of the 1940s, possessed a beauty that charmed and enchanted, but not the glamour of Hollywood publicity portraits, where glamour became a manufactured product selling dreams and escapism.

But all three women knew that the Elizabeth Arden Beauty Salon had opened on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1910 with a red door that continues to be its signature today.

In 1936 Georgia painted for the exercise room at the Elizabeth Arden Beauty Salon a monumental painting of four lush, giant, unfolding jimsonweed blossoms: Jimson Weed, oil on canvas, 70 x 83 1/2 in., 1936. Arden already owned an O’Keeffe painting, so Georgia negotiated a fee of $10,000.¹² Georgia even received an Elizabeth Arden make-over only to find that cosmetics added nothing to her natural bone structure and presence.¹³

Aunt Helen and Mother’s use of cosmetics differed from Georgia’s because the two younger women adopted Elizabeth Arden’s products for a flawlessly finished skin. Until World War I, foundation make-up was thought to be improper or immoral. But by 1946, the foundation creams, enhanced with rouge, powder, and lipstick had become a necessity. True Southern women applied their make-up for protection against aging. They didn’t want their skin to lose its resiliency because they had more time to be old than young. Besides, Mother and Aunt Helen knew of the effects of the damaging New Mexican dry climate on their skin.

So, before me that day sat three women who were born with certain facial features, each dressed to her face’s beauty.

We later thought of Georgia as Bohemian because she took sabbaticals from her marriage. Her time away from Stieglitz provided a way for her to have a marriage without losing her creative identity and created a new life force which eliminated whatever bothered her. Unlike a divorce or separation, a sabbatical had a return date. She adopted a way of life in which art came before both her or Stieglitz’s ego. Women have always managed to find a way to do what they considered important. Harriet Beecher Stowe managed a year-long sabbatical over objections from her husband and returned to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin.¹⁴ When Stowe visited the White House in 1863 and urged President Abraham Lincoln to do something about slavery, Lincoln said that Mrs. Stowe was the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.¹⁵

Mother and Aunt Helen took a different tack. Striving for time to reflect, study, and renew themselves, Mother and Aunt Helen said that sabbaticals remained out of the question because they didn’t have cultural permission and they performed all the caretaking. But in reality, Rancho de Abiquiu, like an island ringed with mountains, rivers, and desert, provided a respite from day-to-day routines and a setting to shed the complications and distractions that formed a closing in force around Mother and Aunt Helen. But for all that Mother and Aunt Helen gave to their family and community, they, like Georgia, needed to replenish their spirits. This was easily found in Abiquiu, twenty-five miles away from the nearest telephone.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea (1955) declared that women’s roles as homemakers and mothers brought restlessness. Contentment could be discovered through solitude and introspection. Her writings foreshadowed the growth of the feminist movement. She wrote, The solution for me, surely, is neither in total renunciation of the world, nor in total acceptance of it. I must find a balance somewhere, or an alternating rhythm between these two extremes; a swinging of the pendulum between solitude and communion, between retreat and return.¹⁶

One hundred sixty miles south of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in Peoria, Illinois, Betty Naomi Goldstein was born to a female journalist in 1921. Her father was a Russian Jewish immigrant jeweler. Her mother’s dominant spirit encouraged her to excel in anything she did. After earning a degree in psychology from Smith College, Betty found employment as a reporter in New York City. She became aware of how women were discriminated against in the workplace. After marrying Carl Friedan, Betty Goldstein Friedan became a full-time wife and mother. She observed a very real clash between the education now offered to women and how they were expected to live the remainder of their lives. She would later remark, It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.¹⁷

In 1963, eight years after Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea, and not content that society expected that women should be completely satisfied with their roles as wives and mothers, Friedan startled the world when she wrote The Feminine Mystique. In a passionate, systematic analysis, Friedan traced the genesis of the feminine mystique to post-World War II values as Americans weary from the war and leery of changes in society escaped into the idealized safe, happy home complete with a happy housewife and children.¹⁸

Friedan’s book resulted in an explosive cultural hallmark giving American middle-class women an opportunity both to realize the idealization of the traditional female role and to reach their full capacity.

Thirty-four years after The Feminine Mystique, forty-two years after Gift from the Sea, fifty-one years after my family’s meeting with Georgia, and one hundred ten years after Georgia’s birth, Anne and John Marion listened to a suggestion from Stanley Marcus, of Neiman- Marcus, and opened the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe on July 17, 1997. In 2008, the Museum had 1,149 O’Keeffe paintings, drawings, and sculptures, which include promised gifts and extended loans. The Museum’s entire collection includes 1,840 by other artists. The Museum exhibits Georgia’s works and explores facets of her life, work, and times. In 1998, ninety-nine years after twelve-year-old Georgia declared her artistic goals, the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation (formed in 1989), began the O’Keeffe Art and Leadership Programs for Girls which concentrate on providing opportunities for adolescent girls in independent thought processes, problem-solving, skill-building, and developing creative talents, whether painting, writing, theater, or dance. In 2002, the Art and Leadership Programs for Boys began with emphasis on self-discovery and creativity through art-making, drama, music, and writing.¹⁹

In 2006 the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation transferred its assets to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

When I met Georgia O’Keeffe in 1946, my twelve years meant a scant accumulation of life’s experiences, no concept of the direction my life should take, and little awareness that to know myself I must not only think, but discover and act. Years later, with introspection, I became of an age to recognize an indescribable force within me searching for expression. I nurtured a series of imaginative impulses and actions that had been stimulated by my experiences with Mother, Aunt Helen, and Georgia. Seamlessly and step-by-step, I adopted the best of all three women.

Georgia left our gathering that summer day having taken the first step in becoming part of my family. We provided Georgia a safe harbor from the public eye that had grown to epic proportions. She was simply our Anglo neighbor whom we called Georgia.

2

TEXANS DISCOVER NEW MEXICO

Riding in the mountains of wild New Mexico.

—Winfield Morten

New Mexico formed when the swirling planet separated into a heavy core of nickel and iron and a lighter mantle of part liquids and solids. The surrounding crust heated by the mantle’s decaying radioactive material prompted the semi-liquid mantle to rise and fall in an extremely slow manner, by human standards, interrupted only by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Movement created plates of mountains, oceans, and continents. The North American plate, stretching from the mid-Atlantic Ridge to the Pacific Ocean, widened as the Rio Grande formed in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado to begin its journey of erosion, forming cliffs, peaks, ridges, and mesas throughout New Mexico.

Mary Hunter Austin (1868–1934), a member of Mabel Dodge’s (later Luhan) New York salon, called New Mexico the Land of Little Rain in her classic 1903 book of the same title, now published in a new edition by Sunstone Press. She wrote of her intimacy with the commonest things of the natural world in a way similar to the Scottish geologist, Hugh Miller’s, writing in The Old Red Sandstone. Miller wrote, The commonest things are worth looking at— even stones and weeds and familiar animals.¹

New Mexico’s varying annual rainfall—from six to twenty inches— allowed Nature to make the most of the sky’s offering. As a source of heat and moisture, the sky, since the dawning of history, arranged life forms and human habitation in definite bands from the low-lying desert plains to the highest summits. The sky brought sunshine to beautify the earth and rain to allow man to live on the land.²

Winfield Morten, the first in our family of Texans to discover New Mexico, descended from Henry Morten (1786–1837), who was born on the Morten estate near London, England. Henry Morten came to America in 1808 and settled near Cincinnati. He married Catherine Armstrong (1795–1880) in 1811 in Columbia, Hamilton County, Ohio.³ The Mortens settled on a farm near Cincinnati. Their son, Edward Wright Morten (born 1834, died 1910 in Farmersville, Texas), married Marguerite Fail. Their child, Winfield Morten’s grandfather, Edward Winfield (E. W.) Morten, was born August 14, 1861, at Moore’s Hill, Dearborn County, Indiana located in central Indiana and full of rich soil, low hills, and broad, shallow valleys that break the level surface of the plains. E. W. came to Texas, a land supported by tall prairie grass in its deep, black land. This fertile land, known as black gumbo, had been plowed to produce crops such as cotton. E. W. began his Texas career in association with a Fort Worth cotton compress company. In 1891 he moved to McKinney, Texas, where he continued his milling interests and where he built and operated the first ice-manufacturing and cold storage plant. On November 23, 1882, E. W. married Nellie Webb, who was born on October 22, 1864, in Roscoe, Minnesota, as the daughter of a Fort Worth minister, Harvey Webb, and his wife, Jemina Webb. E. W. came to Dallas in 1900 as manager of the Century Milling Company, which later became the Morten Milling Company. Through his investments E. W. became one of Dallas’s few millionaires of the time.⁴

Nellie and E. W. had one child, Blanche Eileen Morten, born in 1883, in Fort Worth. With a rather flighty personality, Blanche whistled beautifully and wanted to go on the stage to whistle. Her parents refused to allow her to participate in show business in such an unladylike manner. On December 29, 1902, nineteen year old Blanche married twenty-year-old Orion O. Alexander from Charleston, Illinois. Alexander, a graduate of the University of Illinois and owner of a bridge-designing and contracting construction company in Kansas City, Missouri, deserted Winfield and Blanche six months after Winfield’s birth on April 20, 1904, which was explained as owing to family trouble of small consequence. Blanche and Winfield returned to Dallas on October 19, 1904.⁵

E. W. wrote his daughter of her misfortune in Orion abandoning the family:

May 7, 1905,

My Darling little Blanche, . . . for my dear little wounded bird, Blanche, Oh how joyfully would I draw you to my Heart and shield you under my strong arm until the whailing blasts of mortification and mental suffering shall pass by. You my dear have done nothing to deserve the treatment you have received.⁶

Winfield in his early years lost contact with his father except for a letter dated April 26, 1905, which ended, My greatest desire is to see you a strong, educated and prosperous businessman. With oceans of love and kisses, I remain, Lovingly Yours, Papa.⁷ Orion did not appear again in Winfield’s life until the 1950s when Orion became ill in Washington state. Winfield arranged for his care and provided a proper burial for his father at his death.

According to a July 2, 1971, letter from O. O. Alexander’s sister, Virgie Cox of Charleston, Illinois:

Blanche always loved [Orion’s] Mother and brought Winfield to Mother when he was very young baby, in long dresses, Winfield was very ill and thin. . . . Blanche left him with her until I think he was about 4 years old, then Blanche came to visit Mother and he was such a healthy, handsome boy. Blanche wanted him back. . . . Blanche was his mother and she [Orion’s mother] let her take him back.⁸

Grandfather E. W. Morten showed his love for Winfield by legally changing his name from Winfield Morten Alexander to Winfield Morten and by introducing him to a world of affluence in the early 1900s, with cooks, chauffeurs, butlers, maids, and extensive travel.⁹

The Texas heat prompted Nellie Morten to gather an entourage and have the chauffeur, Ulysses, drive them to New Mexico.¹⁰ Winfield Morten’s journey from Dallas to New Mexico began at the Pecos and Jemez mountains, where the sky’s offerings had changed the desert to inhabitable land. As a young boy Winfield accompanied his mother and grandparents on unpaved roads, where daily life existed without electric lights.¹¹

Pecos, a small town on the Pecos River where the current flows from the high peaks of the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) range, occupies the middle of a gap in the line of hogbacks that form the southern tip of the Sangre de Cristo range. A tang of coolness aids evaporation at the elevation of 6,923 feet.¹² Clouds form more frequently here than over the lower plains to bring rain and snow. Again, the sky rules.

The landscape of northwestern New Mexico changed forever about a million years ago when a volcano erupted in fiery lava and collapsed into a magma chamber called a caldera which measured fourteen miles across. The volcanic ash compressed to form the surface of the Pajarito (Little Bird) Plateau opening from the mountains like a large fan. On the eastern rim of the caldera lie the Jemez Mountains overlooking Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. A soda dam formed on the southwest of the caldera above the present village of Jemez Springs (place of boiling springs) which sits in the middle of the original volcanic site at an elevation of 6,200 feet. The dam developed where hot-spring water cooled and precipitated calcium carbonate. . . . In this entire area hot rocks are fairly near the surface—a legacy of the volcanic past—and groundwater heated by contact with them rises by convection to the surface. Jemez Springs known for its therapeutic values and visitors such as E. W., Blanche, and Winfield came there not far from present-day Los Alamos on the Pajarito Plateau.¹³

Winfield’s further travels included Yellowstone, Virginia, Colorado, Yosemite and Long Island, New York. In 1920, when he reached sixteen years of age, he adventured around Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and again Pecos.¹⁴

Winfield graduated from Dallas’s prestigious Terrill Prep School with such men as Sam Marshall, nephew of General George C. Marshall. Winfield, fearful of Latin, declined a college education. In 1921, with his talent for mathematics and business, Winfield furthered his education in the practicalities of life by graduating at age seventeen from a Dallas business school.¹⁵

At age twenty-two, a poem accompanying a scrapbook photograph of Winfield astride a horse read, Riding in the mountains of wild New Mexico. The mountain firs grow tall and green, o’er mountain streams below.¹⁶

Another photograph of twenty-two-year-old Winfield astride a horse appears in his childhood scrapbook with the caption, From city streets, To riding range, On Boyd’s Ranch, Is quite a change!¹⁷

Martha and John Boyd, both from Indiana, operated Boyd’s Ranch in the welded tufts of Frijoles Canyon (now part of Bandelier National Monument) southeast of the caldera. Edith Warner met the Boyds before they left their ranch in 1923 to move to a higher valley in the Jemez Mountains. Edith had come to New Mexico from Pennsylvania in 1922 to recuperate from a breakdown. Her physician prescribed a year living outdoors with few responsibilities. Warner first stayed at the 8,400-foot high ranch, fifty-five miles southwest of Santa Fe, which also hosted Winfield as a young man.¹⁸

Martha taught Edith what women must know to cope with living on the edge of the wilderness, That time for the Indians had no boundaries, that every project must ripen according to seasonal rhythms and invisible inner laws.¹⁹

In 1928, fond of the Pajarito Plateau, Warner secured a job taking mail and supplies off the Chili Line railroad for