The Tragedy

Excerpt from “The Opening”

November 1963 — The police said the state-owned automobile went out of control in the eastbound lane of the New York Thruway, crossed the median and was struck by the oncoming car before spinning into a third car. The man in the first car, Albert Corey, returning from a visit to a historic site further upstate, was thrown to the pavement. The next day the headline read, “Historian to Millions, Dead at Age 64.”

Almost a year had passed since then, and Edith Cole was still trying to turn the page. Albert had argued so strongly for her old family home to be preserved intact – drawing up detailed estimates, working through the power brokers – just as he had successfully done for the birthplace of the great American writer Walt Whitman and many others. And the Cole House was, he argued, a truly exceptional opportunity. For inside Edith’s Hudson Valley home there were still over 40 original oil paintings, half of which were by her great grandfather, Thomas Cole, and all of which were included in her offer to New York State to take the place for $89,000.

“I wish to assure you,” wrote Governor Nelson Rockefeller, “of my keen personal interest in plans to acquire the Cole Estate. In view of a rather tight budgetary situation in the State this year, however, I feel that action on this matter must be deferred.”

Within a few decades, the paintings alone would be worth millions of dollars.

But it was still 1964, and 19th-century American art was not even mentioned in survey courses of art history. The great volumes of scholarship, blockbuster exhibitions, and astronomical auction prices were all in the future. For Edith, any hope of convincing the government to take on her great-grandfather’s legacy, as well as the man leading the charge, were both dead. Edith recalled Albert’s earnest brown eyes, thick white eyebrows, high forehead and slightly protruding ears. Some called him formal and old-fashioned; others called him cold as a fish. He had a penchant for antique silver, a weakness for buildings that creaked, and a tweed jacket for every occasion. The Greene County Legislature thought that his death might convince the governor to reconsider, and perhaps make the Thomas Cole home into a memorial acquisition to honor the man who was so vigorously in favor of making it a state historic site, but even that bill had failed, stalled in the Budget Committee. Really now, Edith reassured herself, it was time to move on with her life.

“Of course, the whole subject of things I sold makes me rather ill,” wrote Edith forty years later, “but my hopes of a museum were shattered, and I needed the money…”

COLE'S PAINTINGS TO BE SOLD TODAY, blared The New York Times on September 26, 1964. “Auction Will Take Place in Artist's Home Upstate.”

By all accounts, the place was packed. The advance crew erected a large, striped, open-sided tent on the lawn, which by 10 am was overflowing with more than 700 hopefuls, including museum directors authorized to spend tens of thousands as well as curious neighbors out for a souvenir. Mr. O. Rundle Gilbert was in his element. A sturdy table was his stage, and the country auction was his art. His dark hair came to a point in the middle of his forehead, and his 3-piece suit gave him the necessary seriousness. A crew man held up A Woodland Scene.

“…and I’ll start the bidding at one hundred dollars, one hundred, one hundred, who will bid one hundred for a piece of history, an original oil on canvas, an American original by Thomas Cole himself, anyone, how about fifty dollars, fifty now, yes fifty now in the fourth row, thank you, now looking for seventy-five …”

Edith’s look was pure 1955, with her pleated skirt past the knee and her hair fresh out of hot rollers. She beamed at all of the attention her predecessor was getting at last. It had been so depressing getting nowhere with either the state or the feds. The star reporter Bill Kennedy was there from the Albany Times Union. The actress Helen Hayes was bidding with glee. Cameras flashed and money was promised. By noon, even the Ladies Auxiliary from St. Luke’s Church was flush with cash and completely sold out of hot dogs and pumpkin pie.

“…going…going…are you all done?” said the auctioneer, and by the late afternoon, everything was gone.