Walt Whitman in Canada: The Sexual Trinity of Horace Traubel and Frank and Mildred Bain

Abstract

Introduction: City and Country ShrinesTwenT y-fiv e Mil es easT of kingston, ontario, small sits on the Canadian side of the St. lawrence river within view of Wellesley State Park on the american side (figure 1). Called Stanley since at least 1901, it is part of the thousand islands, region that has been popular with Canadian and american tourists since the 1870s. dur- ing the summer of 1880 Walt Whitman visited the thousand islands with his friend, dr. r ichard maurice bucke, the Superintendent of the london (ontario) insane asylum. Whitman and bucke would have come close to Stanley since, according to Whitman's diar y and bucke's letters, they stayed twenty-five miles east of kingston at the hub house hotel on a little mote of an island on the american side within view of Wellesley State Park.1In 1938 Whitman's connection to the thousand islands-however fleeting-encouraged ardent Canadian Whitmanites, francis (frank) Wayland bain (1875-1959), banker, and his wife mildred louise Jackson bain (1876-1962) to purchase Stanley island. the bains had read Whitman's Canadian diar y soon after it was published in 1904.2 few years later they had made pilgrimages to Whitman's family home at West hills, long island, and to the house in Camden, new Jersey, where Whitman resided from 1884 to 1892. in keeping with Whitman's scorn for elaborate dwellings, the bains provided Stanley with small cedar cottage and sleeping cabin, neither of which they equipped with plumbing or electricity.3 Within the cottage they set up library of Whitman's writings and those of many of the social and political activists who believed Whitman supported their causes. these causes included democracy, socialism, communism, anarchism, pacifism, mysticism, human rights, the labor movement, universal brotherhood, free love, birth control, women's suffrage, liberal attitudes toward ho- mosexuality, gentle forms of child-rearing, and non-traditional forms of spirituality, although, as so many scholars have pointed out, Whitman openly supported only some of them. above the bookshelves the bains placed photographs of Whitman and his most passionate disciple horace traubel. rounding out this installation, which is still intact, the bains mounted photographs of themselves with traubel (figure 2), with whom they were intimate friends from approximately 1908, photographs of other Whitmanites, and an image of the famous funerary sculpture of Queen nefertiti. the latter acted as reference to Whitman's interest in egyptian constructions of immortality and to his belief in unity of time and space.4Just outside the door of the Stanley cottage, the lilac bushes had direct connection to Whitman. in honor of Whitman and one of his most beloved poems, When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, his followers wore lilacs on their lapels at memorial meetings held on may 31st, the anniversary of Whitman's birth.5 it was after the 1911 meeting in new york that the bains visited W hitman's long home along with two of their Canadian Whitmanite friends, henry and Georgina Saunders.6 the Saunders took some lilac shoots from the site and planted them at their toronto home. W hen the bains purchased house in toronto in 1934, the Saunders gave them some of the Whit- man lilacs for their new dooryard. in 1939 the bains replanted some of them in the dooryard at Stanley island.7At the end of each summer on Stanley island, mildred and frank would return to their toronto home (now demolished). designed and furnished in rustic style, images of it evoke Whitman's adulation of common laborers and traubel's support for the arts and Crafts move- ment.8 this house once contained the same type of reading material as the cottage as well as many works of art that traubel gave the bains, including photograph of traubel by Clarence hudson White commissioned by William f. Gable; oil and pastel landscapes, cityscapes, and portraits of traubel by arthur Goodwin; pastel of traubel by an unknown artist; and dozens of Japanese prints. …