Howard Pyle: Back to Wilmington

"A Wounded Enemy" by Howard Pyle

"In Wilmington things were very little changed for Howard Pyle. He lived with his family with his studio on the top floor of the house. Here he could work drawing whatever pictures Harper's requested of him. For models he used his mother, his brothers, or any obliging friend of the family. In addition to this work, he spent many hours over the composition of that children's book which was to start him on a career of writing.

This time the chief subject in his head was history, and how to adapt it to popular pictures and stories. He read voluminously whatever had been written on American history. He talked with all the old people who could tell him stories that they had heard from their fathers and mothers concerning the Revolutionary War and the colonial days. All of this he absorbed eagerly and remembered with remarkable tenacity. It was definite and rigorous research. No detail was missed, and all of it was of such a nature that he could use it in his future work. Years later he could tell precisely how many buttons a colonel in a Massachusetts regiment had on his coat,  or he could give the exact color of the hat worn by General Wolfe. He knew in what battles each regiment had been engaged. A great enthusiasm carried him through this continual prying into musty volumes, and it was an enthusiasm that never dwindled.

Since he was perfectly capable of both writing and illustrating, publishers would occasionally send him to some locality, which in their opinion was so little known that it might provide enough material of an interesting nature to warrant an article. Several times he was sent off into the remote districts of Pennsylvania or New Jersey in quest of such journalistic fodder, and he seldom failed to make a good thing of it.

In the meantime he was thoroughly enjoying his life in Wilmington, and had the opportunity of doing a number of things for which there had never been time in New York. Perhaps best of all was the reentry into community life, the simple pleasures of lawn tennis and whist parties, and he also found opportunities to sing. Howard Pyle had a rich tenor voice and a considerable facility. This made him very popular in musical circles. Little did he know that because of his voice, he would soon meet his future wife."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Howard Pyle, A Chronicle" by Charles D. Abbott.)