Lunch Money
11/25/2003
CONNECTIONS
I spent three years as the Maintenance Mechanic on East Anacapa Island, Channel Islands National Park. While there, I did some reading as to the history of the Island. I am also an avid sailor and had the good fortune to become friends with another avid sailor named Larry Dudley. In the 1940’s Larry was first mate on the vessel "Santana" owned by Humphry Bogart. From my reading and conversations with Larry I pieced together this interesting group of connections:There is a late 19th century government etching of the east end of Anacapa Island, now part of Channel Islands National Park, which depicts the arch rock located at the east end of the Island with a few sea gulls flying above the arch. The drawing was part of a set of navigational charts produced by the government for mariners. The artist who made that drawing was James Whistler, of Whistlers’ Mothers fame, who was later fired from his government job at the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, for including the sea gulls in that etching, a no no for government drawings, and various other non-permitted inclusions in his drawings. A report on his job performance stated "he is often tardy or absent and has a tendency to doodle on government charts." The Anacapa drawings were later used as the basis for locating what eventually became the Anacapa Lighthouse. Built between 1928 and 1932 it was one of the last major remote lighthouse stations to be built in the U.S.
Whistler moved to Europe and pursued his career as an Artist where he would occasionally take on paying students in order to generate some income. One of those students was a young lady from New York who wanted to improve her skills as an illustrator for the children’s books she was writing. While studying in Europe she met a young American man who quickly displaced her interest in art for romantic interest in him. A marriage soon followed and the couple returned to New York, Maud Bogart nee:Humphry continuing with writing children’s books, De Forest Bogart pursuing a career as a surgeon. The child of that union we all know today as Humphry Bogart born in 1899.
The adult Bogart was an avid sailor and owned a beautiful ocean racer named "Santana"(also the name of the boat in "Key Largo"). He would often sail in the "Channel Islands Race" which ran from Long Beach Harbor, around the Channel Islands, back to Long Beach. The navigational aid used by all participants in the race to locate the Channel Islands was of course Anacapa Lighthouse, placed there from drawings made by Whistler, who had been his mothers illustration instructor.
Small world.
