The Source of Darger’s Most Important Character

When Darger became friends with William Schloeder, whom Darger called “Whillie” throughout his autobiography, he met and began to interact with Whillie’s entire family, and he would eventually become an accepted part of the family, often visiting the Schloeder home. It was only a block and a half away from where Darger was then living—at the Workingmen’s House, a dormitory-like situation for employees of St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Whillie’s parents must have given Darger a good sense of what he had missed out on throughout his early life. Whillie had grown up in a two-parent home. Michael and Susanna Schloeder, Whillie’s parents, were married on August 12, 1872. Like Henry’s father, Michael was born in Germany (on February 24, 1837), the son of Mathiae and Catharina Schloeder. He had moved to Chicago almost directly from Germany in 1864, the year before the U.S. Civil War ended. Susanna, often called Susie, was born January 2, 1846 in Luxembourg, the daughter of Nicholas and Elizabeth Braun, and immigrated in 1871—the year of the Great Chicago Fire and close to the time that Henry’s father had arrived from Germany.

Darger met Whillie only a short time before Michael Schloeder, who had been ill for two and a half months, died of chronic bronchitis on December 14, 1911. The 1900 Federal Census reveals that he and Susanna had had seven children, but listed only six. And in 1911, only five were still living: Elizabeth, aged thirty-six; William (called “Bill” by the family, but “Whillie” by Darger), aged thirty; Henry, aged twenty-eight; Susan, aged twenty-three; and Katherine (or “Catherine”), the baby, aged twenty-one. Another daughter, Lucy, was born in 1875, but died between the 1900 and the 1910 censuses. The whereabouts of the seventh child was never disclosed.

As it turns out, Darger named one of his most important characters after Whillie’s older sister. She plays an important role in both his first novel (In the Realms of the Unreal….) and an even more important one in his second (Further Adventures in Chicago: Crazy House). In Crazy House, she is an obvious stand-in for Darger. Many of her experiences in the novel are actually what he experienced during his childhood on the streets of Chicago’s notorious vice district, West Madison Street, now the very gentrified Near West Side. But why would he incorporate Whillie’s sister, someone he’d never met, into his first two novels and give her such an important role in Crazy House?

For the answer to this and other mysteries surrounding the life of outsider artist Henry Darger, be on the lookout for Throw-Away Boy: A Life of Henry Darger…

A Classic of Gay Fiction Close to Darger's Heart

Henry Darger was a reader.

His father taught him how to read newspapers before he ever attended school. He loved books and read them voraciously, and in fact, he had a large library that ranged in subject from the popular (The Dion Quintuplets “Going on Three” and The Great Chicago Fire) to the esoteric (Sources of Volcanic Energy and Catechism of Christian Doctrine). He owned a nearly complete run of every Oz book that L. Frank Baum wrote, having thirteen of the fourteen.

But one of the most peculiar volumes in his library was a classic of gay literature, Condemned to Devil’s Island. Written by Blair Niles and published in 1928, it’s supposedly a fictionalized account of the life of a very handsome young Frenchman who’s imprisoned there because he was a thief. She claimed to have visited the island and interviewed him thoroughly, and the book’s subtitle, The Biography of an Unknown Convict, suggests just that. But it reads more like fiction than nonfiction.

Sent to the jungle penal colony at Devil’s Island, just off the shore of French Guiana, Niles’ “unknown convict,” Michel Oban, recalls early in the book that he had no family. His mother had disappeared when he was very young and he rarely saw his father—exactly what Darger could have said about his own parents. Darger’s mother died when he was four, and his father was rarely at home, leaving him to roam Chicago’s notorious West Madison Street vice district at will. Many pages later, Oban discovers, “There are only three sorts of men in prison … the men who keep brats, those who become brats, and those who learn how to relieve themselves.” (page 133) Brat was a term at the time for a young man who exchanged his sexual favors for money, protection, and/or affection.

This hardback was among the nine novels by Dickens and A Shirley Temple Story Book that Darger saved, but why did he save it? We save what is important to us, but why was this book important to him?

For the answer to this and other mysteries surrounding the life of outsider artist Henry Darger, be on the lookout for Throw-Away Boy: A Life of Henry Darger…

Henry Darger, Doughboy

On April 6, 1917, the U.S. decided to join with various European countries to fight German aggression in what is now called World War I. Although willing to fight, the U.S. wasn’t prepared to. It needed to bolster its number of troops, and so it instituted conscription, what we now often refer to as the “draft.” Like most American men of the time, Darger followed the law and registered for the draft on June 2, and three and a half months later, on September 20, he was drafted.

He was sent to Camp Grant in nearby Rockford, IL first and was later herded onto a train bound for Camp Logan (now Memorial Park) in Houston, TX. 

But Darger didn’t like being an infantryman. In his autobiography written over half a century later, he complained about how the many vaccinations he had to take as a new recruit left his arm sore. He implied that he didn’t like the food (although he loved the snacks he could buy at the canteen). Most important of all, he grumbled about how he hated leaving what he loved most behind in Chicago.

Always a creative problem solver, Darger figured out a way of getting out of the army. He began to carp about his eyesight when he arrived at Camp Logan. Doctors there put him though a very thorough eye examination that lasted for several days. As it turned out, Darger flunked the tests—on purpose. He claimed not to be able to see things when he could, or he exaggerated his genuinely weak eyesight, making it appear worse than it was.

Within a little over three months of his induction, Darger was honorably discharged from the army, put onto the Katy Flier, one of the fastest trains of its day, and sent home to Chicago. He returned to work at St. Joseph’s Hospital immediately.

But what was it that he loved and missed so much that he deceived the military—and risked imprisonment if his deception were discovered—to return to it?

For the answer to this and other mysteries surrounding the life of outsider artist Henry Darger, be on the lookout for Throw-Away Boy: A Life of Henry Darger…

The Mystery of Darger's Multiple Birth Certificates

Henry Darger’s birth date is a puzzle.

When Henry’s parents met, his mother’s name was Mrs. Rosa Ronalds. She’d been married before—twice. First to a man named Fullman, later to one called Ronalds. Henry’s father’s name was also Henry Darger, and like his wife, he too had been married before—to Elizabeth, an immigrant from England, who died on September 14, 1883. Henry was an immigrant from Germany, and Rosa was native born, from Wisconsin. Rosa and Henry were married on August 18, 1890, and according to their marriage license, he was forty-nine when he was joined in holy matrimony with twenty-nine-year-old Rosa. It was a no-frills affair. John Murphy, a Chicago justice of the peace, married them, and his clerk, Henry Wulff, served as their witness.

Several years later, their son was born, but when? The date that Henry believed to be his birth doesn’t jibe with either of the two birth certificates on file for him. And, complicating matters, the birth certificates contradict one another!

Henry opens his unpublished autobiography, The History of My Life, by writing, “In the month of April, on the 12 in the year of 1892, of what week day I never knew, as I was never told, nor did I seek the information.” Written when he was sixty-eight and in ill health, he forgot to mention what the date refers to: his birthday. It’s this date that is typically used as his birth date.

But his birth certificates offer alternatives.

In the earlier of the two, Henry is not “Henry” at all, but “Arthar.” He was born on May 23, 1893—a year and twelve days later than Henry reports in his autobiography. He was born at home, at 2707 Portland Avenue on Chicago’s Near South Side. His father, Henry Darger, was fifty-two years old, a tailor, and a German immigrant, and his mother, Rosa Darger (née Burkeman) was thirty-two. “Arthar” was his mother’s third child. The form is dated June 2, 1893.

In the other one, dated a year and eight days later, Henry is “Henry” again. He’s still his mother’s third child, and she is called Rosie—not Rosa, though close enough—but his place of birth has changed to the Cook County Infirmary, where the most destitute of Chicago’s poor sought medical help. His father’s name remains “Henry,” but he’s not a German immigrant anymore, having now been born in the “UStates.” His occupation is “unknown.” Henry’s birth date—his third—is listed as May 28, 1894.

Which should we believe? And why are there two birth certificates, which contradict one another?

For the answers to these and other mysteries surrounding the life of outsider artist Henry Darger, be on the lookout forThrow-Away Boy: A Life of Henry Darger…

Welcome to my blog...

Since I attended an exhibit of his paintings at the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan in the spring of 2002, I've been writing a biography of outsider artist/novelist Henry Darger. During the next year, I intend to add a post monthly. Each will pinpoint a mystery from the life of Darger, something that I've discovered while doing research on him and that is unknown—or virtually unknown—to anyone else. Feel free to leave comments. Enjoy. And tell your friends...