#2- I just finished writing a novel about his father

Originally published in Historic Nantucket Vol. 51, No. 1 (Winter 2002), p. 5-9
Stevenson's Pillow: A Sketch of Austin Strong
By Joseph Theroux

IN ABOUT 1906, SEVERAL RETIRED WHALEMEN shucked scallops in a shack on the Nantucket wharf. In stepped an off-islander, dressed to the nines in a blue blazer and gleaming white ducks, the very picture of a weekend yachtie. He listened to their discussion of various South Sea ports-of-call: "Rarotonga, the Bay of Islands, and Vavau," he heard, and he mentioned sailing into the bay at Apia, Samoa.
Canny old Captain George Grant, himself born in Samoa (his mother having sailed with his whaler father), challenged the newcomer's claim to being familiar with the area.
"Talofa, palagi!" he enunciated in Samoan over his basket of scallops. ("Greetings, white man!")
The yachtie never missed a beat: "O te Ositini o Vailima,'" he replied. ("I'm Austin of Vailima.") There was a pause. Then he asked, "O oe a aiga Atua?" ("Are you of the Atua family?" or — it's also a pun — "Are you related to God?")
Captain Grant chuckled his surprise and welcomed the man into their circle. He had passed the test.
He was Austin Strong, grandson of Fanny Stevenson, step-grandson of Robert Louis Stevenson. His father was the artist Joe Strong, whose Connecticut-born father had preached to heathens from Honolulu to Hyannis. His mother was Belle Strong, nee Osbourne. (She had named him Austin to honor an artistic friend, Mrs. Joseph Austin.) Born in San Francisco on April 18, 1881, his first memories were of Hawaii, where his bohemian parents had settled on Emma Street, near downtown Honolulu.
Later, he had shared the family's romantic life in Samoa at the novelist's last home, Vailima, near Apia. It was there that the childless Stevenson had once made a Thanksgiving toast upon the boy's arrival: "Vailima is blessed — there is a child in the house."
It was Austin Strong — also childless — who created a sailing school on Nantucket for his many nieces and nephews, as well as the Cheaper by the Dozen Gilbreth children. It was called the Rainbow Fleet and was established in one of those wharf shacks where he was first welcomed into Nantucket society. His niece, Helen Wilson Sherman, told me, "He was so spiritual, but he always had time for the children. He made me Commodore of the Rainbow Fleet. He stuck davits on the boathouse he built on the wharf and we learned to sail in a cat-boat he hung from the davits."
He wrote successful Broadway plays (The Drums of Oude, Seventh Heaven, among others) and follies for Nantucketers. He led the campaign against paving over the cobblestones on Main Street, and won. When automobiles began making an appearance, Strong and others feared for the safety of children on the narrow streets of the town. He was from a different era: he was more comfortable with horse-drawn carriages. They fought the introduction of cars, but failed in their efforts. How different the town — and the island — would be had he succeeded!
Once he stood before a grand carriage in fear for his life. As a child in Honolulu, he was walking near Kapiolani Park. In his hat he carried contraband — one of the king's goldfish. He had purloined it in a fishing expedition, defying the sign that banned the activity and promised punishment to "the full severity of the law." Seven-year-old Austin knew that the "full severity" meant death, yet he had caught the large goldfish anyway.
Imagine the boy's shock upon being confronted with the king's own carriage on the roadway. He saw the royal crest on the carriage door and heard the king's booming voice: "Austin!" (for the king knew his parents) "What are you doing so far from home?"
The boy blurted out his guilty secret, adding, "Oh, please don't cut off my head!"
King Kalakaua replied, "I have no intention of cutting off your head."
But the goldfish — really a carp — was revived with a calabash of water, and later a royal decree was delivered to the terrified boy at the Strong household. It gave Austin Strong permission "to fish in the Kapiolani Park for the rest of his days." It was signed with a flourish, Kalakaua Rex.
When the American man-o-war Adams visited Honolulu, the crew took a shine to the boy, who was entranced by ships. When a reception and dance were held on board, the invitation carried the note: "Please bring Austin." The crew had earlier taken his measurements. Now they presented him with two uniforms, one duck-white, one navy blue. As he was escorted onto the deck, "his big blue eyes shining," Belle recalled, "someone was overheard saying: "There goes the happiest little boy in Honolulu.'"
The next year his family joined the Stevensons in Samoa. The years in the South Seas were among the most idyllic for young Austin, as well as the most painful.
He attended a local missionary school and picked up the Samoan language quicker than anyone in the household. In the early years at Vailima, he was often the translator between his parents and the giant Samoan handymen around the house, who called him Ositini. RLS called him "the Overseer." He became a favorite of another servant, Arrick, a Solomon Island cannibal who built him a one-stringed harp.
RLS would also tutor him in his lessons. His mother noted that "the boy had the impression that world history consisted largely of Scottish victories." When Stevenson's elderly mother came to live with them, she taught Austin poetry. It was noted that he recited with a strong Scots brogue.
In this literary household everyone, not just RLS, was writing. Fanny was keeping a journal and writing an account of their voyage. Belle was called "the Amanuensis," RLS's secretary. Her brother Lloyd wrote poetry. Even so, everyone was surprised when one evening little Austin "announced that he would read us several chapters of a story he had written; as yet it has no tide," wrote Fanny proudly in her diary. "It was properly divided into chapters and paragraphs and the conversations were in inverted commas. He looked up before beginning and said, 'I think I must change one of my names, for Thompson and Simpson rhyme too much.' We were thunderstruck at this remark from a boy of ten." Belle recalled that Uncle Lloyd had recently refused to give Austin ten cents. For this, he became the villain of the story, Mr. Morgan. "Eying his uncle rather nervously, Austin read: 'Though very handsome, Mr. Morgan was a miser.'"
Fanny added that the story so far "was remarkably good." She overheard his prayers that night. When he was done he added: "And oh, Lord, I thank you that I have wrote — written — a book. Amen."
On May 11, 1892, a photographer came up from town to snap pictures of the family. Little Austin sat with Arrick and Belle, far from his father. For several years his parents had been bickering, but when Joe Strong was caught in a dalliance with a Samoan girl — followed by thefts and slanders against Belle — RLS banned him from the house. Belle and Joe were divorced in July 1892. Now without his father, Austin relied more fully on Lloyd and Stevenson, who was eventually made his guardian. Once, however, Austin met up with his father on Beach Road in Apia. Fanny wrote in her diary that he was "sent home with dashed spirits and damaged loyalty."
Joe Strong returned to San Francisco, where he remarried and continued painting until his death several years later, estranged from the Stevensons, as well as from Austin.
For amusements, the creative Stevenson invented games and played soldier with Austin, just as he had with Lloyd as a boy. (Together they had drawn a map that inspired Treasure Island). In their war games, Austin was christened General Hoskyns. When he was feeling playful in those happy days, Stevenson would address him by that name.
When it was time for Austin to continue his education in America, Stevenson jotted a poem which included the lines:
When far away pursuing your education
O don't forget your friend of'umble station.
He left in September 1892 and lived with his aunt, Nellie Sanchez, in Monterey, California. He was saddened to leave but looked forward to his letters from "Uncle Louis," addressed to "General Hoskyns." He loved visiting Golden Gate Park; the greenery reminding him of the islands. He was away for over a year, returning to Vailima on April 19,1894.
When the warship Curasao visited Samoa that month, Austin became a favorite of the crew and was feted aboard. He was fascinated with the ship and its fittings, continuing his lifelong love of ships. He loved sailing in Apia's bay.
In December, Uncle Louis was tutoring him in French. On the 4th, they practiced a dialogue to be delivered at Christmas. But that day Stevenson died. A Union Jack was draped over the coffin, as well as finely woven mats. One of these fine mats was given to young Austin, who cried his grief into it. He was also given a personal possession of Stevenson's, a delicately woven Marquesan pillow, which the novelist had received there in 1888 and had served him on his Casco voyage.
Austin attended Wellington College in New Zealand from 1895 to 1898, being a champion swimmer and debater. His class picture shows a dapper and confident seventeen-year-old, sporting a silk waistcoat, watch chain, and the trace of a moustache. He also showed an affinity for draftsmanship and later studied landscape architecture in New York. He was so proficient that in 1901 he won a contract to design Auckland's Cornwall Park. In the design, he recalled Golden Gate Park and incorporated many of its features, including bicycle paths, tennis courts, and children's play areas, while keeping Cornwall's natural contours and historic Maori earthworks.
He left New Zealand and met up with his Uncle Lloyd, who was publishing stories and beginning to write novels. They hit on an idea and cowrote a play called The Exile (Napoleon on St. Helena) which was produced in London in 1903.
The experience was so enjoyable that Strong decided at last that he knew what he wanted to do. Over the next thirty years he wrote or adapted some fifteen plays, on the average of one every other year, a remarkable output. One of his most successful plays was Seventh Heaven, which ran to over 700 performances. It was made into a movie with Janet Gaynor and Frederick March in 1927 and won the Photoplay medal, the precursor to the Oscar.
In 1905 he wrote The Drums of Oude, which was first produced in London the following year. It was staged in New York soon after, and during the production he met his future wife, Mary Wilson of Providence, Rhode Island. It was Mary who introduced him to the island of Nantucket, where they honeymooned.
The Strongs were soon spending every summer on Nantucket. Eventually they purchased a rundown house at 5 Quince Street, a few steps beyond the center of town. It was a 1731 dwelling, which they renovated; he converted the empty attic into his working study. Throughout his Nantucket summers he wrote there every morning. Mary's rosebushes soon clambered on the front trellis. In addition to his civic work, he wrote follies, which raised money for the Nantucket Yacht Club stage. In 1921 he took up the cause of supporting the Cottage Hospital, which was in need of cash and in search of a fund-raiser. Strong got out his sketchpad and pens and produced a charming decorative map of Nantucket Island, sales of which generated an income for the facility for years to come and is now a collector's item.
The social event of 1927 was the Nantucket Follies, which he and Robert Benchley — actor, writer, raconteur, wit — conceived as a fund-raiser for the Yacht Club. Benchley, the first of several Nantucket writers of that name (see: The Off-Islanders by Nathaniel, Jaws by Peter), had bought property in Siasconset. He, like Strong, also performed in the follies, which included sea dramas, dancing girls, sea chanteys, and skits.
He somehow found the time to pursue his many interests. An amateur craftsman, he had a small workshop in his attic where he built stage sets and performed puppet shows with his good friend, Tony Sarg. During World War II he organized Victory Gardens and helped enforce blackouts. He was always available to reporters and aspiring authors. He also had a hand in more than a few Hollywood films.
Strong's film writing went back to 1914 when he adapted Rostand's play A Good Little Devil, starring Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. In 1917 he adapted the play The Fall of the Romanoffs. He returned to film work in 1927 when he wrote the script for Seventh Heaven. In 1933 he was a "dialogue doctor" for Mary Pickford's Secrets and Katharine Hepburn's Little Women. Three years later he cowrote the comedy Along Came Love. The next year saw a new version of Seventh Heaven with James Stewart. In 1946 he adapted Three Wise Fools into a Lionel Barrymore picture. But he preferred writing for the stage and once told an interviewer that he believed "the public is becoming tired of seeing just shadows and they long for real life and actual personalities such as only can be found on the stage." He saw no irony in the statement: for him the stage was "real life."
In the last years of his life he took to recalling vividly his youth in Samoa. Finished with plays, he sketched out his experiences in the islands, like his encounter with King Kalakaua. He wrote "His Oceanic Majesty's Goldfish" for the Atlantic Monthly, and it was reprinted by Reader's Digest and other anthologies. He recalled how his grandmother Fanny had kept the tubercular Stevenson alive for so long and had been his devoted fellow adventurer. Strong chose her for his "most unforgettable character" in the March 1946 Reader's Digest. He saw the essays as part of a projected autobiography.
September always meant returning to New York and his apartment on Madison Avenue. But in 1952 he was enjoying his work on his memoirs, and he resisted leaving Nantucket.
On one September Sunday, he felt poorly and took to his bed. He was full of pains and aches. Well, he told himself, he was 71. But he felt no better on Monday, nor on Tuesday. He speculated on the irony that his mother Belle would turn 95 two days later.
Wednesday morning everyone knew something was wrong. He was taken to the Cottage Hospital, which had benefited from his many fund-raisers. But the little jaunt up the road and back weakened him. Soon after he was put to bed, he suffered a heart attack. He died that morning, September 17, 1952.
Much of Nantucket turned out for the funeral service at St. Paul's Church on Friday. He was buried in his wife's family plot in Rumford, Rhode Island.
The New York Herald noted: "Memories of him are scattered around the oceans...."
Strong's study in the attic of 5 Quince was stuffed with memorabilia from his travels, nautical artifacts, stage sets, an extensive library, as well as his cherished possessions associated with his legal guardian, Uncle Louis.
A sketch of Stevenson, the woven pillow from the Marquesas, the finely woven mat decorated with red feathers, all eventually found their way to the Nantucket Historical Association. A portion of his library — books, manuscripts, logbooks, letters — was donated to the archives.
His generosity made the islanders caretakers of the pillow that had cradled the head of the frail novelist and the fine mat that had been draped at his funeral with the Union Jack.
Like Strong himself, the objects had traveled the far oceans, coming ashore at Nantucket.

Joseph Theroux is the principal of Keaukaha Elementary School, Hilo, Hawaii, but also calls Apia, Samoa, and West Dennis, Mass., home. He previously contributed an article on William Gary to the fall 1999 issue of Historic Nantucket.