Tuesday, September 25, 2018

RP: Super Obscure: Tennessee Williams's Family FIRST Settled in Arthur, North Carolina!!! / In Memoriam: Williams-Friend (and mine) -- and "Mr. Key West", David Wolkowsky, 1919 - 9/23/2018:

RE-PRINTED from herehttp://theweathercontinues.blogspot.com/2018/09/super-obscure-tennessee-williamss.html



David Wolkowsky arriving, in the 1980s when I knew him, at his Southernmost Home in the USA on Ballast Key. The Monroe County, Florida Commission recently voted to rename it "David Wolkowsky Key" after his death.


I only learned of David's death, because I had a lot of hits to this posting about him in the last 24 hours: http://theweathercontinues.blogspot.com/2015/12/from-david-wolkowsky-of-key-west-once.html, and wondering how he was doing, googled him and found his obituary:





I'm overwhelmed by the news of David's death -- you see, of all the GREAT reviews my Tennessee Williams memoir got, although my FAVE TWO of Writers/Williams Scholars were from Kenneth Holditch and John Lahr (see: http://laterdaysoftennesseewilliams.blogspot.com/2013/10/professional-reviews-of-my-memoir-of.html), my ACTUAL FAVORITE was from David Wolkowskyafter Michael Moye -- ex-boyfriend of "Texas Kate" (Schweppe) Sharp, Moldawer, and later McNamara -- sent David two chapters of my book:



Michael Moye was considerably younger than Texas Kate -- the above of him then, and below, now:




From email with Michael Moye (then living in East Africa), on December 20, 2015: 



  • Today
  • Michael Moye
    9:07am
    Michael Moye
    I'd love to Skype with you, Scott. Let's aim for doing that once I go to Vilanculos for the holidays (4 hrs north of where I live). Reason being is my internet signal is too weak to support Skype ... I'll be up there a week or ten days so I will send you a Skype request. I've read all of the book - I sent two chapters to David Wolkowsky who wrote me back "He captured all of it, the whole shooting match, Scott nailed it." ---

    One thing that happened around '82 - I was driving Tom (Tennessee Williams) to the airport and we stopped off at Claire to have lunch before his flight. He pulled out a faded, typewritten paper and read from a portion of it ..."our family came from Arthur, North Carolina ... this was before we moved to Mississippi." Words to that effect. I looked at him, stunned. My great grandmother was Clara Jane Williams from Arthur and until about 20 years ago we owned the Williams farm. There was only one Williams family in Arthur and I came from it and when I asked Tom if it was possible that he, too, came from it he looked embarrassed, folded the paper and indicated that the subject was closed.

    • Michael Moye
      9:07am
      Michael Moye
      Meant to add that I am leaving on Tuesday for Vilanculos....

      The book is so fucking good and I wish it was 10 x as long ...

      There are several Scott Kenan's on Skype, but none from Wilmington NC. Try adding me using "m-f'er moye" -



Spending a lot of time with Tennessee Williams, Texas Kate, and Michael Moye in Houston, Boerne, and San Antonio, Texas in 1982: http://laterdaysoftennesseewilliams.blogspot.com/2013/10/chapter-22-in-pursuit-of-youth.html.

David Wolkowsky gets a couple of bare mentions in my memoir -- and his iconic Pier House Hotel -- and his The Sands beach club. I actually knew David before I met Tennessee, because I had moved to the keys to manage Gail Brochway's Tux: Deli, Bar, Bakery restaurant, which was in David's old Kress Building with his penthouse atop it. Then, we split the ground floor with Fast Buck Freddie's, but now the space is the FLAGSHIP Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville!!!



Gail Brockway today!!!



Gail's current restaurant: http://oldtownmexicancafe.com/


And it is also interesting that David Wolkowsky was close friends with many Rockefellers -- Tennessee Williams got his ONLY major grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Yet it was Mary Lily Kenan who encouraged Henry Flagler to complete his lifelong DREAM, the Overseas Railroad to Key West.

As is well known to scholars, Rockefeller (who actually worked for Flagler who controlled more Standard Oil stock)BOYCOTTED Flagler's marriage to Mary Lily at Liberty Hall in Kenansville, NC, https://libertyhallnc.org/, calling her a WHORE because he knew Mary Lily had then-incurable Syphilis!!! 




But you see, Texas Kate was ALSO super close to David Wolkowsky, and Kate grew up best friends with the families of Frank Hawkins Kenan and James Graham Kenan when they both lived in Atlanta -- where she learned to act like "the wealthiest woman on Earth" -- the description of the character Babe Foxworth in Tennessee's last play, In Masks Outrageous and Austere:





And it is ALSO TRUE that just like Jackie Kennedy Onassis warned Tennessee at Jean Babette Stein and George Plimpton's party on January 11, 1982, that the Episcopal Church and Sewanee/The University of the South, with the Republican Party and elements in the FBI and CIA would MURDER Tennessee -- and then steal his estate from Harvard University -- which they did. 


All of that is documented extensively in this blog.



Tennessee Williams, Texas Kate, and Rose Williams in 1979




And Frank H. Kenan -- and perhaps his brother, "Uncle Jimmy", too -- were also implicated in instructing/encouraging Sewanee to pull off the murder of Tennessee, because the Kenans, being White Supremacists, ALL EVEN NOW still love the Episcopal Church's symbol of God's Power on Earth kept at Sewanee:



The Confederate Mace



Frank Hawkins Kenan with James Graham Kenan ran the Kenan Companies and Charities the second half of the Twentieth Century.


More recently, their heirs put Donald Trump into power to DESTROY DEMOCRACY. -- in the name of Christian Klan Robes and Swastikas.


But one final note: David Wolkowsky was the LARGEST collector of Tennessee Williams's paintings, and here is Tenn's portrait of David:
 





And as Astute Readers noticed, it was in Michael Moye's email to me above, that I saw that Tennessee's Williams-side first settled on the Williams Farm (and Michael Moye is ALSO descended from those Williamses)!!! 



A History of Bell Arthur, North Carolina

Author(s): Kammerer, Roger

Abstract: Originally known as “Arthur,” it developed after 1907, when the Norfolk and Southern Railroad built a line through the area. It began when two Greenville businessmen, L. C. Arthur and C. T. Munford, bought what was known as the “Becton Farm,” and began subdividing the land and selling lots. The town was incorporated as “Arthur” in 1911. 

The town gained notoriety in 1916 as the home of “Gar Gar” Edwards, the cigar smoking three year old

On April 16, 1932, the entire business district burned down. In 1933, the town of Arthur was incorporated as “Bell-Arthur.” In 1966, the town lost its charter.

Source: Greenville Times / Pitt's Past (NC Microforms), Vol. Issue , Jul 16-29 1997, p10  (PERIODICAL WEBSITE) 
Subject(s): Pitt Count--History--Towns--Bell Arthur
Record #: 23004




And NOW, in the way Tennessee suggests, I shall have a WAKE tonight for David Wolkowsky:












What we must ALL DO to the God-Hating Donald Trump and his Christian/NAZI Republicansno???





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