Kathleen Rockwell

Studio portrait of Kathleen Rockwell

Kathleen Eloise Rockwell (1873–1957), best known as "Klondike Kate", and later known as Kate Rockwell Warner Matson Van Duren, gained her fame as a dancer and vaudeville star during the Klondike Gold Rush, where she met Alexander Pantages who later became a very successful vaudeville/motion picture mogul. She gained notoriety for her flirtatious dancing and ability to keep hard-working miners happy if not inebriated. She died in obscurity after some minor success training Hollywood starlets in the 1940s.

Biography

Rockwell was born in Kansas and lived in North Dakota for a while but grew up in Spokane, Washington. Her stepfather had stature in the community and the family lived in a large mansion. But economic failure created tension in the family, and this lack of home stability echoed throughout Rockwell's sometimes stormy life. She was known as an independent spirit, or "tomboy" as a youngster, often impersonating boys and playing with them rather than with members of her own gender. She seemed a happy child, although felt all too intensely the lack of social mobility for women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Her parents sent the rebellious teenager to boarding school, but Rockwell was expelled. She had little interest for education and spent more time thinking of ways to flout the rules.

In the 1890s, after divorcing the stepfather, Rockwell's mother moved with her to New York. The younger Rockwell here had an unsuccessful attempt at show-biz. She left for greener pastures and arrived in Alaska in 1899. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police held a tight leash on prospective miners and various hangers-on trying to get to the Yukon and find fortunes in gold. Refused entry by a Mountie, she is reputed to have donned a boy's outfit and jumped on a boat headed for the Yukon.

First working as a tap-dancer in Whitehorse, Rockwell found her stride in Dawson City as a member of the Savoy Theatrical Company. Her act was very popular with the miners, and she was dubbed "Klondike Kate" as a result. It was in Dawson that she met Alexander Pantages, at that time a struggling waiter and bartender who eventually rose to become theatre owner.

The intense love affair between Pantages and Rockwell became the stuff of legend in the Yukon, although streaks of jealousy ensured that they found more stability in their professional lives than in their personal ones. They were not above swindling unsuspecting miners, and this dubious quality eventually infected their own relationship. She later accused him of reneging on a promise to marry her as well as attempting to cheat her of her money.

In 1902, the Klondike Gold Rush was already dying out and Rockwell headed south, first to British Columbia where she set up a store-front movie theater, and eventually to Oregon, where she seems to have played the part of a recluse and social outcast.

She never achieved any of the fame she briefly held in Alaska, although she made full use of the memories. "Sourdough" reunions in the 1930s provided a measure of uptick in her fame, as did training young Hollywood starlets in the 1940s. She lived in Oregon for the last 45 years of her life, first in the Bend area, then near Salem, and finally in Linn County.^[1]

She was briefly married to a cowboy name Floyd Warner.^[2] Later she married a miner named John Matson.^[1] Her husband at the time of her death was William L. Van Duren.^[1] Rockwell died on February 21, 1957 in Sweet Home, Oregon.^[1] Her ashes were later scattered in Central Oregon.^{[citation needed]}

Cultural influence

Ernie Pyle has a chapter about Klondike Kate (who he calls Kate Rothrock) in his book Home Country

Carl Barks' Disney character Glittering Goldie was inspired by Kathleen Rockwell.^{[citation needed]}

References

Further reading

• Lucia, Ellis. Klondike Kate: The Life and Legand of Kitty Rockwell, The Queen of the Yukon

External links

• "Klondike Kate: 'Our Destitute Prostitute' or 'Aunt Kate'" from The Source Weekly, July 21, 2010
• "Klondike Kate's Last Request to Be Granted", from the Register-Guard, July 16, 1958
• "Klondike Kate's Ashes Claimed", from the Register-Guard, July 29, 1958
• The Two Klondike Kates
• Kathleen Rockwell at Find a Grave