Hardie’s last two trips to Europe

After a trip to France, England and Ireland in 1976 with my mother, Hardie typed up a journal he'd kept during the trip. I would like to share the following excerpt about an Irish railroad station. I’m sure it will give the reader an idea of my father's enthusiasm, energy, zest for living, kindness and ability to see the humor in everyday situations:

"Families with hardly less than a dozen children each plus baby carriages, dogs and refreshments popped in and out of railway carriage doors until it seemed that poor train could hold no more. [Hardie always personified inanimate objects, from his beloved tractor in Connecticut to the characters in his books to this 'poor train'!] We even had to get into the act. With my Breton cap on I must have had an official look, because a slightly inebriated gentleman asked me, 'Is this the night train?' I assumed so, it being already seven o'clock. I assured him it was. Then my conscience got the better of me. On inquiry I found it was the train to Limerick, so Dops and I rushed up and down the platform looking in windows until we spotted the old gentleman. I rushed in to him. 'I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've made a mistake and given you the wrong information.' Three men nearby quickly intervened. 'It's all right, sir. We've checked his destination. He is on the right train to be sure.' ... And [then there was] the disgusted look I got from another man when I told him I didn't know where the 'fir' was. 'Fir' (pronounced fire) is the Irish name for the men's room. After that I took off my Breton cap."

The following year, my parents would take their nine-year-old grandson, Andrew, to the coast of Normandy, England and Scotland, where the idea for Hardie's last book, Little Toot and the Loch Ness Monster, would be born. The watercolor of Loch Ness that my father painted when he came home received the American Watercolor Society's High Winds Medal just two days before his death in 1979. And posthumously, his Loch Ness book was published in 1989 and a couple of years later it was made into an animated feature for actress Shelley Duvall’s “Bedtime Stories” series on Showtime, for which it received an Emmy nomination.

The last few years of Hardie's life were full and fulfilling. He continued winning prizes in juried shows and writing children's books and reading omnivorously. His journals are full of thoughts on life, art, writing, things he'd seen or read. In fact, a few days before he died, my mother had just finished reading the last volume of Henry James' autobiography to Hardie, and they had started Eugenie Grandet by Balzac. His mind never stopped being full of wonder.

My mother lived for another 22 years without Hardie, moving in with us in Westport in 1998 and dying at age 92 in May 2001. She won awards for her paintings and kept the spirit of Hardie alive by finishing some of his drawings and adding two of her own illustrations so that Little Toot and the Loch Ness Monster could be published. The biggest miracle was that this intelligent but shy woman found the courage to travel around the country with me, giving talks to schools and libraries on “the creativity of Hardie Gramatky” and passing along his philosophy that there is so much creativity in every child. His favorite question when he was giving a chalk talk would be to ask a child, “What are you going to put in your painting?” He never came across as an expert but as a fellow artist.

And new honors continue to come to Hardie Gramatky, even 27 years after his death. In American Artist’s Fall 2006 issue of Watercolor magazine, Andrew Wyeth picked the 20 Great American Watercolorists (which was like Mick Jagger choosing the 20 greatest rock bands, our son mused). Along with Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, Georgia O’Keeffe and Childe Hassam is Hardie Gramatky! Wouldn’t he be proud? Yes, they did spell his name as “Hardy Gramatky”, but my father wouldn’t have minded.

There are a hundred more stories, a million more things I would like to share with you all, but they will have to wait until another time. Did I tell you how my father often would instinctively add a touch of red in his paintings, something that enlivened the greens in a landscape? Or did I mention how he had a running joke with the children at his chalk talks, asking them to remind him if he forgot to add the pink cheeks to one of his characters? Or how he was so approachable that the children in his neighborhood never were hesitant to show him their artwork? Those stories will have to wait.

- Linda Gramatky Smith