Lent Day 11: "Peanuts", Parents and Privateness

Dena Bertina Halverson Schulz died on this day in 1943.

I've never met anyone who knew her personally but in an indirect way she touched the lives of millions of people around the world.  She was the mother of Charles Schulz, one of my all-time favorite creators because his Peanuts comic strips and cartoons.

I've loved Peanuts for as long as I can remember, and like most serialized art forms I can't pinpoint the exact time when I started reading the new stuff vs. going back and reading anthologies... but I'm pretty sure I recall reading about Snoopy's moon mission references in the newspaper strips themselves.  One of my prized childhood possessions is the book Peanuts Classics, not just because I've reread it dozens of times but because it used to belong to my Aunt Carol Ann.  She used to work in the city (New York) and visit us on Long Island frequently on the weekends.  And because I loved the book so much she just gave it to me one day.  I even brought the book with me to San Francisco two summers ago for her memorial service as part of my remembrance of her.  My own children now enjoy the book as well.

I think the classic appeal of Peanuts is rooted deeply in its characters, reflecting universal truths cloaked in cute little kids.  Despite that surface attraction, even as a kid I sensed something deeper about these paneled strips.  There's an aura of longing and alienation in most if not all of the characters and the humor comes not from a bombastic event, but rather in the nuances of the characters' reactions.  All kids feel alien or alienated in one way or another, and Peanuts resonates true to them and the insecure kids in all of us.  Or at least that my nickel's worth of pop psychology analysis.

From where did this creativity about alienation come?  Like many of my favorite artists, it comes from an unresolved relationship with a parent.  One example includes all of the Marx Brothers (especially Groucho) -- who were the product of a strong-willed stage mother, so much so that the vaudevillians were known informally as "Minnie's Boys."  Groucho (Julius) continued to crack wise on and off the screen and married many times, Chico was a gambling addict and chronically in debt, and Harpo (Arthur) was the only one of the successful performing brothers who achieved a harmonious family life and financial stability.  I've read many biographies of Groucho (and the whole family), but the one that clicked most for me was from the angle that Julius could never find a woman to match the intense relationship with Minnie, and that his identity of Groucho was the manifestation of that failed search.

So when I picked up Schulz and Peanuts - A Biography by David Michaelis in a clearance bin just before Lent I was stunned when I read the first line:

We'll probably never see each other again.

-- Dena Halverson Schulz

She said that to Sparky (Charles' nickname) on Sunday, 28 Feb 1943, dying from ovarian cancer as he headed back to the army barracks.  She had been dying for years, but was very private about her condition even to Sparky.  The next day she fell even weaker, and by the time his father Carl had brought back Sparky from the base, Dena had died and the funeral parlor had already taken the body.

I'm still reading the book so I still haven't reached the beginning of the Peanuts strip but have seen the artistic and creative foundation being laid.  But what is clear is that Sparky was on the path of alienation and remoteness because of his intense and detached relationship with his mother, and that she never got to see his success, for him, never receiving her approval.  For over 100 pages Michaelis describes Sparky's childhood through post-high school (and being drafted), and for nearly half that time Sparky was kept in the dark about Dena's condition.  Even though he didn't have a name for it, he sensed something was wrong, and that she wasn't well.

But no one in the family ever talked about it.  And after she died, Sparky went right back to the barracks where grieving was not an option (else be labeled a "momma's boy") ... and he was definitely already a loner.  The emotional isolation, contrasted by the physical and mental rigors of army life, was just crushing.

As much I started this Lenten journal with entries about a visitation, a funeral and a discussion about dying and death, this biography was already bubbling in my conscience.




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