Up and up, he went, into the dark.
—CROCKETT JOHNSON, Harold’s Trip to the Sky (1957)
The news of Dave’s cancer threw Ruth into a state of collapse. For thirty-five years, he had been the one person on whom she had allowed herself to depend. Life without him was inconceivable.1
At the end of the first week of February, Dave checked in to Norwalk Hospital. He learned that although the doctors there could not do much for him, there was some chance that more skilled surgeons elsewhere might be able to remove the cancerous parts of his lungs. Buoyed by this possibility, he managed to keep a sense of humor. When neighbor Doris Lund saw him just after the diagnosis, she asked, “How are you doing, Dave?” He replied, “They’re all rushing around, looking for the fastest switchblade in the West.”2
Gene Searchinger arranged for Dave to be seen at New York’s Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Dave and Ruth traveled there at the beginning of the second week of February. So that she would not have to commute from Westport, she stayed with their old friends, Nina and Herman Schneider. In early March, Dave had an operation to remove part of his lungs, and by 17 March, Ruth reported that he was “rapidly improving,” “pacing around (when not asleep),” and doing “whatever one does in hospitals while waiting (to get out).” Encouraged by his progress, Ruth wrote, “we hope to be home soon.”3
The operation’s ameliorative effects were temporary, however. After Dave recovered sufficiently from the surgery, the doctors ran some more tests, which showed that the cancer had already spread. Further operations would be both dangerously invasive and unlikely to succeed. Out of options, Sloan-Kettering sent Dave back to Westport. At home, Dave received many visitors. Ruth’s cousin, Dick Hahn, and his wife, Betty, drove up from Baltimore every weekend. Frank O’Hara’s sister, Maureen; Jackie Curtis; Shelley Trubowitz; Doris and Shelley Orgel; Stefan and Marion Schnabel; and other friends visited him regularly. As the cancer made him cough and shortened his breath, Dave had to slow down. He knew what was happening, and when he felt frustrated, he would say, “Oh, balls!”4
Crockett Johnson, advertisement for the American Cancer Society, 1958. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Ruth Krauss, Stewart I. Edelstein, Executor. All Rights Reserved.
By June, Dave was no longer able to live at home and was back at Norwalk Hospital. He remained hopeful, trying to eat to keep up his strength. He showed Jackie Curtis and her daughter, Karen, his new theorem, “A Construction for a Regular Heptagon,” just published in the Mathematical Gazette, and received the news that his painting Heptagon from Its Seven Sides—the artistic realization of that theorem—would be exhibited in the Smithsonian Institution’s Hall of Mathematics. He wanted to pursue other theorems and had plans to build more furniture. His once large body was wasting away, but his mind remained alert and active. Nevertheless, it was a daily struggle. “Oh, balls!” Talking to Searchinger on the phone from his hospital bed, Dave said, “I want to get out of here, one way or another.”5
By early July, the end was near. One evening, Gil Rose and Andy Rooney came to visit. They found Dave scared, in pain, and slipping in and out of consciousness. To help Dave deal with his anxiety and fear, Rose asked, “Well, what would Harold do?” Dave grew interested in looking at his illness from Harold’s perspective, and as he thought about what Harold would do, he calmed down.6
On Thursday, 10 July, Dick and Betty Hahn arrived for the weekend a little earlier than usual. As they were leaving the hospital, Dave said, “Oh, balls!” Later that day, he fell into a coma. For most of the next day, the Hahns and Ruth stayed at Dave’s bedside. He was alive but unconscious. As evening approached, they left to get dinner and then returned to 24 Owenoke for the night. Exhausted, the three of them were lying on a bed and talking when the phone rang. Ruth was in no state to answer. Dick Hahn picked up the receiver. After a moment, he turned to Ruth and said, “Ruth, it’s over. And Dave is gone.” She began to sob softly. Dick and Betty tried to console her, talking with her until she fell asleep around midnight.7
In its obituary, the New York Times described him as a cartoonist and creator of Barnaby, mentioning his authorship of “more than a dozen children’s books, including Harold and the Purple Crayon and Harold’s Fairy Tale,” only in the penultimate paragraph. In addition to a photo of Johnson, the Times ran a drawing of Barnaby and Mr. O’Malley. The little boy and his fairy godfather would be Crockett Johnson’s artistic and intellectual legacy.8
Johnson’s ashes were scattered in Long Island Sound, laying him to rest in the waters through which he had so often sailed.9