From Hero to Humbug

After his conviction for using the US Mails to defraud in 1923, Dr. Cook spent 16 months in the Tarrant County Jail in Fort Worth, TX pending his appeal. There he came in contact with John Western, an Australian who was being confined there by immigration authorities until he could be deported. It so happened that Western was an expert in fancy needlework, and Cook asked him to teach him how to do embroidery.

When his ex-wife visited him, as she did almost daily, Cook asked for her to bring him multi-colored thread. Cook turned out many pieces of embroidery during his confinement to pass the time, mostly tablecloths and table runners. And he continued his embroidery work after he arrived at Leavenworth penitentiary to start serving his 14-year sentence.

A few of his works of embroidery were among objects donated by his granddaughter’s will to the Sullivan County Historical Society in Hurleyville, NY., which maintains a room devoted to Dr. Cook. They can be seen in the following snapshots:

Cook signed his pieces with a small “FAC” monogram, seen here at the bottom of the central panel.

Generally, Cook did not accept visitors while in prison, but on January 20, 1926, he made an exception when Roald Amundsen, who was on a fundraising trip for his coming attempt to fly across the entire polar basin in a dirigible, stopped off to see him. Amundsen had known Cook from when they were both members of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899, when Amundsen had been Second Mate and Cook the expedition’s surgeon. As a result of those common experiences, Amundsen felt he owed his life to Cook and felt a moral obligation to visit him while in the Midwest.

After their 45 minute reunion, Amundsen was quoted as saying, “I have read Dr. Cook’s story and I have read Peary’s. In Peary’s story I have not found anything of consequence not covered already by Dr. Cook.” This was widely interpreted as his saying Peary had no more proof that he reached the North Pole than Cook did. As a result, Amundsen was roundly blasted in the press, his lecture before the National Geographic Society was canceled, and he prepared to return to Europe.

When he reached New York before his departure, he found a small package addressed to him in his hotel room. When he opened it and saw its contents, his voice broke with emotion as he held up a beautifully embroidered linen table runner 15 inches wide and four feet long. “Well, and whom do you think this if from?” He asked the reporter who had accompanied him there. “The man I once thought was going go discover both the North and South Pole. Now, poor fellow, he is in Leavenworth Prison. And he did every stitch of it with his own hands. It is pathetic. Yes, it is from Dr. Cook, I am more touched by this gift than by almost anything that has happened to me in a long time.”

Today, Dr. Cook’s table runner is on display in Amundsen’s house, Uranienborg, in Oppegård, Norway. If you go to the virtual tour on its website, it is item #3 in the 3-D model of the Blue Room. You can see it at this web address: https://amundsen.mia.no/en/rooms/blue-room/

The snapshots are courtesy of Carol Smith. These items are currently not on display.