Introduction Biography Scope & Content Note Organization Subject Terms Accession Information Processing Information Ownership & Literary Rights Restrictions on Access Preferred Citation Container List Series 1, Personal Papers Series 2, De Yong Associates Series 3, Photographs Images

Introduction:

Joseph Franklin De Yong was a western movie extra, a cowboy artist, protégé of Charles Marion Russell (Montana's cowboy artist), and an historical consultant on western films. Dan Gagliasso wrote, "While director John Ford made extensive use of Frederic Remington's art in his western films, it was the Russell "look," kept alive by De Yong's costume designs, scenic sketch art, and historical advice, that influenced the form and feel of such classic Westerns as The Plainsman (1937), Union Pacific (1939), Buffalo Bill (1944), Red River (1948), and Shane (1953)." A personal friend and business associate of De Yong, Richard J. Flood was responsible in large part for assembling this collection, which reflects the life, career and relationships of Joe De Yong.

Biography:

Richard "Dick" Jean Flood, the son of Richard Flood and Jeannette St. Jean, was born on April 18, 1921 in Anaconda, Montana. Flood spent his early school years in southern California with his mother. At 17 he returned to Butte, Montana to work at his father's place of business, Walkers Cafe Co. He also attended Butte Business School and soon became an insurance salesman.

In the 1940s Flood developed an interest in western art, Charles M. Russell and the history of Montana. Working as a salesman for the Montana Leather Co., Flood spent his evenings meeting with and procuring documents from past associates of Russell. Joe De Yong was chief among them and became a close personal friend.

Flood married Geraldine Colan of Idaho Falls, Idaho on June 21, 1942. They had two sons, Richard J. Flood III born on May 28, 1943 and Daro M. Flood born on August 24, 1954. During World War II, Flood was a production engineer at Lockheed aircraft in Glendale, California. After the war he returned to Butte, Montana and resumed work with the Montana Leather Co. Soon he and his wife made a trip to Hollywood to meet Joe De Yong and his mother, Mary. Geraldine Flood wrote

As a personal friendship strengthened, Flood and De Yong developed a financial relationship. As De Yong needed money for his and his mother's needs, he would sell items to Flood. When De Yong collected items from his friends, Flood would give him a finder's fee for the items.

Prior to moving to Jackson, Wyoming and opening the Trailside Galleries in early 1960, the Floods owned a private gallery in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Richard III operated Main Trail Galleries in Scottsdale, Arizona and Jackson, Wyoming. He died on December 25, 1995. Daro is an artist and collector. Dick Flood died in Mesa, Arizona on September 6, 1993.

Thus wrote Joe De Yong, the 5' 6" protégé of Charles M. Russell, western artist, illustrator, bronze caster, cinematic technical director, scenario research consultant and cartoonist. In some ways Kid Currycomb reflects the desires of his creator. Beyond the fact that De Yong's pseudonym as editor of the Eatons' Dude Ranch newsletter, Wranglin' Notes, was Kid Currycomb, De Yong always desired to be a cowboy. This desire was revealed in a conversation with Will James, cowboy writer and artist, at Eatons' Ranch probably in 1927. A 33-year old De Yong said he envied James for what he had seen and could do in terms of being a cowboy. He wrote:

Cerebro-meningitis, which left him totally and irreparably deaf, was the disease that nipped De Yong's pursuit of a cherished lifestyle in January of 1913. Reflecting about this time in his life, De Yong considered the event as a "definite trick of fate" which pushed him toward painting and modeling, "just to kill time!" He wrote,

In the subsequent sixty years De Yong "killed" a lot of time painting, modeling, and sculpting. Along the way he befriended a number of famous personalities including Tom Mix, William "Bill" Gollings, Charles M. Russell, Ed Borein, Maynard Dixon, Will James, Will Rogers, William S. Hart, and Cecil B. DeMille. This list reads like the Who's Who of western art and entertainment of the period.

Joseph Franklin De Yong was born in Webster Grove, Missouri on March 12, 1894. He was the only child of Mary Ellen Burkett of Iowa and Adrian De Yong, Jr. of Missouri. Mary (1873-1973) was the daughter of Elizabeth Matlock and Neander Keller Burkett. Adrian (1872-1923) was the son of Eleanor McGowan and Adrian De Yong, Sr.

Joe A. Bartles, last hereditary chief of the Turtle clan of the Delawares, became De Yong's godfather and namesake. Adrian befriended Bartles in a St. Louis military school and shared hunting trips into Indian Territory. It was Bartles who successfully encouraged Adrian to move his family to Dewey in Indian Territory in 1899. In 1895 Adrian had opened a general merchandise store in Dewey. "Uncle Joe," according to De Yong, was the first cowpuncher he had ever seen.

While Adrian established a home at Dewey, De Yong attended public schools in Webster Groves through 1905. Between 1907 and 1912 he attended public schools in Dewey and Bartlesville. When not in school, De Yong learned to ride and draw horses at the Bartles "Bar B" Ranch. While not in school, he began work in 1907 at the tender age of 13 for Sherman Moore of Moore & Todd at the Horseshoe L Ranch. This seasonal employment continued until 1913. De Yong writes, "So it turned out that I did my first real cowwork for him-- a real cowman.

This apparent, almost defensive obsession with real cowboys took root early. Like Currycomb, he always wanted to be counted among them. As a boy, the men De Yong emulated were "topnotch working-cowhands" including Joe Knight, Jim Rider, Henry Grammar, Slickey Little, and Earl Woodard. De Yong characterized these men in this way:

In 1910 Tom Mix (1880-1940), former livestock foreman for the Miller 101 Ranch at Bliss, Oklahoma and husband to Dewey native, Olive Stokes, came to Dewey with Col. William Selig's Motion Picture Company of Chicago to make the movie, Ranch Life in the Great Southwest. De Yong had a bit part in this movie which was filmed partly on the Moore's Horseshoe L Ranch where he handled the cattle.

Upon seeing the film the impressionable De Yong yearned to be a cowboy actor. In January 1913 he joined Mix, a supporting cast of real cowhands, and the Selig Company in Prescott, Arizona. During the filming of The Law and the Outlaw, he contracted meningitis, which in his words left him "totally deaf, cross-eyed, and without any sense of balance." "Outside of that," he explained in a typically understated manner, "I was all right."

With his vision returned and his walking ability slightly regained, De Yong, accompanied by Earl Woodard who was instrumental in his recovery, left Prescott in July and returned to Dewey by way of Colorado, Wyoming, and finally Webster Groves, Missouri by the end of that fateful year. Sherman Moore offered him a job riding line, but De Yong turned him down reasoning that he did not like the idea of playing "second fiddle" to either the horses or the riders with whom he had worked. He was nineteen years old.

Options limited, De Yong renewed his interest in his innate ability to draw. He had been influenced during his precocious childhood by the works of Frederic Remington's western subjects published in Collier's Weekly Done in the Open in 1902 and by a billboard advertisement using Charles M. Russell's A Bad Hoss at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. But, it was not until mid-August of 1913 when his passion was rekindled. On their way back to Dewey he and Woodard attended the Cheyenne Frontier Days where De Yong saw a display of western art by Russell. Consequently, he bought a folio of Russell's prints, yearning to meet and be taught by Russell began.

By December 1913 De Yong began his quest to contact Russell. Between complaining of chest pains and breathlessness (perhaps early undiagnosed symptoms of asthma) and urging his father to obtain every Russell item he could, De Yong sent Russell a set of sketches and a photograph of his first model. In return he received words of encouragement from Russell which reinforced his resolve to go to Montana.

In July 1914, De Yong visited Russell's studio in Great Falls, Montana for the first time. By year's close, the De Yong family had moved to Big Timber then finally to Choteau, Montana to accommodate their gifted son.

This accommodation was indicative of the closeness witnessed in the De Yong family, particularly the long supportive relationship between Joe and his mother, Mary. As De Yong's father, Adrian, died from pernicious anemia in 1923, it is fair to say that Mary remained Joe's closest friend and confidant right up until her death in 1973 at the age of 100. Two early humorous incidents as told by De Yong to his father illustrate this relationship.

In the other incident,

On January 3, 1916 De Yong began to work in Russell's studio. Thus began a teacher-student relationship which would last through the next ten years until Russell's death in October of 1926. Russell was 51 years old. Nancy, his wife, was 38 years old. De Yong was nearly 22 years old.

During this period De Yong developed and refined his ability to communicate through sign language or "hand talk." In this regard he learned a great deal from Russell who was himself an accomplished hand talker. Additionally, while De Yong could speak and not hear, much of the communication between the two was affected by handwritten conversation notes. Regarding the origin of the numerous conversation notes written by Russell, De Yong explained that since he was totally deaf and because Russell "habitually spoke deep in his chest, and with little lip movement," it was necessary to either use Indian sign language or write. Many of these notes are included in the De Yong's personal papers and provide an insight into this unique teacher-student relationship.

Russell also attempted to instill in the youthful De Yong a critical eye for authenticity and detail in art. To this end De Yong accompanied Russell into the mountains of Montana and Wyoming, and to the Indian reservations of the Blackfeet, Gros Ventres, and Crow. This eye for detail, especially regarding Indian materials, coupled with voluminous sketches and notes, would serve him well in future years.

During this Russell decade, De Yong met several contemporary western artists including Ed Borein, Will James, and Olaf Seltzer. While in 1913 De Yong had illustrated a little book entitled Oklahoma Tales & Jingles, it was during this time he undertook illustration work in a major way. One of De Yong's early promoters was Nancy Russell. In a letter to R. E. Leppert, Art Manager for Funk & Wagnalls Company, she wrote:

Within a month after Nancy's promotion, De Yong had sold his first magazine cover for $100. However, the illustration was not used on a Literary Digest cover until March 28, 1925 issue.

In 1916 De Yong created the poster and program art promoting the Dewey Roundup for his godfather, Joe Bartles. In the early 1920s he did the illustrations for Frank B. Linderman's books, Bunch-Grass and Blue-Joint and Lige Mounts, Free Trapper. Concurrently, he had enrolled in a correspondence art education course through the Federal School of Illustrating and Cartooning. Printed in the Federal School's publication, The Federal Illustrator in 1925, De Yong's story of adversity caused by a handicap served as both an inspiration for other would-be artists and as a promotional vehicle for the school.

By 1919 De Yong had met Howard Eaton, the founder of Eatons' Dude Ranch in Wolf, Wyoming. Having become a dude wrangler and semi-official artist at Eatons, De Yong made a trip through Glacier National Park in Montana with one of the Eaton parties. That trip opened a fruitful market for his talents in sketching, modeling, and painting. Throughout the 1920s, he continued to reap the benefits of this market through the guests at the ranch, where in addition he entertained them in his teepee with rope tricks. Between 1923 and 1929 De Yong, under the pseudonym of "Kid Currycomb" served as editor of Wranglin' Notes, a newsletter produced at the ranch.

Eatons' Dude Ranch was also the setting for an apparent series of unrequited romances with its lady visitors. In exploring his evolving attitude toward romance, one is able to determine one factor which impacted his work and colored his perspective on relationships. In 1925 he relates in a charmingly naive letter to his mother his meeting a woman whom he had met in a prior summer at Eatons'. He wrote:

But this innocence would be short-lived as a letter to his mother in 1927 explicitly illustrates. De Yong had learned that a woman with whom he was romantically inclined had to choose between two men who wanted to marry her. He wrote "...same old story; meet 'em, and like 'em; write a while; then they get married; and in the mean time your work will be shot to hell, and the work has to get done."

In a delightfully cynical letter to his mother two years later regarding relationships, a certain hardness is revealed in De Yong's character. He wrote:

For whatever reason De Yong never married.

In September 1926, De Yong moved to Santa Barbara, California ostensibly to learn bronze casting from Ed Borein. On October 14, Russell died and Joe would thereafter live in California. While in California he renewed his friendships with Will Rogers and Tom Mix. Earlier he also met and befriended the Western actor, William S. Hart. Regarding Hart, De Yong wrote, "I kind of feel sorry for him - He seems like a big kid." But for several years following Russell's death, De Yong's career had its ups and downs. He continued illustration work for covers and magazine articles. He even designed and illustrated personalized Christmas cards.

The mid-1930s provided another variation on an art career theme for De Yong. In 1934, he joined the annual ride of the Rancheros Visitadores, which included southern California businessmen, ranchers, stage, screen, radio, and political celebrities. Each May the group covered 100 miles on horseback or stagecoach, bunking at ranches along the way. In 1936 through the Visitadores, De Yong met John Fisher, the business manager of Cecil B. DeMille, the motion picture director. A seeker of realism and authenticity, DeMille had been looking for a technical advisor for his new motion picture, The Plainsman, starring Gary Cooper. DeMille's search ended with De Yong, who was hired as costume designer and frontiersman/Indian expert. Thus, he embarked on a second career in the motion picture industry, that of scenario research consultant, which would continue through 1967. De Yong's filmography includes Wells Fargo (1937), Union Pacific (1939), North West Mounted Police (1940), Tall in the Saddle (1944), Buffalo Bill (1944), The Virginian (1946), The Big Sky (1952), and El Dorado (1967).

Illustrative of De Yong's film making, counseling is a memorandum to Howard Hawks regarding, among other things, the use of a piano in a dramatic piece of business. Concerning the scene of the party at the gamblers camp, he wrote:

As his second career began, De Yong was deeply saddened by the sudden death of Will Rogers in an airplane crash in 1935. This tragic event inspired him to write a multi-page tribute entitled "Friend Will." Trying to have the poem published, he wrote to Irvin S. Cobb, humorist and author, in April 1936 and introduced himself this way:

"Friend Will" was published eventually with an introduction by Cobb. Yet, the above letter points again to De Yong's obsession with authentic cowboys and wanting to be counted among them. While his film-making career gave him considerable influence in terms of what the general public saw and how it perceived cowboys, it also provided an outlet for his compulsion for authenticity. This compulsion might have been fueled by his repeated attempts between 1935 and 1938 to launch a comic strip called "Kid Currycomb's Diary."

Kid Currycomb, as mentioned earlier, was a humorously, pitiful character who wanted to be a cowboy. De Yong saw the strip as a highly marketable and lucrative concern in terms of book, novelty, and toy rights. Yet, his primary goal for the character was to have it animated. De Yong wrote, "There has never been a Western character in the animated field."

Shortly before his death, Will Rogers volunteered to show some of the comic strip materials to Walt Disney. Later, turning to Irvin S. Cobb for assistance in this matter, De Yong obtained an appointment with the Disney Company. But, all was not well with a potential collaboration between him and Disney. De Yong characterized the situation in the following:

The saga continued. In 1936 De Yong successfully attempted to obtain the support of Bob Burns of the Paramount Studio. In 1938, Tex Austin asked De Yong to do the illustrations for his book on the "authentic" history of the cattle industry. Aware of De Yong's preoccupation with Kid Currycomb and desirous of getting De Yong to work for him, Austin offered to have Cyrus McCormick, a publisher of a weekly New Mexican paper with state-wide circulation, look at the strip. Moreover, Austin suggested that McCormick's cousin, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, might be interested in these materials, but admonished De Yong saying that if he took the illustrating job he would have to have a more positive attitude going forward. Yet, in spite of strong recommendations from Will Rogers, Ed Borein, and Will James, "Kid Currycomb's Diary" was never realized. Kid Currycomb remained a part of De Yong only.

When World War II and gas rationing began, De Yong moved to Hollywood permanently. He worked with John Wayne in Tall in the Saddle; with Bob Hope in The Paleface; and for George Stevens in Shane in 1951. One of the final movies to which De Yong lent his expertise was Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo, which was released in the beginning of 1959.

During the fifties and sixties, De Yong devoted much of his time to writing memoirs, articles, and short stories. Being sort of a real-life "Zelig" (the Woody Allen film character), De Yong knew and was seen with all his famous contemporaries, and therefore, his recollections are invaluable. Once, he expressed that his greatest drive was to write. He wrote, "I do more of that than anything else whether to any point, or not, I really don't know!" Ironically, William Gardner Bell, Will James' biographer, in summing up De Yong's career writes, "he was an accomplished painter, sketcher, sculptor, and etcher, but not a writer."

"Grey hair can sometimes prove a sign of comfort of mind if not always of body, and baldness, in time, may at least reach a stage of neatness." As he grew older, De Yong began to reflect and write about his life. In one instance he perfectly summed up his life:

The creator of Kid Currycomb was one of the "real ones." He was as William Gardner Bell writes, "One of a handful of genuine cowboy artists from an authentic cowboy era." In 1964, at the age of 70, De Yong colorfully expressed his questions about death and his relationship with Charlie Russell in the following passages:

"And now that I - a good eight years older than he was at that never-to-be-forgotten time - find myself following a steeper and steeper trail. I sometimes look forward to [what] may lie beyond that high pass that is said to cut a notch in that range of snow-capped mountains that lie ahead.

"Will the colors of that far-country be as bright? Will the range still be unfenced, and none of the old trails plowed-under? Will the same old friends gather-together, at night - to share the warmth of the campfire's light? Sometimes, I can't help but wonder!"

Joseph Franklin De Yong died in April 1975, in a hospital in Los Angeles, California at the age of 81. His remains were returned to Montana for burial at the Highland Cemetery in Great Falls beside his parents. With his passing an era in Western art ended.

Scope & Content Note:

The Joe De Yong/Richard J. Flood Collection is comprised of artwork, artifacts, personal papers, and photographic materials acquired by Dick Flood, with the assistance of De Yong. According to Dick's wife, Geraldine, as De Yong would decide to dispose of items in order to care for his mother, he would sell these items to Flood always on a cash basis. Geraldine writes:

The artwork and artifacts were separated from the papers and photographs, into appropriate curatorial storage. The scope of the collection ranges from before De Yong's birth in 1894, to his death in 1975. Record-types include magazines, programs, books, booklets, newsletters, posters, photos, photographic albums, handwritten conversation notes, letters, manuscripts, postcards, Christmas cards, catalogs, and brochures. The bulk of the records dates from the early years of De Yong's career, primarily between 1910 and 1940. Letters to his parents, especially to his mother during the 1920s, are the most voluminous. Undoubtedly, many of these papers and family correspondence, owe their preservation to De Yong's mother Mary, who according to Mrs. Flood, had an "unwritten contract [with Dick Flood] that these letters would be used to compliment her son."

There are no business records, income tax forms, inventories or diaries. Considering the length of De Yong's movie career, one might expect to find substantial records to reflect it. Other than photos, the evidence for this career is sparse. However, given the methods of acquisition, this gap is not surprising. The bulk of his letters and memoranda during this time (1935-1967), possibly might be found at the Paramount Pictures archives.

The collection is organized into three series. Series 1 : Personal Papers, 1887-1951, Series 2: De Yong Associates, 1892-1971, undated, and Series 3: Photographs, ca. 1860-1975. The papers in series 1 & 2 are arranged numerically in folders marked with the appropriate Flood #'s, as listed in the catalog and a box/folder number. The first series deals exclusively with materials created by De Yong such as sketches, manuscripts, and letters to family members. Items in which De Yong's artwork appears and items of an informational nature, such as magazine articles, and programs are also included.

The records in series 2 are arranged in the same fashion above, which are in an alphabetical order by the surnames of people with whom De Yong associated. Records include letters and cards from the associated person to De Yong, and in some instances, include letters from this person to another. The section about Charles Russell, 1915-1964 not only includes these record forms, but also beginning with Folder 29 of Box 8, numerous handwritten conversation notes with drawings between Russell and De Yong. These are designated as "text with drawings." Catalogs and manuscripts about Russell by De Yong are also included.

Other materials from De Yong's contemporaries reflect De Yong's interests in cowboy life, the entertainment, and art field. Guy Weadick (1885-1953) and Howard Eaton (1850-1922) were significant people in affirming De Yong's perception of what a "real" cowboy was. The records pertaining to Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959), William S. Hart (1870-1946), Tom Mix (1880-1940), and Will Rogers (1879-1935) reflect his career in Hollywood filmmaking. The cowboy artists of which De Yong was one, are reflected well in these papers. Edward Borein (1872-1945), Maynard Dixon (1875-1946), William "Bill" Gollings (1878-1932), Will James (1892-1942), Pete Martinez (1894-1971), Ross Santee (1889-1965), and Jack Van Ryder (1898-1968) are represented.

Many times photographic items were found with the papers. These photographic materials include for the most part black and white prints. There are some negatives in various formats and several albumen prints and tintypes of De Yong's family and relatives. All photographic materials have been removed, photocopied, assigned catalog numbers, and cross-referenced to Series 3: Photographic Materials, ca. 1860-1975. There are 1,031 photographic items in the Series 3. Access is facilitated by a binder of photocopies of the items organized by Flood #. Eventually, data about these photographic materials will be available via a local database.

Organization:

With some modifications and the addition of series numbers, the arrangement of these papers and photos reflect their organization as published in Joe De Yong, a Main Trail Galleries catalog, compiled by Richard J. Flood III in 1980. The first 500 Flood #'s listed are Joe De Yong. Flood #'s 501-877 are listed alphabetically according to the person to whom they pertain. This default arrangement was done for a number of reasons. Researchers had become accustomed to using the catalog as a finding aid during the intervening two decades. Extensive volunteer involvement in processing the papers in accordance with the catalog was another reason. Lastly, the original order of the papers is reflected by the catalog Flood # entries.

The files of series 3: Photographs are organized like the personal papers series, i.e. Flood # order - De Yong materials followed alphabetically by surnames of persons with whom he associated. Each Flood # was assigned a unique catalog number, followed by numbers indicating the quantity of items. For example, photos in Will James' Box 14, Folder 20, Flood #651 were assigned catalog number 80.18.576. There are 4 photos in this folder so 4 item numbers were attached to the above catalog number.

Subject Terms:

Processing Information:

Between 1980 and 1990 items were dispersed to appropriate collection areas. Original artwork among the papers, such as illustrated letters and pen & ink cards have been removed, photocopied, and cross-referenced to the De Yong art collection. Photocopies of these items are housed in the appropriate Flood # folder and assigned a unique catalog number. For example, Will James' letter in Box 6, Folder 11, Flood #626 was illustrated and was therefore assigned catalog number 80.18.537 and removed to the art collection.

Until December 1997 the papers and photos were housed in file cabinet drawers and accessed through a finding aid created in June 1991. Upon completion of a photographic materials inventory, the papers and photos were removed to and re housed in legal-size document boxes. A finding aid was completed in January 2001 by Charles E. Rand. The biography, scope note, and container lists were revised by Rand in May 2003 as a consequence of new information furnished by the wife of the late Dick Flood, Geraldine "Gerrie" Flood.

Ownership & Literary Rights:

The Joe De Yong/Richard J. Flood Collection is the property of the Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Literary right, including copyright, belongs to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, with the exception of copyrighted images and published literary works, which are the property of the respective copyright holders. It is the responsibility of the researcher, and his/her publisher, to obtain publishing permission from individuals pictured, relevant copyright holders, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Restrictions on Access:

This collection is open for research. Researchers are advised to discuss their research with staff prior to visiting the Center.

Preferred Citation:

Joe De Yong/Richard J. Flood Collection, Box ##, Folder ##, Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK.