(click on image for larger view - click "back" to return here)
By Avis Kaeselau, South Dennis, MA, daughter-in-law of Charles Anton Kaeselau, painter of the Concord Post Office mural.
This is the third in a series of articles about the unexpected, unfolding mystery of the mural in the lobby of the Concord Post Office. The Internet -- being the amazing medium it is -- has managed to reconnect the artist's family -- after 60 years -- to both Concord and to lost information about their own generations past. See Part 1 and Part 2 of this story.
The below are excerpted from the author's comments at the Post Office on April 19, 2002, upon the dedication of a plaque honoring the artist of the mural.
 My husband Jean and I were married four years before I actually met my father-in-law, Charles Anton Kaeselau, -- painter of the Concord Post Office mural -- in person.
One day, while living in Provincetown, there was a knock on our front door. Jean was working in town and I was home alone with our children. When I answered the door, two strange men were standing there. One asked me if I was Mrs. Kaeselau. I answered, yes. "Well, I'm Mr. Kaeselau," and the young man chimed in and said he, too, was Mr. Kaeselau! It took me several moments to realize that I had finally met my father-in-law from Boston and my brother-in-law from California -- face-to-face -- for the first time! I laughed and hugged them both. It seemed as if I had known them forever.
Charles Kaeselau was a warm, sensitive, and loving gentleman with "electric blue" eyes who always carried a pad and pen in his pocket. When he looked at you, he didn't say much. He seemed to be preoccupied analyzing your bone structure...seriously studying your face, more than listening to your conversation. We all understood.
He was a teacher. He was a student. Art was his life. He painted until the day he died in 1972.
 When Marguerite Benjamin Kaeselau, his first wife and mother of their two sons, died unexpectedly in her late 30's of a brain embolism, she left behind two sad, frightened little boys and a distraught husband. Her death was too much for Charles. He could not cope and paint and raise two small children alone. So the young brothers were separated and sent off to live with his artist friends. Six months here...six months there as Charles struggled relentlessly to keep solvent.
It's easy to see his pain and grieving take form in his art. During this period, the skies he painted in his pictures became dark and his color intensities in general were cold and dreary, full of raw emotion which held a haunting beauty of their own. But it was in direct contrast to so many of his earlier "sunny" paintings. It was obvious that he bared his soul to the canvas.
One day my husband and I drove here to Concord to see this mural that his father had done so many years prior. My first reaction was of pure astonishment: astonishment at the life size of it! It was so beautiful and realistic...such a tribute to commemorate this historical event. You could just feel the battle envelope you in its fury! We felt proud to be genetically connected to this talented man.
| Concord Magazine Reader Helps Solve a Piece of the Kaesleau Mystery
It's fascinating and delightful how the layers of this story keeps developing through the connections made on the Internet. And it so far has unfolded only the sweetest events.
In March, a dedicated Concord Magazine reader from Sweden, Ingrid Wikberg, connected the Kaesleaus to their Swedish ancestors -- more lost family information.
Ingrid was visiting a geneology website, saw the name "Kaesleau" and somehow recalled it from the articles we published about the mural in 1999. She was kind enough to contact one of Charles' granddaughters, Odin, through email (Odin also painted the image which is the main background on this page). She later translated some of the materials from Swedish into English. This provided information about Charles' parents and his birth which they hadn't known before.
Are you the next person to contribute to this story? If you have information for the Kaeselau's, please email this ezine and we will send it on to them.
|
When my husband was a young boy, he distinctly remembered his dad working on this gigantic project in his studio in Provincetown. I just could not even imagine how this all transpired! Seeing it brought about so many questions. How did Charles get this massive mural all the way to Concord? How long did this mural take to complete from start to finish? What were his other challenges toward accomplishing this goal for the WPA project? Was this the artist's interpretation of the battle or was he commissioned to portray this from someone else's historical drawing? How did the public receive his finished work? We wish we knew more about these particular details but we don't.
As for what is left of the Kaesleau family, our wish is to own more of grandpa's work so that each grandchild could at least have one piece of their special heritage. But presently, we have only four paintings by Charles (two with sunny skies and two with dark) and NONE by Marguerite. Because their first priority was to sell their finished work for their continued survival, none were kept for the family.
If you can answer our questions or can put us in touch with more of the Kaeselau's art, we would be most happy to receive any information you would kindly share with us (email the editor here).
Photos: Above right - Plaque to the artist with Kaeslaeu family (author far left). Above left - Concord Postmaster Neil Walker gives remarks at the dedication. ©2002 Deborah Bier
Backgrounds: Main background painted by Odin Kaesleau. Others taken from images of seashells, they are courtesy of Word of Mouth Web Design.
 
 
This website is a gift to the Concord community from ConcordMA.com, a full-service
Internet design and marketing company. 978 369-0113. PO Box 285, Concord, MA 01742 webmaster@concordma.com
|
