In Memoriam Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield—Photo from an article appearing in Kentucky New Era, Hopkinsville, Kentucky, dated July 25, 1977.

IN MEMORIAM

KENT GREENFIELD

Born-Guthrie, Kentucky
July 1, 1902
Died-Guthrie, Kentucky
March 14, 1978
Interred Highland Cemetery
Guthrie, Kentucky

We thank members of the family of Kent Greenfield for help in supplying materials for these pages. H. R. D. and D. H., nephew and niece respectively of K., were very helpful in providing photos and in consulting as to content. N. M., daughter of K, was most helpful in providing her scrapbook of memorabilia from his baseball days. To these we say, “thank you”!

Our memories of K are just as warm as those of RPW and we wish we could express those memories as beautifully as done in the poetry of RPW. We do not have the ability to do so. Red will have to do. And, come to think of it, they don't get much better than that!

All lines on this page are from “American Portrait: Old Style” from Now and Then: Poems 1976-1978 by Robert Penn Warren (New York: Random House, 1978). Used by permission of William Morris Agency, New York, agent for author. Where used, italics are ours, and not by the author.

…And one Sunday afternoon, in the idleness of summer,
I found his farm, and him home there,…
…And the sun sank slow as he stood there,
All Indian-brown from waist up, who never liked tops to his pants,
And standing nigh straight, but the arms and the pitcher's
Great shoulders, they were thinning to old man thin.
…Well, what I remember most
In a world long-Time pale and powdered
Like a vision still clinging to plaster
Set by Piero della Francesca
Is how K, through lane-dust or meadow,
Seemed never to walk, but float
With a singular joy and silence,
In his cloud of bird dogs, like angels,

With their eyes on his eyes like God,

And the sun on his uncut hair bright,
As he passed through the ramshackle town and odd folks there
With pants on and vests and always soft gabble of money—
Polite in his smiling, but never much to say…

Willie Greenfield, mother of Kent Greenfield, with children—Kent, baby on left, Dolly, baby on right, Cyrus, standing on left, and Marshall. Nannie Bryan and Amie Rei, two other sisters, are not shown. Not to be used without permission.

International Newsreel Photo-Sarasota, Fl. 2-28-27. Rogers Hornsby, (sitting on left & clapping hands), Jim Hamby (resting on ball), Trainer Jamieson (dancing Charleston). Back Row-Burliegh Grimes (standing, looking on), Al De Vormer (playing victrola), Bill Clarkson and Greenfield eating lunch. Greenfield is on the right of Clarkson.