Frederick Santee
Frederick LaMotte Santee, FAAR (17 September 1906 - 11 April 1980) was a medical doctor, occultist, and practicing warlock in rural Pennsylvania. He was the founder and leader of the Coven of the Catta, a coven that practices Gardnerian Wicca.
His life was an inspiration for the book Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen, which includes his complete biography.
In 1999, English professor Hubert Horton McAlexander described Santee as "A strange man with a strange history ... Brilliant and weird, he was in the view of many sinister."
Early life
Santee was born on 17 September 1906 in the rural Pennsylvania town of Wapwallopen, the only child of Dr. Charles LaMotte Santee and his wife Verna Caroline Lloyd Santee. He was the grandson of Dr. Ephraim A. Santee. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all practicing physicians.
Frederick was able to read English and German at age three and at the age of eight, wrote a translation of Caesar's Gallic War from the original Latin, which had had taught himself by studying his grandfather's old Latin books. As a youth, he excelled at baseball, with a classmate claiming he was a "budding 'Babe' Ruth, whose heavy hitting had won more than one game for his team." Santee later said he tried very hard to be good at sports in the hopes of attracting girls.
Education
In 1920, Santee became the youngest person accepted to Harvard University, at age 13. Newspapers around the country carried reports of his remarkable achievement. The Scranton Times stated:
Frederick Santee, 13, Wapwallopen, son of Dr. and Mrs. Santee has matriculated for the regular course in Harvard University. He is the youngest ever to enter as a candidate for degree. The boy has been unusual since his first day in school…
He returned to Wapwallopen during his summer breaks to work on a local farm, but kept his own apartment in Boston, which was paid for by his parents. He won the Bowdoin prize for his Greek translations and graduated magna cum laude in 1924 at the age of 17 with a Bachelor's degree.
After leaving Harvard, Santee studied Classics at Wadham College of Oxford University, earning a second BA in 1926.
In 1927, he was granted a fellowship at the American Academy of Rome. While in Rome, he traveled extensively in conjunction with his studies. Throughout 1927, Santee visited Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland. During this period, his mother Verna accompanied him at all times.
Immediately after receiving his BA, Santee was invited into Masters program at Oxford, but he declined, preferring instead to travel across Europe and then return to the United States to accept a teaching position at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. However, despite this, Oxford University awarded him a Master of Arts degree anyhow in 1930 (some sources say 1929).
After losing his teaching position during the Great Depression, Santee enrolled in the medical program at Johns Hopkins University, earning his MD in 1938.
Professor at Kenyon College
In April 1938, Santee was hired as a Latin professor at Kenyon College in Ohio. He was highly regarded by his colleagues, who considered him the greatest living Latin author and on par with classical Roman authors. He published numerous poems in Latin in the HIKA literary magazine. In 1941, the students at the college performed his play, The Woman From Detroit, which was an adaptation of Meander's The Andrian Woman.
Although he became popular with Kenyon students and ended up teaching numerous classes, his first class, a critical examination of Dante's Divine Comedy, only had two students.
During his time teaching at Kenyon, Santee was a professor to novelist Robie Macauley and poet Robert Lowell. The men became close friends, partially owing to their mutual association with Boston.
In a letter dated 30 October 1938, Lowell mentioned Santee in a letter to his father:
Frederick Santee, my professor, has offered to teach me Latin composition for a month. I would stay at his house and he insists that all instruction should be free. Next year when I graduate I should know Latin fluently even to the extent of writing verse. I should also be in an extremely strong position for a Rhodes scholarship - as confident as one should be.
On 18 April 1943, Santee was commissioned as a lieutenant in the United States Navy. He served as a doctor in the Pacific theater until his discharge in 1945.
Medical career
Santee worked as a doctor in Baltimore and several other cities in the United States from 1945 until 1963, when his father died. Upon his father's passing, Santee relocated to Wapwallopen and took over the family medical practice. His office was in the family mansion on River Street.
As a small town doctor, he was known for charging very low fees and sometimes even accepted barter from poor rural farmers who could not afford to pay.
He maintained a staff of nurses and young girls who interned in his office.
It has been speculated that he sometimes dispensed medications without much discretion and would give prescriptions for highly addictive drugs to any patient who asked for them. His annual order for morphine was so high that it once triggered an investigation from the Food and Drug Administration.
Involvement with the occult
Santee was introduced to the occult by his english professor at Harvard, George. L. Kittredge, author of the book Witchcraft in Old New England. During his time at Oxford, Santee became acquainted with W.B. Yeats, who was a member of Alpha et Omega, while the "modern witchcraft" movement was enjoying immense popularity throughout England.
It has been speculated that during his time in England, Santee was inducted into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, however this could not have been possible as the organization had already been disestablished by that time. Members of the Coven of the Catta believe Santee met Aleister Crowley and Israel Regardie, although there is no evidence to support these claims.
With the assistance of his philosophy professor, Dr. Brabbart, he became a member of the Theosophical Society of England.
While studying in Berlin, Santee was initiated into a Wiccan lineage by Arnold Reinman, who was a High Priest of the Black Forest Tradition. Santee's coven members claimed that during this time, "Europeans wanted to be guided by him" and he served as a homeopathic healer and quasi-religious advisor to Adolf Hitler.
In 1967, Santee and most of the nurses who worked in his office were initiated into the New Forest Wicca lineage by Sybil Leek, creating the Coven of the Catta in the process.
As High Priest
From 1967 until his death in 1980, Frederick Santee was the High Priest of the Coven of the Catta. His High Priestess was the head nurse of his medical practice, Edna Kishbaugh Williams, who was nicknamed "Janie," but usually used her coven name, "Lady Phoebe." Santee's coven name was "Lord Merlin."
Their temple was located in the corner of an outbuilding next to Santee's house on River Street in Wapwallopen. The building primarily served as a library for his vast collection of books and grimoires, but there was a sizable space dedicated to performing ritual magic and an altar.
During their rituals, the High Priest and High Priestess wore red robes while the other six coven members wore white robes. They used candles and incense in their ceremonies. Services were performed on the major and minor Sabbat days, but there was also a weekly teaching circle which was open to anyone in the community. There was a one-year probationary period for all new initiates.
Personal views
Santee always considered himself a teacher, and in that respect, he instructed many people in the ways of Wicca. He did believe in God, but was disenfranchised with organized religion, having declared in 1950, “In religion, I lean towards Anglo Catholicism, am a member of no church.”
As evidenced from his "Country Doctor" newspaper column in the Berwick Enterprise, Santee was staunchly conservative in many respects, despite leading a coven of witches. He held traditional views on the role of women in society and stated they should be placed on a pedestal to be worshipped rather than engage in the workforce.
Death
Santee died peacefully in his home in early April 1980. He left over $1,000 to various cat shelters. The bulk of his $200,000 estate was left to Edna Williams.
Personal life
Frederick Santee was first married to Edith Rundle in December 1927 when she was 37 and he was 21. They met while both were in Rome studying Latin earlier that year. Edith was also a Latin scholar and graduated from the University of Missouri in 1914 with an A.B. and B.S. in education with a specialization in Latin. Santee later claimed that he felt pressured to marry her and only did so out of kindness, not because he was in love with her. They adopted a daughter, Ruth, while living in Nashville in 1930. They divorced in 1941 and Edith moved to the Philippines to teach at a government school. She never remarried.
Immediately following his divorce from Edith, Santee married Betty Addis of Philadelphia in 1942. They remained married for 21 years until her death at the age of 57.
Daughter
Santee's only child, Ruth, married William Joseph McKnight in a private ceremony one month before her 18th birthday in 1948. They had met while in Neosho high school and were freshmen at the University of Missouri in Columbia together. William served in the coast guard as a radio operator after their wedding and was stationed in San Francisco on active duty. The had two daughters, Rebecca and Sheila Kathlyn in 1953, before divorcing.
Ruth then married Juan V. Zaragoza in 1957. She was 27 and he was 31. Her marriage to Juan was extremely difficult due to his violent outbursts which were so extreme that the police became involved numerous times. They ultimately divorced in 1962.
Ruth then married her third and final husband, Alfred Jenanyan, in 1963. He raised her two daughters as though they were his own. Ruth's mother Edith moved in with Alfred after and lived with his family until her death on 31 October 1971.
Ruth died in 1965 at the age of 35, although her obituary erroneously printed her age as 33. She worked as a dance instructor. She was buried in Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery (Section N, site 770).
The Devil's Wager author
Despite being a prolific writer throughout his lifetime, a play titled The Devil's Wager was the only one of Santee's books was ever published. It was 246 pages long and presumably less than 100 copies were ever printed. The book was released as in a hardcover edition printed by notorious New York vanity publisher Exposition Press. Santee presumably financed the printing and marketing of the book out of his own pocket and was unlikely to have recovered the costs associated with publishing prior to his death the following year.
Promotional materials for the book included this synopsis:
A modern version of the Faustian drama in the struggle over a human soul. This time Satan's offer of tenure to a university professor is countered by God's presentation of a coed who offers her love to assist him in the development of a better world. A scholarly and deep insight into one's search for personal integrity in today's mixed-up society.
Bibliography
Academic papers
- "The Soul in Homer and Vergil" - TAPA, 61 (1930)
- "Homeric Ideas of the Soul" - Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philogical Association 1930-31 (1932)
- "Peculiar Granules in the Cells of the Liver and Adrenal in Infections" - Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin (1936)
- "The Treatment of Schizophrenia" (1938)
- "A Note on Latin Poetry" - HIKA Literary Magazine. 27 (1941)
- "Basic, Latin, and Other Languages" - The Kenyon Review, 5 (1943)
Plays
- The Woman From Detroit (1941)
- The Devil's Wager (1979) Exposition Press
Poetry
- Translation of Goethe: Mignorij HIKA Literary Magazine (1947)
- Eight Poems - HIKA Literary Magazine. 27 (1941)
- Sawdust and Tomatoes (1944) Times Printing Company
Newspaper column
- "The Country Doctor" - Berwick Enterprise (1969 - 1973)
Book reviews
- Physiologus Latinus Versio Y - The Classical Weekly, 35 (1941)
- The Latin Key to Better English - The Classical Weekly, 36 (1943)
- Horace et la société romaine du temps d'Auguste - The Classical Weekly, 32 (1939)
- Physiologus Latinus. Éditions préliminaires, versio B - The Classical Weekly, 33 (1939)
- Medical Latin and Greek - The Classical Weekly, 35 (1942)
- Einsicht und Leidenschaft. Das Wesen des platonischen Denkens - The Classical Weekly, 34 (1940)
- La medicina in Plauto - The Classical Weekly, 32 (1939)