The Red Rose Girls: Jessie Willcox Smith, Till the End

"Little Drops of Water"
by Jessie Willcox Smith

"By 1931, during the Depression, Jessie Willcox Smith's adjusted income was $31,450.18, more than enough to support her own household as well as a number of impoverished relatives. In spite of her sound finances, Jessie continued to work steadily until failing eyesight and illness forced her to stop accepting commissions in 1933. By 1935 Jessie Smith was bedridden and almost blind. On the night of May 5, she died. Henrietta, who inherited the house and the bulk of Jessie's $240,000 estate, lived at Cogshill for five more years and died in 1940 at the age of eighty-one.

After Smith's death the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts mounted a memorial show. Initially, still harboring their traditional objections to illustrative images, they weren't thinking of such a exhibit, but when they considered Smith's portraits of prominent Philadelphia families who had had their children done, they borrowed the work and had a huge show.

Edith Emerson wrote a tribute for the catalogue, honoring Smith with love and respect on behalf of her Cogslea family:

'Nothing morbid or bitter ever came from her brush. This is not because the difficulties of life left her untouched. She had her full share, but when they came she met and conquered them. She demanded nothing for herself but obeyed the simple injunction on the poster she designed for the Welfare Foundation - GIVE. She helped those in need, the aged, the helpless, the unfortunate. She gave honest and constructive advice to students who came to her for criticism. She rejoiced in the success of others and was modest about her own. Tall, handsome and straightforward, she carried herself well, with no trace of self-assertation. She always spoke directly and to the point. She lived quietly and loved natural unaffected things and people. Altogether hers was a brave and generous mind, comprehending life with a large simplicity, free from all pettiness and unfailingly kind.'

The exhibition was a great success as well as a fitting memorial and precipitated the final bit of poetry inspired by the art of Smith. It ended with the lines, 'Lord we thank thee for bestowing/ On an artist skilled and knowing/ Patience in such generous measures/ That she left us all these treasures.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)