The Red Rose Girls: Unexpected Events

Some of Violet Oakley's murals for the
Senate Chamber at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

On the fourth of July, 1911, Violet made a stunning announcement as part of a well-attended holiday celebration at Cogslea. 'With 1912 I feel called upon to make a great change in my life... Whether my home is to be here near Philadelphia or to be there near New York, I do not know - or whether it is to be divided between two places.' Along with all of their guests, Jessie and Harriet were shocked. However, events were about to mitigate against the move.

On August 1, 1911, the great painter Edwin Austin Abbey died at home in England. His last days were spent in his studio where his bed had been carried so that he might gaze at the murals nearing completion for the House of Representatives in the State Capitol half a world away in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He had already completed his famous compositions for the dome and was about to embark on the balance of the assignment. Abbey was only fifty-nine years old, and the illness that ended his life came on swiftly. Violet attributed his sudden death to the difficulty of the Harrisburg contract, remarking, 'it was perhaps the most colossal commission that had been given to one painter - and it was too heavy for him.' In fact Abbey died of cancer, while his involvement in his Harrisburg work as well as numerous other projects was at its height.

In the autumn of 1911, Oakley was awarded the portion of Abbey's contract that he had not yet started, a series of murals for the Senate Chamber and the Supreme Court Room in the Capitol at Harrisburg. Advised that with so much work from Pennsylvania she should remain in the state, Violet temporarily abandoned any plans to move to New York. This was to be her great life's work. She would spend the next sixteen years completing the project, entrenched in her studio at Cogslea."

To be continued

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