Anna Smith Reynolds

Anna Smith Reynolds

Cousin Anna

Warning: this account is full of miscellaneous memories which may or may not be accurate!

Born May 22, 1882

Died December 1, 1959 age 77

Her parents were “Aunt Maddie” and Warren G. Reynolds.

“Aunt Maddie” was Martha Smith Reynolds, sister of Charles P. Smith, Sr.

(Was Martha Montgomery named for her?)

Anna was thus a cousin of Charles P. Smith, Jr. and Levi P. Smith Jr. (though 10 years older than Charles)

Aunt Julia was born in 1881, a cousin and a childhood friend.

Julia married Dr John Wheeler, cataract surgeon (world famous according to Julia Smith Northrop - JSN); parents of Ann Weathers. The Wheelers lived at 4530 Fieldston Rd. in New York City.

(Uncle John went blind in one eye, and no one knew he had a glass eye because it moved, according to JSN.)

(One year, according to JSN, Uncle John took Anne Weathers and Grace F. Smith to Mexico where he attended a conference.)

The Reynolds headstone includes Alice F. 1884-1889. This would be Anna’s sister, born when Anna was 2 and died when she was 7.

She lived at 61 South Willard and Buell on the corner, in a yellow painted brick house.

(Fletcher Free Librarian Annie D’Alton says 61 So. Willard is not on the corner, but between Buell and Bradley. It has apparently been sandblasted and is no longer yellow. The house is listed on the National Historic Register)

She took care of her mother (who was deaf and had a big tin ear horn) and her father when they were old, as was frequently expected of female family members. Her father was dictatorial, mean and tight with money.

Her father wasn't poor, just tight; “men were tight then.” He owned W. G. Reynolds, a furniture store in Burlington.

He had a whistle, and “when he whistled, everyone jumped.” Anna was an only child, trapped by her circumstances.

She graduated from Edmonds High School in 1902, Vice President of the class one year. Her father died in 1908. Her mother lived until 1936. She began to paint after her parents died, though it’s not clear just when. She took painting classes from Francis P. Colburn at UVM, (he was what we’d call an adjunct in the late 1930s, and was appointed artist in residence in 1942, well after the death of both of her parents ),and is known to have showed her paintings at UVM. She also took lessons and showed her work in New York. Her obituary says that her work appeared in “Northern Vermont Artists’ exhibitions, the Grand Central Galleries in New York, and elsewhere.” She spent her winters in New York at the invitation of her cousin Julia after her parents died. Much of her painting years remains unknown, however.

(During WWII C.P. Smith Jr. rented her house in the winter so that Julia Smith (Northrop) could go to school at Edmonds High School. Driving in from Appletree Point used up gas coupons, so moving made sense.)

Despite a constrained childhood, she was a favorite of all her younger relatives. She was tiny in stature, so tiny she had to buy her clothes in the children’s department. She knew all the birds and all their songs: she could whistle any bird song. She was also a skilled naturalist, and gave a talk on wildflowers as part of her high school graduation ceremonies. And she loved to hike, as her paintings show: their locations are all around Chittenden County, Mount Mansfield and beyond. Almost all her paintings are plein air, in places we recognize.How did she get to the locations of her paintings? She never learned to drive. JSN speculated that Aunt Julia’s (or someone else’s) chauffeur may have driven her.

She stayed with the C.P. Smith, Jrs. at Cedar Beach in summer. (any paintings of Cedar Beach?) Julia (Northrop) remembers Cousin Anna teaching her to sew (a blue bathrobe).She always came to their house for Thanksgiving at Appletree Point, also. Pat Salmon Boutillier remembers that Cousin Anna always made the centerpieces (fruit, cones, greens) and Pat helped her. Then, she usually spent Christmas with the Levi Smith Jrs.

JSN said the telephone in the Willard Street house was in the hallway. She remembers that Cousin Anna was talking on the phone when she had a stroke (1956 or 1957). She moved to the Pleasant View Nursing Home on South Union St. on the corner of Adams Street where she died in 1959.

Levi senior and Charles P. visited her frequently in the nursing home. According to Sybil Smith, they would visit her and come away with paintings and leave behind money (she was quite poor). Levi, a painter himself, genuinely admired her talent.

Although the family remembers her as poor, she left an endowment at UVM’s Art Department, to be used “at the discretion of the instructor of art.” (more to come here when her will becomes available.)

Duane Merrill, auctioneer and appraiser, dismissed her work as an “amateur family member” and did not provide any estate value after C. P. Smith Jr. died; yet 50 years later, when Duane’s son assessed the estate of Dorothea S. Hanna, he offered to buy them all. Her death certificate lists her occupation as artist; she would have been proud of that.

Many thanks to Annie D’Alton, Technology Assistant, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, Vermont.