Sunday, October 07, 2007

visit from helene

Cousin Helene Van Oosten visited today. She divides her time between Fisher's Island, NY and Santa Barbara, CA, and points in between. For those of you who may have forgotten, she is our second cousin -- Edna Lapham Van Oosten was her mother and Aunt Helen and Uncle Roger Lapham were her grandparents. She brought along an album that Grandma Loomis kept -- a guest book for the house in Washington, Connecticut -- full of autographs and photographs and letters and clippings. I'll scan some of those items and share them with you. She also brought an album of Grandma's photographs of her sister Helen and the Lapham family. Grandma was an aspiring photographer and studied at the Art Student's League of New York and with noted photographer Clarence White. Helene told me that Grandma was much chagrined that her parents wouldn't allow her to pose nude for him -- when she later saw an international exhibit of his, which included a number of nudes, she realized that she could have been famous!

Here are a few of the photographs that Helene brought along. I believe that Grandma Loomis took all but the one of herself.

Dorothy Abbot Loomis
Helen Lapham, Carol Lapham, and Isabel Abbot
Lewis and Carol Lapham and Edgar Abbot
Isabel Abbot

1 comment:

  1. This is neat to see. I had no idea that Helene still had a footprint on Fischer's Island. Small world...the house she has/ had??? was built and owned by the family of an older woman we know at our church here in Bethlehem.

    Grandma Loo had several photos taken by Clarence White and went to his summer retreat in Maine with him and other students. She was quite good. In addition to 'art' type photos of her, he came to her wedding and took the ones of her on her wedding day. I am currently doing a painting of her from a C.White photo, for Erin. Funny and cool to find this posting as I'm working on it.

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