The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 16, April 14, 2002, Article 15

SEND ALL THE BOOKS TO THE DUMP!

  Dick Johnson writes: "Gertrude Katherine Lathrop was the
  sculptor of the New Rochelle Commemorative Half Dollar
  (One Fatt Calfe, above). Her entry occupies 111 lines in my
  upcoming book on American Artists of Coins and Medals.
  She did 12 medals and two commemorative coins -- the
  1936 Albany Charter, Breen 7554, was the other coin.

  I remember her from my days at Medallic Art Company in
  New York City.  She was a member of the sculptor peer
  group that judged sculptors' models for both the Society of
  Medalists and Hall of Fame medal series.   These took place
  in the company's Oval Gallery about 20 feet from my office
  door.  She was small and frail (I doubt if she weighed over
  80 to 90 pounds) but very strong on opinion, the mark of a
  good judge.  She relished criticizing the work [of men] twice
  her weight and two heads taller than she was.

  She was unmarried and lived in Falls Village, New York,
  with her sister Dorothy, a book illustrator.  Dorothy died in
  1980, Gertrude in March 1986. The executor of their estate
  ordered their house emptied.  Paintings and sculpture
  disappeared.

  But a couple of cub reporters for a nearby newspaper had
  a call that a lot of books and sculpture stuff had ended up at
  the local dump!  Armed with boots and pitchforks they
  moved the overburden until they found the remnants of the
  Lathrop possessions.  In the words of one of the reporters,
  Brigitte Ruthman, they found "old books, letters, art material
  and stuffed animals." The stuffed animals had served as models
  for both sisters' art work.

  They took what they could. "We found enough books over
  two days to fill the back of my 1986 Sabaru Brat twice,"
  Ruthman wrote, "and pile upon fetid pile of letters,
  published works, photographs and personal papers
  documenting more than a century of family history."

  They published two articles at the time.  Then received a call
  from the attorney for the executor.  They wanted back all the
  stuff they had originally ordered dumped!  If not they would
  sue.  Their own paper's lawyers suggested they return the
  material, which they did. Portions of this later sold at a
  Maryland auction.

  How useful this material would have been to another writer
  a decade later.  Anne F. Roberts of Albany is writing the
  history of the two Lathrop sisters."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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