Mary "Minnie" Eliot, Woodward Patron and Benefactor

RECOGNITION AND REWARD: Flirting with New York

There may not be an individual more critical to Woodward's professional career survival and ultimate success than Mary "Minnie" (Clark) Eliot. In fact, she appears to be the epicenter of his network of prominent clients. She is best known to us for leading the fundraising effort that brought Woodward from California to Boston to attend the Museum of Fine Art School in 1910. She appears again in 1925 when a committee was organized to raise funds to aid Woodward as he neared financial ruin 3 years after his tragic Redgate fire. However, upon further examination of her life, we discover that Minnie and (by proxy) her husband Amory Eliot may have had a greater involvement in Woodward's career than previously realized.

Minnie and/or her husband, Amory, can be directly linked to a number of Woodward's book plate clients and his patron-saint, Mrs. Ada Small Moore, who took over the torch for Minnie as well as the cost of Woodward's medical care through a trust sometime around the mid-1920s. Minnie could also be linked to Woodward's "coronation" to the Boston art world through his first One Man Showing held on the 2nd floor Longfellow House owned by Ronald T. Lyman, as well as, the buyer of the first painting from that exhibition, John Spaulding.

The 1926 Lyman Exhibition kick-started a stalled career-launching him on the wave of the newly minted American Art Scene Movement (1925 -1940) that would bring him his greatest success and notoriety. Either she or her husband Amory had direct links to most of those listed or peripheral connections.

You could almost say Minnie was Woodward's first agent. She is the Sun in Woodward's solar system and without a doubt the single most important benfactor in Woodward's life. His connections to such high profile clients and customers can be almost entirely attributed to her with the exception of Mrs. Josephine Everett who Woodward most likely got to know through his father.

After Ada Moore enters the picture in the mid-1920s, Minnie kind of fades away and not much more is heard from her but there is no denying her impact on Woodward's life and career. It could be argued that without Minnie Eliot Woodward may not have had a career. Or at least not one that resembles the one he had.

A HOMECOMING: Woodward's Welcome

Mary "Minnie" Clark was born in Brookline, MA in 1958 to parents Henry Augustus Clark and Lydia Wilkenson Sumner. Her father previously a book and stationery dealer, and owner of the American Tablet Company, manufacturer of "Griswold's Patent Erasable Tablets," was treasurer of the Eastern Electric Cable Company. On December 7, 1881, Mary married Trust Attorney Amory Eliot (1856 - 1943). The two lived in Brookline where their first three children were born -- daughter Lydia (1883), and twins Samuel and Mary (1887). They moved to 185 Beacon Street, Boston, MA in 1894 and welcomed their last child, daughter Rosamond (1895). Mary's parents around the same time purchased 103 Beacon Street and moved to Boston around the same time.

For the longest time, we only knew Mrs. Eliot by her nickname, "Minnie". Woodward mentions her and her involvement in a letter to friend Helen Ives Schermerhorn. Then many years after his death, Woodward's friend Lawrence Lunt's son, delivers to this website's founder Mark Purinton a parting letter from Lawrence, about his relationship with Woodward, before his death. Both Woodward and Lawrence use only her nickname to reference her. The two also make it a point to say that Minnie was a cousin to both Lunt and Woodward's friend and classmate at the Bradley Polytechnic Institute in Peoria, IL, Joseph Cowell.

The way it is phrased in both accounts suggests to us that both young men were related to her but not each other (meaning blood relation). We have been able to confirm through ancestry.com that Cowell is a descendant of the Wilkenson family line, Mary's mother's lineage. However, the Lunt relationship remains a mystery. Lawrence Lunt's lineage can be traced back to 1633 and the Massachusett's Bay Colony as does the Eliot family line. There is all kinds of inter-mingling of families going back that far. Tracing relationships through maternal lineage is the most difficult and the tree is simply too large for our investigation. We can say that Lawrence Lunt's mother's maiden name, "Issacs" does appear also in the Sumner family line which does have a link to the Wilkenson line. So we believe both young men are related through Mary's side of the family, though Lawrence's is less clear. Our trouble with this is that Lawrence, in his letter to Mark, states, [Minnie] accepted me into her home as a son, my second home." This to us suggests an intimacy that is closer than several generations of relations removed.

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GIVING THANKS: Woodward Honors Boston

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HAPPILY MARRIED: The Vose Gallery

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