My aunt, a Stanford University Campus 'queen', and direct descendant of Samuel Meeker's twin Phoebe Meeker

REMINDER--Samuel gifted his expensive/exquisite/illustrious Stuart portrait to his twin sister, all logical deductions point to the portrait being given to Phoebe on their 40ieth birthday.  It would have been the occasion for a ball given at their country estate, Fountain Green (click on link) on the Schuylkill river.  This would certainly not have been an ordinary birthday party! If these two could have looked down into the crystal ball and seen the future, they'd be proud.

My aunt Edelen (and my mom) are direct descendants of Phoebe Meeker 

Phoebe Meeker (1763-?) m. Job Brookfield

Mary Brookfield (1804- after 1856) m. John Ludlum Martin

Thomas Mulford Martin (1831-1917) m. Mary Ayers

Carrie Ayers Martin (1862-1937) m. Lewis Lincoln Cory (portrait brought to Ca) (click on link for a photograph of Carrie to view similarities to Samuel Meeker portrait)

Benjamin Hyde Cory (1896-1983) m. Susan Leavitt (my grandparents Susie and Pops) (click on link for a photograph of Ben to view similarities to Samuel Meeker portrait)

 Ben and Susie had two daughters

Edelen and Carolyn Cory (click on link for a photograph of mom) 

(My aunt and mom both graduated from Stanford University; 
currently Edelen lives in Menlo Park Ca and my mom in Santa Cruz Ca)

Lovely Edelen was voted campus queen at Stanford University in 1951. This photograph took up a full page in the yearbook, the "Stanford Quad 1951"

The icon to the left became politically incorrect.  How I remember it though!

Was she signing out for a date?

Happy moms day to Edelen and my mom Carolyn!

History of the ownership (PROVENANCE) of Mr. Meeker ...& lovely Edith, and a bit more of my own story

Edith (sister of my grandfather Ben Cory) moved back into the old Victorian in Fresno after my gt grandparents both were passed away, and she then by default was in possesion of Mr. Meeker. My first memory of the portrait was when it was with Edith but by then, unfortunately, the old Victorian which had taken up a block in downtown Fresno had been torn down and Edith was living on a farm in the nearby countryside, in Clovis. In her older age she was taken care of by two "Oakies." My mom told me that yes Edith did get married, but she had fallen out of a carriage and could not have children. (For the story of my first memory of the portrait click here.)

PROVENANCE with notes

•Given by the sitter Samuel Meeker to his twin Phebe Meeker (1763-1815) Phebe married 1) Cochran (merchant, first business partner of Samuel) and a second marriage to 2) Job Brookfield. [It can be presumed that the portrait was gifted, and not inherited, as Samuel lived many years longer than Phebe. At Phebe's death the portrait was in her posession and passed to...

•Daughter Mary Brookfield (1807-after 1856) m. John Ludlum Martin a physician in Rahway, NJ

•Son Thomas Mulford Martin (1831-1917) of Rahway NJ [a bookbinder, see his photo here]

•Oldest daughter Emma Martin of Princeton, NJ (lends portrait to Philadelphia Museum of Art, see sticker on back of painting regarding this) presumably upon her death the portrait goes to sister Carrie Martin Cory (1862-1938) & portrait is taken to California. Carrie is married to Lewis L. Cory of San Jose, Ca. Lewis Cory (Princeton and Columbia Law) was a prominent corporate litigation attorney in the city of Fresno, Ca. He argued cases before the US Supreme Court. [for a family photo of Carrie and her husband Lewis Lincoln Cory click here] Lewis was second son of Benjamin Cory, who traversed the plains (click here for his story and an original letter) in 1847 and was the first doctor in San Jose, Ca.

•Daughter of Carrie and Lewis (pictured at the top of the post), Edith Cory (1884-1976) (no issue)

•Niece Carolyn Elizabeth Cory (1928-) [daughter of Edith's brother Benjamin Hyde Cory (1896-1983) my grandfather]-Carolyn is my mother, {click here to see marriage photo} , who met my dad John Ahrens at Stanford University. They were married in the spring of '49 in Carmel, Ca.

•Daughter Elizabeth Ahrens-Kley (me); Santa Cruz, Ca. I married a German Willy Kley, now a professor of astrophysics at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. Our daughter Lily lives with me here in Santa Cruz. She is now applying to different Universities, Princeton will be one as that is where Pops (Benjamin Cory) and his dad (Lewis Cory) both graduated.

I have two brothers John and Paul, but neither were interested in the old portrait. Too bad for them, but lucky for me! ...and lucky for Samuel, for who knows where he could have ended up, without my research!! To discover an unknown Gilbert Stuart at this late date, how cool is that!

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For graphic of the family tree from Carrie to Samuel Meeker click here (note that the father is also a Samuel Meeker.)

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a striking resemblance, more than a mere coincidence?

Benjamin Hyde Cory (1896-1983) b. Fresno Ca, d. Menlo Park Ca

son of Carrie (Martin) & Lewis L. Cory

my grandfather, gg-grandson of Phebe Meeker, twin sister of the sitter Samuel Meeker

Note: the amazing resemblance in the shape of the chin, and particularly the mouth; the fullness of the lips, the dimple in the bottom lip, and slight lift in the upperlip under the left nostril.
What is also remarkable, is Stuart's ability to nail an almost photographic image...

Ben (1896-1983), 'Pops', was born in Fresno Ca to a family who attempted to establish east coast gentility in the heat of this inland farm town of Central California, which at one time had hopes to rival San Francisco in both size and culture. Pops was sent back east for his education at Groton, Princeton, and Harvard Law, and on vacations rather than making the difficult and lengthy trip back to Ca he would stay with the Jersey 'aunties', one of which (Emma), possessed the Meeker portrait (passed down from parents Thomas and Mary, see family tree below--NOTE, the Samuel Meeker in the portrait is the twin brother of Phebe Meeker, and not the father who is also a Samuel Meeker). Without children, the portrait passed from Emma to sister Carrie, my great grandmother. This is when (year unknown) the portrait was successfully transplanted from Princeton New Jersey to the sunny soils of California.
Carrie and Lewis (the first lawyer in Fresno, he argued in front of the US Supreme Court on Ca water issues) lived a life of richesse in a large Victorian house located in what is now downtown Fresno. The household staff included butler & cook (married), chauffeur ''Cooey' (lived above the garage), 2 gardeners, upstairs maid; fresh flowers were brought in every day. The 3 story house comprised the basement (washing & ironing room), first floor (foyer, living room, parlor, dining room, breakfast room, sewing room, large kitchen), second floor (bedrooms), and third floor (servants' quarters.) My mom remembers being mostly confined to eating in the breakfast room, and during formal dining, children were to be 'seen and not heard'. A veranda encircled the house, providing shade and breeze to the residents. In the foyer there were Asian artifacts, signalling international travels. One trip to China, according to family lore, was taken to separate Pop's sister Margaret from her infatuation with a baseball player when both were attending Stanford University. The Gilbert Stuart (by this time thought to be by Peale) portrait of Samuel Meeker most likely hung in the parlor. Many years later, when Pops moved in with my parents after the death of my grandmother Susie, he asked that mom should hang "the old gentleman". Thus we can deduce he did not know the name of the sitter, most likely not even his mother Carrie bothered to look at the family-tree book which accompanied the portrait, that Emma compiled (pictured below.) I know that Emma must have done the research in the book, for she mispelled the name 'Cory.' Without Emma's interest in ancestry, identification of the sitter would more than likely, surely, have been lost forever.
In any case, she however did mistakenly presume that the sitter was the father of Phebe, and not the brother. Without my interest in ancestry, the identity of the sitter would have been also lost! I have taken up from where Emma left off, I thank her gratefully for having compiled the family-tree book which filled in so many blanks, and have deepened the research into precisely who Samuel Meeker was.


Epilogue; after the deaths of Lewis and Carrie, Pop's sister Edith continued to live in the family Victorian, but later sold the house, which was torn down and replaced with commercial properties, and moved with all proceeds, belongings and furnishings to the neighboring farm town of Clovis. Upon her death, my mother inherited some silver and jewelry, and the Portrait. The rest went to, as Susie (my grandmother) derisively called the care-taker couple, THE OAKIES.

How do I know my portrait "Samuel Meeker" is authentic, without...

detail collar

George Thomas John Nugent; 1789-90 by Gilbert Stuart; UCLA Hammer Museum Los Angeles

a signature, or date!

An unsigned/undated painting? ...The Portrait had neither. Allowing my family members to consider the portrait of Samuel Meeker to be a quaint, old-fashioned piece of nonsense that my mother's dog barked at, taking second place (in my mom's tiny sitting room) to the Japanese gold-blocked screen above the antique Japanese tonsu (in the living room).

This is the reason that Samuel Meeker was so easily misattributed, somewhere along the line by a family member, to the wrong painter. It is a reason for why it took me so long to figure out the identity of the artist. But as it turns out, the very fact that there is NO signature on the painting, is a piece of evidence that it WAS painted by Gilbert Stuart. Because in fact he rarely signed/dated his work. "When asked why he did not put his name or initials, to mark his pictures, he said 'I mark them all over.' " from William Dunlap. Gilbert Stuart was so self-confident that he simply felt that his work needed no signature, the evidence was drawn all over the work!

However, a signature is not enough. Naturally a signature can be forged. More evidence to follow, stay tuned!

Sometimes Gilbert Stuart included his signature, mostly in a whimsical fashion. In the above image, his signature can be found on the dog's collar!... a 'g' followed by "Stuart"...

I quote info about the above portrait of George Nugent from Gilbert Stuart Barratt and Miles p 91, cause it is a fun read; "George Thomas John Nugent was born July 17, 1785, and his costume suggests that he was about five when he sat for Stuart. He wears a modified skeleton suit, the outfit designed for a young fellow recently breeched from his petticoats but not yet of age to wear proper gentlemen's clothing. His fall-front knee breeches of cream-colored silk with red topstiching button over the lower edge of his scarlet jacket, making a one-piece suit in reasonable facsimile of adult style. The linen shirt, with knife-pleated frilled muslin collar was at the hight of fashion, worn open and spread wide over the coat. To top it off, Stuart's tiny subject wears an enormous black hat, of the so-called Gainsborough or Marlborough type, with large crown and wide brim made of taffeta or beaver, and trimmed with ostrich plumes. The style derived from French ladies' riding hats of the 1770s and came into vogue for children in England during the 1780s."

The little boy, BTW is holding a cloth, because the Newfoundland breed drools a lot.

March 1, 2009

Today is my Mom's Birthday, she turns 81. The family celebrated yesterday, and afterwards lovely Lily and I went over to my cousin Craig's to visit with family in San Francisco. There we talked, walked in Golden Gate park, and, then, well, I felt like Sir Joshua Reynolds--the Royal Academy president and principal painter to King George III, who sat for Stuart in 1784, when he was 61. To quote a description of this portrait from the book Gilbert Stuart by Barratt & Miles: "he [Joshua] is aged, weak in the jaw, obviously deaf, and shown without allusion to his profession. ...Sir Joshua rejected the image, protesting that ‘if [Stuart's portrait] was like him, he did not know his own appearance!’ ” Yet despite being discouraged with the piercing accuracy of Stuart's portrayal, it seems that this did not prevent Reynolds from later recommending Stuart to other customers, and from Gilbert Stuart... "On the contrary, the picture endeared Stuart to Reynolds."

But back to my mom for the moment. She is pictured above at her marriage in Carmel, Ca April 1949... Pops is behind her; who many years later lived with my parents before passing away, and because of his request, the Portrait was hung in my mom's small sitting room. These two are direct descendents of Phebe Meeker, twin sister of the sitter. Pop's mother Carrie brought the Portrait from New Jersey to California. Nowadays mom is healthy, reasonably wealthy, and certainly wise, and we had a great Mexican feast to celebrate.
Here is a small bio she wrote for the Senior complex where she now happily resides;
My name is Carolyn [Cory] Ahrens, and I’m a native Californian going back three generations. I was brought up in Carmel, attended Carmel High, UC Berkeley, and graduated from Stanford in 1949. There I met my late husband John, and we had three children before moving to Asia because of John’s job with Bank of Anerica. We lived a total of 17 years in Tokyo, Ashiya, Bangkok, Bombay, and Manila. I very much enjoyed exploring new cultures, making new friends, and travelling throughout Asia and Europe. After we returned, we settled in Menlo Park, and about a year ago I moved to Santa Cruz where all my children, and grandchildren are presently living. I enjoy family, bridge, reading, and taking walks with my dog Sophie.

Sketch by Craig Marshall, Feb 28, 2009

to continue: After the birthday lunch Lily and I went to Craig's, and my artist cousin proceeded to oblige me with a demonstration of his incredible talent. And I was obliged to reflect on how Sir Joshua Reynolds felt when he saw his portrait. My thoughts were ............I can relate !.....

What has happened to the lovely lushness of YOUTH ?
But, the sketch also has something super endearing about it.
I will frame it~

A first memory of the Portrait

I have a first, vague memory of seeing the Portrait. Back in the 1960ies, my family must have visited Aunt Edith, sister of my mom’s father Ben Cory, on a sunny day in Clovis California; she moved there after selling the huge Victorian Cory family house in Fresno. She ushered us into a large room, there was a piano, she pointed to the Portrait and told mom she would inherit it ‘and some silver’. I suppose everyone would have been more pleased if something more “substantial” had been indicated.
Fast forward to 1979. Mom and Dad returned from Bombay India and settled in Menlo Park California. Within months Ben (mom’s father) had moved in. My grandmother Susie had passed away, Edith was long deceased, and Pops was alone in Carmel. Soon enough Pops asked Mom if she would please hang the “old gentleman.”
The Portrait was unwrapped and saw the light of day after several years, and thereby really for the first time, the portrait became known to my family; but his identity was unknown, the artist was said (by the family) to be Peale (who?), and no one really cared about the old-fashioned quirky portrait except for Pops. I figure it brought memories of his childhood in Fresno, when the portrait hung in the Victorian. Probably in the parlor.
Hanging in the tiny sitting room, the Portrait was not my mother’s typical décor, which consisted mainly of unusual and prized Japanese art— 3 antique gold-leafed screens, two Tansu chests, a fine bronze sculpture of a lion, vases, netsuke….my father John had been born in Kobe Japan, his father took the family there in the 30s because of the Japanese green tea business. My own family had lived in Tokyo and Ashiya from 1962-67.
In Menlo Park the Portrait caused little excitement over the years. I married and moved to Germany. We would all laugh when mom’s dog Sophie would sometimes bark up at Samuel in the light of dusk.
When I returned to the USA in 2004, I began to research family lines, the Portrait, and the identity of the artist. Time-lines for Peale worked in the beginning, but as I identified the sitter more precisely and studied the different artists, I realized that Samuel Meeker had been painted by no other than….Gilbert Stuart.

From my cousin Craig Marshall, artist and teacher of illustration at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco 2/10/09:
Beth! The blog is way cool! Do you know that I have ALWAYS felt deep down that the portrait of Samuel Meeker by Gilbert Stuart reminded me of the Cory side of your family! This is totally amazing. Thank you for confirming what has been at the back of my mind for many years. I have always admired Stuart's skill. You are quite the sleuth. This could be a start to a new profession; lineage tracing to famous and not so famous paintings. …..