Mary Hadley Fletcher (1834-1922) was the mother of artist Harriet Foster Beecher and lived with Harriet and her family in Port Townsend. This photo of Fletcher, with a cat on her lap, was taken sometime before her daughter's death in 1915, as a corresponding photo of Harriet in the same location and pose, published in the book cited below, was likely taken at the same sitting.
Harriet Bell "Hattie" (Foster) Beecher (1854-1915) opened Seattle's first art studio in 1881, after moving from San Francisco with her husband Captain Herbert Foote Beecher (1854-1925). Paintings by Hattie and her students were shown in regional and national expositions, in particular San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, for which Hattie was the sole female among the five jurors for the Washington State Hall of Fine Arts. Hattie and three others were killed in a March 30, 1915, car accident on their way home from a meeting of the Washington Historical Society. Surviving Hattie were her husband, Herbert, and three children, Henry Ward Beecher (1883-1953), Mary Eunice Beecher (1884-1969), and Beatrice B. Beecher (1892-1972).
Caption information source: "Thomas Prosch, Virginia Prosch, Margaret Lenora Denny, and Harriet Foster Beecher die in a car accident on March 30, 1915," by Paula Becker, HistoryLink.org Essay 5574 Caption information source: Trenton, P. (1995). Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (p. 109)
ID Number: 1953.303.b
Date: Circa 1910
Physical Description: 1 photographic print : b&w ; 4 x 6 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
