Fun Detour - Artist Adele Hepbron

Oneida Bay by Adele Hepbron, AWS

On my wall hangs a painting that transports me to a summer view from the shore of Oneida Bay (also known as Van Buren Bay) off Lake George with the mountains in the distance. The scene includes a stone fence, a grove of birch trees, a rowboat docked at a small pier, and a couple narrow pieces of wooded land extending into the water. While the focus is on the foreground, your eye is drawn out to the Lake and the mountains in the distance so much so that the obstructions to the view of the Lake and mountain beckons you to come explore and make use of the boat at the pier.

Last fall, Aunt Reeda was taking strides to downsize her possessions. When she was visiting Silver Bay, she had acquired two paintings by Adele Hepbron, who taught watercolor painting there. She first came to Silver Bay with her parents in 1902. After graduating from high school, she studied art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and became an art teacher at Summit High School in Summit, New Jersey. Beginning in 1944, she returned to Silver Bay to teach daily classes in watercolor painting. Hepbron painted a variety of landscapes, and the Silver Bay Association also published her works on greeting cards. Hepbron was a proud member of the American Watercolor Society and added the letters “AWS” after her signature. While never recalling meeting Hepbron, Aunt Reeda enjoyed the local landscapes and purchased the paintings at showings at Silver Bay. Having shared our Lake George experience that I shared in my recent blog post, I claimed the two paintings.

Helen Hughes Memorial Chapel by Adele Hepbron, AWS

I mentioned the first painting of Oneida Bay in the introduction. The other painting is of the Helen Hughes Memorial Chapel at Silver Bay. The Chapel is a large stone structure with an entryway offset to the right of the larger meeting hall with a round window at the top. The painting shows the Chapel as a true sanctuary imbedded in the woods with an inviting meadow-like lawn before the entryway. The scene sets the Chapel in isolation in a view without any sign of humans, not even a path leading to the entrance.

The chapel was built in memory of Helen Hughes, who was the daughter of Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), Governor of New York, U.S. Secretary of State, and the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She died in 1920 at the age of 28. Her colleagues at YWCA and fellow alumnae of Vassar helped raise the money to build the chapel. By the time it was completed, $20,000 was raised from many including President Warren G. Harding and John D. Rockefeller. 

Aunt Reeda remembers the chapel fondly because it had an M.P. Moller Pipe Organ in it that was built in Hagerstown, MD.  Moller organs are located at West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy, as well as St. Paul the Apostle Church in New York and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. These pipe organs have been celebrated by organists for generations.  Aunt Reeda appreciated and enjoyed sharing the connection between Silver Bay and her home.

These paintings remind me of a different side of my aunt that was seeking nature, relaxation, and revitalization at Silver Bay, rather than the fast-paced life of New York City and Washington, DC.