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• 1 2019-10-03T17:20:38-04:00 Fanny Sitwell 8 plain 2019-10-03T17:35:25-04:00 “My wife [Fanny] reminds me of an incident in point, from the youthful time when he used to make her the chief confidante to his troubles and touchstone of his tastes. One day he came to her with an early [. . .] volume of poems by Mr Robert Bridges, the present poet-laureate, in his hand; declared here was the most wonderful new genius, and enthusiastically read out to her some of the contents in evidence; till becoming aware that they were being coolly received, he leapt up crying, ‘My God! I believe you don’t like them’ – and flung the book across the room and himself out of the house in a paroxysm of disappointment – to return a few hours later and beg pardon humbly for his misbehaviour. But for some time afterwards, whenever he desired her judgement on work of his own or others, he would begin by bargaining: You won’t Bridges me this time, will you?”
  (Sidney Colvin, Memories and Notes of Persons and Places, 1851-1912 [London: E. Arnold, 1912], pp. 122-23)
• 1 2020-02-12T19:28:25-05:00 Fanny Stevenson 4 plain 2020-02-12T19:36:42-05:00
  Fanny Vandegrift was born in Indianapolis, the daughter of builder Jacob Vandegrift, and his wife Esther Thomas Keen. She was something of a tomboy, and had dark curly hair. At the age of seventeen she married Samuel Osbourne, a lieutenant on the State Governor's staff. Their daughter Isobel (or 'Belle') was born the following year.
  
  Samuel fought in the American Civil War, went with a friend sick with tuberculosis to California, and via San Francisco, he ended up in the silver mines of Nevada. Once settled there he sent for his family. Fanny and the five-year-old Isobel made the long journey via New York, the isthmus of Panama, San Francisco, and finally by wagons and stage-coach to the mining camps of the Reese River, and the town of Austin in Lander County. Life was difficult in the mining town, and there were few women around. Fanny learned to shoot a pistol and to roll her own cigarettes.
  
  The family moved to Virginia City, Nevada and it was whilst living here that Samuel began to be unfaithful to Fanny. In 1866 he headed off gold prospecting in the Coeur d'Alene Mountains, and Fanny and her daughter journeyed to San Francisco. There was a rumour that Sam had been killed by a grizzly bear, but he returned to the family safe, and a second child Samuel Lloyd was born in 1868. But Samuel continued philandering and Fanny returned to Indianapolis.
  
  The couple were reconciled again in 1869, and lived in Oakland where a second son, Hervey, was born. Fanny took up painting and gardening. However, Sam's behaviour did not improve, and Fanny finally left him in 1875 and moved with her three children to Europe. They lived in Antwerp for three months, and then to allow Fanny to study art, they moved to Paris where Fanny and Isobel both enrolled in the Académie Julian. Hervey, sick with scrofulous tuberculosis, died on 5 April 1876, and was buried in a temporary grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery.