Eleanor Douglass, Artist, Potter, Violinist, Author

It is always exciting for me when an article that I have written engenders more feedback than usual. I have really caught my readers’ interest. They write to give me additional information, or to correct my errors or assumptions and I love the two-way communication.

Since I sent out the January 2006 issue of the Digest, I have received several communications related to Eleanor Douglass.

Jennie Trerise sent me the address of a website about Roycroft Pottery that mentioned Eleanor Douglass, so I shot off a query to the owner of that site. Janice McDuffie, in researching the early history of Roycroft pottery, learned that Carl Ahrens and Eleanor Douglass had used a potter’s wheel on the Roycroft campus in the year 1900. Eleanor evidently sold some the pottery that she made along with her paintings at a 1902 exhibition. By 1904, however, pottery was dropped at Roycroft. Ms. McDuffie has had a pottery workshop, the only working studio on the original Roycroft campus, since 1972.

That contact with Ms. McDuffie led me to Kim Bullock, who is writing a book about Carl Ahrens. I learned that Carl Ahrens was a second cousin to Eleanor, on her mother’s (Gaukel) side. We exchanged genealogy information. Emmanuel Gaukel who ran a trading post on the Saugeen Reservation near Southampton, Ontario, was not only Eleanor’s maternal grandfather; he was Carl’s great-uncle. Kim has done a wonderful job of researching her great grandfather Carl and has collected a gallery of his paintings that you can see on her site: http://www.carlahrens.com/ahrenssite_001.htm

Kim sent me a copy of a clipping from a Toronto newspaper of August 29, 1896. Under “Saturday Night”:

“The Ontario Government has recently purchased Mr. Carl Ahrens’ Ripe Corn Time to hang in the Parliament Buildings. That artist and his family are still camping at Southampton and do not expect to return to Toronto before October; they are enjoying their free life there immensely. Mr. Ahrens and Miss Eleanor Douglas, along with Mrs. Coxe of Cobourg, have been hard at work sketching, so we shall expect no end of good things in the future. One of them writes, “Morning, afternoon and sunset find us plodding away, and through all the heat we have lost no time; the subject matter here is very much better than in any place we have ever been.” They seem to be on the friendliest terms with the Chief there, have all received Indian names, and are learning all sorts of Indian industries from their friendly neighbors.”

After seeing all of the images of Carl’s paintings on Kim’s website, I thought how wonderful it would be if we had a gallery of Eleanor’s pictures, at least the ones that we know hang in our family homes. This could be a project for someone with a good digital camera and an appreciation for art. If anyone is interested in taking on this project, I would be most happy to put the gallery on my website.

Kim referred me to Jill, a Ph.D. student at Buffalo, who is writing her thesis about Roycroft women, and is doing a chapter on Eleanor, which she promises to share with me when she is finished. Jill has been in touch with Thornton and Mariann Douglass.

Mariann also wrote to tell me that Eleanor was not only an artist, canoeist and horsewoman, but a violinist, potter and author. She was obviously a many-talented woman.