Unearthing the past: Fanny Leiper's sketchbook
Piecing together a woman's life through her art and her son's records
The Reverend Dr. Frederick Thomas Brown married three times.
His second wife, Charlotte Ann White, had six children, two of whom died in infancy. The four children who survived and grew into adulthood were named Hubert William, Rebecca McClure, Charlotte Hays, and Mary Lanier. Mary Lanier Brown, daughter of Charlotte Ann White and Frederick Thomas Brown, married J. McCarrell Leiper on Aug.12, 1907, in Manasquan, New Jersey. Together, they welcomed Frederick McClure into the world.
But J. McCarrell Leiper had a few children of his own, from a previous marriage to a woman by the name of Fanny Heywood Smith. They are seen standing to the right of their father in the photo of the wedding party: a 16-year-old boy leaning against the porch banister, standing tall on the top step; below him, his 14- and 13-year-old brothers.
All this information is gleaned from a pen-drawn family lineage, created by Henry Smith, the eldest son of J. McCarrell and Fanny Smith Leiper, in 1955, when he was in his mid-60s. Henry Smith Leiper (1891-1975) was a missionary, minister, and leading figure in the development of the ecumenical movement. The family tree he drew is part of The Leiper Family Papers, which live in the archives of the Presbyterian Historical Society as Record Group 490. The collection includes photographs, audio, writings, and correspondence, most of which document the professional and personal life of Henry — but while sifting through the materials, PHS staff kept returning to the few items that spoke of Fanny, his beloved and lost mother.
Fanny and J — full name Joseph — were married on the fourth of December 1889, "at the residence of the bride’s father, Henry M. Smith, Worcester, Mass," according to their marriage certificate. They had three sons together. The eldest was Henry Smith, born in September 1891, then Bartram Galbraith in January 1893, and finally, their youngest, McCarrell Hudson, arriving in January 1894. The boys lost their mother a few years later, on January 17, 1896.
In the 1980s, a Leiper ancestor was set to the task of clearing out the attic. While doing so, they stumbled upon a plethora of history — notes and correspondence penned by J. McCarrell Leiper recounting details of his life, as well as a sketchbook that belonged to his first wife. The resulting compiled history is pages long; the title page features a sketch that was "probably by Fanny at Park Hill" and the title "Five Years in Indian Territory." This document was created by Henry Smith Leiper’s daughter, Juliet McCarrell Leiper Hall — who more often went by Carrell. On the inside page of Fanny's discovered sketchbook is a note that reads "1986 Property of Carrell Hall My grandmother Fanny Heywood Leiper."
Fanny and J served as missionaries in Oklahoma’s "Indian Territory" from 1889 to 1893. The documentation relating specifically to Fanny is scant — a few photographs with hand-written captions, photocopied prints of pages from a baby book, and a typewritten manuscript written by an ancestor in the late 20th century — but one item lives in the collection that is all Fanny.
Fanny's true nature and the way she saw the world can be found between the pages of her sketchbook, which has a cover decorated with images of Victorian dolls and bright patterns.
Using the remnants gathered and collected by her devoted son Henry and interpreted by his daughter Carrell, Fanny’s life story can be pieced together, the drawings hidden within her sketchbook serving to further illuminate her past so that we might see her more clearly.
In 1891, Fanny Heywood Smith Leiper and her husband of two years, Joseph "J" McCarrell Leiper, were expecting their first child. They’d met in July 1888 at a 10-day church conference in Northfield, Massachusetts; they were engaged by the end of the gathering.
In J. McCarrell’s autobiographical notes, discovered by his granddaughter Carrell in the attic at Park Hill, he recalls those 10 days with nostalgia and warmth: "Aug. 1888 at Northfield with Aunt Sarah and Mrs. Wisner of Warrick — East Hall — Mr. and Mrs. Henry S. Smith and daughter Fanny — mutual attraction — singing together in Chorus Choir in Storcc Hall where meetings were held. Bible study together — boating on the River — Groups at the Cottage — rivals for Miss Smith’s company — Piano — singing — watercolor work — walks, ten days Close intimate fellowship and discussing life plans. I saw her family, she my good Aunt Sarah. Mutual attraction, love, engagement! She laughingly remarked July 31st 1888 — the turning point."
After a brief period of separation during which Joseph began the mission work in Oklahoma and Fanny taught art at a private school in New Jersey, the two were wed at Fanny’s parents’ home in Worcester, Massachusetts, before settling at the Park Hill manse around Christmastime of 1889. Carrell writes, "I believe they arrived around December 14th, Fanny going straight to bed with a sick headache from going without eating. She and ... another teacher at the Park Hill school ... were in more delicate health ... spending more days in bed in the next months with colds and given castor oil."
Fanny and Joseph returned to the east coast to Bellmawr, New Jersey, in 1891, where Fanny gave birth to their first child in September. A page from a baby’s book preserved in the Leiper Family Papers collection tells of the child’s first outing, "The Weather being favorable this 13th Day of October." Fanny wrote, in the section titled "Notations by Mamma," that "Our baby was a borne traveller; before he was ten weeks old, he journeyed from Belmar N.J. to Worcester, Mass., thence to Lexington, Mass. and return, and to his Papa and house in Park Hill — ? Indian Territory. All these journeys he bore with the greatest composure, seemingly enjoying the motion of the cars, only objecting when the train stood still."
The baby would not be named until Dec. 27, when the name of Henry Smith Leiper "was bestowed upon our darling baby according to the rites and ceremonies of The Presbyterian Church." At the bottom of the naming certificate, someone has written two notes. The left corner says that "At 2 years our Baby called himself 'HAPPY PEEPER'," while the right says that, "At 3 years he was 'Henry Smif Leiper Engineer Harry Boy.'" Through these brief notations, we are offered glimpses of Fanny’s character and her adoration of her little boy. The sketches at the very end of Fanny’s art book depict scenes of the Jersey shore, the waves dotted with bathers, drawn while in Bellmawr in August of 1891 as she awaited Henry's arrival. The scenes in Bellmawr are the only colored art works in the sketchbook.
Trained as an art teacher at the Massachusetts Normal art school, Fanny gave art lessons in the mission schools and devotional chalk talks while at Park Hill. But in 1893, she fell ill, and the Leiper family moved back to Blauvelt, New York, where Joseph became pastor of the Greenbush Presbyterian Church in 1894.
Of this time, their granddaughter Carrell writes: "They served until about early June in 1883 before returning to Blauvelt, New York …However his wife, Fanny, was not physically strong. A doctor in Chicago in July of 1890 advised her not to spend the summers in the Territory. She could not stand the heat: she collapsed from the heat while trying to lead a ladies meeting and Maggie (Joseph's aunt) had to take over ... the doctor said Fanny had 'fallen womb' caused by too many long rides on horseback. She died at the parsonage in Blauvelt, New York, in January, 1896, of tuberculosis leaving three sons only about a year apart in age." Fanny is believed to have been in her mid-30s when she died, having been born in the early 1860s.
"I was told, as a child, that there are few pictures of Fanny that remain because her husband was so grief stricken at her death that he gave away her piano she had played in Indian Territory and destroyed most reminders of her," Carrell wrote. Though tragic to imagine such grief, this explains the gap in the materials. A decade after Fanny’s death, Joseph was wed to Mary Lanier Brown, and their wedding party was photographed clustered together on the front steps of a New Jersey home.
"I think it was difficult for the second wife to live in Blauvelt and be the pastor’s wife in a community where Fanny Leiper had been much loved and admired for her musical and artistic skills and was referred to as a 'true lady,'" Carrell Hall ventured, sharing a few more glimpses of Fanny's character. "It may have been for this reason that we never heard my grandfather talk about his memories of his years in Indian Territory." A life forgotten, a memory overshadowed by grief, brought once more to the surface.
A column in the Rockland County Journal, printed in Nyack, New York, on January 25, 1896, titled "Mrs. Leiper’s Funeral," offers many details about the commemoration of her life and further illustrates the influence she had on her community.
"The funeral services of Mrs. Fanny Smith, wife of the Rev. Joseph McCarroll Leiper, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Blauvelt, took place in that church on Tuesday afternoon …The church was filled with friends, many coming a long distance to pay the last tribute of respect to one so universally beloved … The Rev. Dr. McMillan, of New York, who is an intimate friend of the family, made the address and spoke in tender terms of the deceased," the columnist reported.
The year before, Dr. McMillan had traveled with Fanny and Joseph to Europe by boat. At her funeral, he shared "some experiences on shipboard. Mrs Leiper, who was then an invalid, drew around her many of the passengers by her cheerful disposition, and gave evidences of the fine artistic talent which she possessed … At one time particularly, said Dr. McMillan, she had about thirty children with her, and taking out a pencil, drew pictures for them. She made a true sketch of the face of one of the little ones, and the child took pride in showing it to all her friends …"
Fanny Heywood Smith Leiper was an artist, a teacher, a daughter, a wife, a mother, a friend — she contained multitudes and impacted many with her generosity and artistic talent, but her story had been lost to time as the decades passed and the memories of her faded. Thanks to a rediscovered sketchbook, the wisdom of the archive, and some historical research, Fanny has been found again, and brought back into the light.
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