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Oct 5, 1965

Daughter of Famous Painter Visiting City

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of some four or five years, which grew out of the latter's admiration for the work of Mr. Brush and her desire to know more about it and him. An amateur painter herself, Mrs. Cogswell has a fine appreciation of art and has joined with other local citizens in a continuing effort to bring to Shelbyville a greater knowledge of the genius of her native son. To introduce children to the beauty of his work, the art committee of the Parent-Teacher Association was instrumental in having a copy of "In The Garden" placed in each of five elementary schools of the city. The original of this picture hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and is one of three of his paintings owned by this institution.

Although it is next to impossible to acquire an original now, as neither museums nor private owners are anxious to part with one, it has been suggested that such an effort be made and, if successful, that the picture be displayed where both Tennesseans and visitors to the state could enjoy it.

George de Forest Brush was born here September 28, 1855, in a red brick cottage which faced Elm Street on the corner of Norton, with a small grove of cedars around it. It made an appropriate setting for the arrival of an artist.

Somewhat earlier, his father, Alfred Clark Brush, had bought property here, as is shown by the index of deeds in the Register's Office. Unfortunately it is not possible to say with certainty that his purchase was the home in which his son was born, for the book containing the deed itself was one of those lost in the fire which destroyed the courthouse in 1863. But the logical assumption is that this is so.

The Brushes moved from Shelbyville while George was still a baby but he once wrote that "Shelbyville" was one of the first words his mother taught him to say, and that she must have spent happy days here.

Of an artistic temperament herself, Mrs. Brush encouraged the tendency in her son and her influence remained with him all his life, even though she died when he was still in his teens. He never ceased to hold her memory dear--so dear, that he gave one of his daughters her name "Nancy Douglas." And it is this daughter who is here today to see the town where he was born.

Shelbyville has changed in the last century, of course. But today's courthouse stands in the same spot as the one where Alfred Brush went to register the deeds to his property; there is still a drug store--Brantley's--where the Deery and Evans Drug Store was, with the Brush dentistry office on the second floor; there is the same church, the 1st Presbyterian Church, where he was a member; and a town bridge spans Duck River from the bluff on this side to lower ground on the other, just about as one did then. 

There have been many laudatory articles written about the world of George de Forest Brush. Recognition came to him early for he was only twenty-eight when his pictures of Indian life in the West drew public notice and acclaim. Honors followed honors throughout his nearly eighty-six years and his fame is even greater today. 

Mrs. Bowditch comes here as the daughter of her father but those who have met her welcome her also as a woman of charm and distinction in her own right. 

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Daughter of Famous Painter Visiting City
first page

By MRS. AMIE McGREW
GUEST WRITER

Shelbyville is the focal point this week of a "sentimental journey" made by a daughter of George de Forest Brush, the noted American painter who was born here nearly a hundred and ten years ago. Mrs. Harold Bowditch of Peterborough, N. H., who is writing a biography of her illustrious father, is fulfilling a long-felt desire in visiting his birthplace.  

Mrs. Bowditch is a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Cogswell in the Presbyterian Manse. She and Mrs. Cogswell became friends through a correspondence

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Bell Buckle residents go to the polls tomorrow to elect a mayor and four aldermen. 

Incumbent Mayor Anderson Joyce is seeking a sixth term of office and three aldermen are up for re-election. a fourth aldermanic seat, left vacant when an alderman moved, will also be filled.

All candidates are running unopposed. 

Aldermen up for re-election are Albert Phillips, C. M. Hatchett and Parker Sain. Fred Wolfe is seeking the one-year unexpired term of Clarence Tally who moved to Shelbyville.