What a wonderful honor!

I'm familiar with Willem de Kooning but never knew his wife was an artist too.
And Emmylou Harris comes to my mind as well.

Extremely politically active, knew the whole Minnesota Democratic Mafia since 1948, when she became an early and very active fundraiser for Hubert Humphrey's first campaign for the US Senate. She was also a supporter of modern artists of her day. One of them, a painter and sculptor from southern Switzerland became somewhat famous later on. I remember two of his bronze sculptures in her apartment in New York.

My cousin wanted to keep one of them when she passed away, but his parents couldn't afford the $8000 inheritance tax they would have had to pay to keep it (this was 1966). They would have had to pay 50% of the assessed value of $16,000, and that was more than they (or any of us) could afford at the time. The artist's name was Alberto Giacometti, and that same bronze later showed up in a Christie's auction in New York in 2007, with my grandmother's name attached to the provenance, and it sold for $4,000,000 !!! My poor cousin!

You never cease to surprise me, always in impressive ways.

So many interesting and intelligent people on DU, but you, your history, contacts, and family are extraordinary.

Thanks for sharing, DFW.

She was the daughter of a Jewish immigrant from what is today Slovakia and a woman of Russian background (also with white hair at age 20) who came off the boat as an infant in 1878. Her mom, who did not smoke, invited me to join her for lunch in London on my first trip to Europe in 1968, as our schedules coincided.

My great-grandmother was quite a character too. I had never been to London, so I had no idea what I was in for. She told me the name of her hotel, and having no clue, just went in my blue jeans (I was 16 and staying in a student hostel, what did I know about London?) to her hotel to look for her. I had to get through a barrage of uniformed, white-gloved, VERY skeptical butlers and liveried receptionists before I found her. She was staying at one of these elegant places that ordinary mortals just do NOT show up at. Only when the upturned noses had confirmed that she was indeed expecting me, did they finally say "this way, plee-ahz, sah," and lead me to the part of the hotel where she was having lunch. I guess if you're 88, in good health, and can afford it, hey, why not? She outlived her daughter, my grandmother, by nearly a decade.

My grandmother and her husband both smoked heavily, and I lost them both to heart attacks before they ever got to age 70. When I think of what they had accomplished by then in their lives, I feel really, REALLY small.

I really enjoy all your stories.

Thank you!

What a wonderful surprise! She was certainly beautiful. And I imagine, smart to boot.

She certainly contributed to our history.

My sister describes her as "fierce." The man she married, my paternal grandfather, was the son of a poor tailor from Charleston, South Carolina. He somehow got to Harvard and worked his way through as a janitor. After a stint as Deputy Mayor of New York City, he ended up on the New York State Supreme Court. I wasn't at his funeral, but my dad told me there were literally hundreds of people there who said they were there because of my grandfather's fairness as a judge. I was ten when we lost him, so I never really knew him well.

Cigarettes took them both (heart attacks) before either of them reached the age of 70--one of the reasons my father quit early, and my generation never started.