Christmas with Maud Lewis by Lance Woolaver

Author:Lance Woolaver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2017-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

It was this letter which gave rise to the impression that President Richard Nixon had become interested in Maud’s paintings, as Harry and Bess Truman were in the works of Maud’s contemporary, Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses). Actually it was Whitaker who was Maud’s White House fan; he collected many of her works, and it was he who, at Maud’s death, asked Nixon to sign a sympathy card for Everett.

The Digby Courier’s report of the story has been reprinted many times. Both Maud and the Courier were very appreciative of the White House correspondence. Maud kept it on her painting bench, which was a little metallic TV tray, the kind of tray that was set up before the television in the 1950s to hold TV dinners. One Christmas Dr. Doug Lewis (no relation) of Digby, who had succeeded the elderly John McCleave as Maud’s faithful doctor, came out to visit the bronchitic Maud in Marshalltown. In those days, doctors like McCleave and Lewis made house calls. They were revered for this, and they drove big cars that could make it through any storm. Dr. Lewis noticed that Maud was keeping a letter on the tray. Thinking it might be a Christmas letter, he asked her what it was.

“That’s the letter from the White House,” Maud said.

Maud then told Dr. Lewis that Everett had insisted on payment from the White House before the paintings could be sent. Smiling, Maud gave the letter as a Christmas present to her doctor.

The saddest item in Maud’s correspondence came after her death, when Whitaker asked his President to sign a sympathy card, a little note of condolence, to send to Everett Lewis. It arrived within a few weeks of Maud’s passing, bearing the Presidential Seal, but it stayed unopened for months until I purchased it from Everett.

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