Born: July 7, 1861, Monson, Massachusetts
Died: June 10, 1919
Relation to Author: 2nd Great Grandmother In-Law
The large oil painting pictured above hangs in the dining room in the house my wife grew up in. The oil painting is from 1909 and is of Ella Eudocia Flynt. I have had trouble remembering her name, maybe because it is often a name without context. So here is some context.
Ella Eudocia Flynt is my wife's 2nd great grandmother and the maternal grandmother of John Ballard Blake. Her parents were William Norcross Flynt (1818-1895) and Eudocia Carter Converse (married name Flynt, 1822-1906).
She was born in Monson, Massachusetts in 1861 - the year the American Civil War began. This means that she was 48 when she sat for the painting. And she died in 1919, just as World War I was ending, at the relatively young age of 57.
The 1880 census has her as a student in Northampton, Massachusetts (30ish miles northwest of Monson). My first guess was that she was attending Smith College. This was confirmed by a quick Google search, which turned up an Annual Register of the Alumni Association of Smith College with Ella's name listed. She attended Smith nine years after it was chartered and five years after it opened its doors. The census record has 56 people listed, four or five of which are likely teachers. Wikipedia says that when Smith opened in 1875 there were 14 students and six faculty.
Ella married William Child Dewey on October 3, 1883 (age 22) in Monson, Massachusetts. The alumni association book from 1917 says she was living at 236 Union Street in Springfield, Massachusetts (the 1910 census has the family at 240 Union Street in Springfield).
I don't know where Ella died. In 1910 and 1917 she was living in Springfield, Massachusetts. But in 1920, her widower William Dewey was living in Manhattan (at 105 East 15th Street). It is unclear whether they had both moved to Manhattan or whether he went there alone after her death.
I also don't know where she sat for the painting. I cannot find her or William Dewey in the 1900 census. We might guess that she was in Springfield in 1909 as she was in 1910 and 1917, but I don't want to assume that.
