#1 Post ~ 2023 “MacNeil~Brooks” Month

 ‘MacNeil Month’ becomes ‘MacNeil~Brooks Month’ in 2023

Hermon A MacNeil about 1895

Carol ‘Carrie’ Brooks about 1895

Each February is MacNeil Month.This year it is MacNeil~Brooks Month

<- Two Sculptors made a young looking pair ->

From their first meeting at the

Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893,

to the Eagles Nest**

[a summer artist colony in Oregon, Illinois.] 

then the Reinhart Award of 1895;

Hermon and Carrie knew what they wanted next.   So…

Hermon MacNeil and Carol ‘Carrie’ Brooks

were married on Christmas Day 1895.

Here’s Hermon and Carrie nestled with some visiting MacNeils.

Left to right: Hermon, Carrie, Alice MacNeil (Hermon’s sister), Wilbur MacNeil (Hermon’s younger Brother), and Elizabeth Louisa Barlow (Wilbur’s wife). The child is Claude (son of Hermon and Carrie.  Location: Side porch of MacNeil home at College Point, N.Y.  [Credit: Photo courtesy of James Haas, MacNeil biographer].

Our first MacNeil-Brooks Month photo for 2023 comes to us courtesy of:

James Haas, Hermon MacNeil biographer ==>

Jim dates the photo above as 1903. After identifying Hermon, Carrie, and Alice, he adds:

“The child sitting on his (Wilbur’s) lap is probably his nephew Claude, born in France in 1900. The woman to his left is Elizabeth Barlow who Wilbur had married in California in 1901. After earning a Master’s degree in Agriculture at Cornell where Hermon had taught, he moved to California to teach science in Petaluma high school. There he met and married Elizabeth Louisa Barlow a teacher in the Petaluma elementary school. In 1903 they left California for Honolulu; the photo likely taken prior to their departure.  For the rest of his life Wilbur taught science at Oahu College later called Punahou School. During a visit in 1911, Hermon modeled a portrait bust of Elizabeth Barlow found on page 162 in Hermon Atkins MacNeil: American Sculptor in the Broad, Bright Daylight. During the visit, Hermon gave Wilbur a tour of the Poppenhusen Institute. He admired the building’s architecture, looked in on classes and was introduced to school head John Gyger Embree as well as faculty members and other Institute Trustees. Wilbur died in 1937, a highly regarded educator. The couple had no children.

Then Jim adds a 21st Century surprise:

a MacNeil ~ Obama connection!

If Punahou School sounds familiar, it was from this school that Barack Obama graduated.

Barack Obama    (Class of ’79) was the 44th President of the United States. He attended Punahou from 5th grade until graduation. (’79), Harvard Law Review editor, U Chicago lecturer on Constitutional Law, Nobel, Grammy and Emmy winner, author, state basketball champion, US Senator, Elected 44th US President in 2008 and 2012.

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SOURCE:  Brooklyn Daily Star, March 15,1911 [Courtesy of James Haas]

Wilbur MacNeil also visited

his brother Hermon in 1911.

Wilbur MacNeil toured the Poppenhusen Institute in College Point, Queens, NYC.  (See news clipping)

Wilbur MacNeil was a distinguished visitor touring the Institute.  He was escorted by two trustees of the Institute, namely, Dr. Hugh Gray and Hermon MacNeil (Wilbur’s older brother)

Jim Haas adds that “Dr. Hugh Gray was a physician in College Point between 1905 and 1915.  His wife Geretrude was the daughter of Hermon Pratt, whoise sister was Mary Lash Pratt MacNeil.”

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