Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett (1890-1977)

October is the month for weekend drives to see leaves change to their autumn colors. Now, an artist who drew pictures of leaves:

Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett was born on June 29, 1890, in Seymour, Indiana. Her real name was Joan Ellsworth Bartlett; her nickname may have come in honor of her aunt, Minnie Bartlett EuDaly (1867-1944). Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett's father, John E. Bartlett (1862-1940), was a well-admired artist and sign painter in his hometown and in southern Indiana. Minnie's mother, Rhoda Marie (Coulborn) Bartlett (1861-1922), died of pneumonia when she was still quite young. The Bartletts and related families were prominent in the civic life of Seymour.

Minnie Bartlett carried on in her father's mix of art and business. The first notice I have of her work is for cartoons she drew for a log-rolling and carnival in Seymour in 1905. These were displayed in the window of Cox Pharmacy when she was just fifteen years old. One was of Kin Hubbard's famed Abe Martin character from the Indianapolis News.

Minnie Bartlett graduated in 1907 from Seymour High School, an edifice surrounded by trees and once bordering a tract of forestland. From 1909 to 1911, she studied at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis where her instructors were Clifton Wheeler, Otto Stark, and William Forsyth. In her last year at Herron, Minnie had her art on display in a student exhibit at Herron. More importantly, she landed a plum assignment to provide 133 illustrations for the Eleventh Annual Report of the State Board of Forestry, 1911 (1912). Her drawings were of the trees of Indiana, a botanical key that proved to be the life's work of Charles C. Deam (1865-1953), a self-taught botanist and the first Indiana state forester. The Trees of Indiana was issued in book form in 1919. According to one source, Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett's drawings were used in that edition as well. I have the first revision of The Trees of Indiana from 1932, a book illustrated not with drawings but with photographs.

Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett was listed as an artist in Indianapolis city directories for many years. Later she was employed as a stenographer and in other positions in business. I don't know her date or place of death, but I have found reference to an obituary for a Minnie Ellsworth, age seventy-three, in the Terre Haute Tribune, February 25, 1963, page 2. If anyone can find a copy of that obituary, I would very much like to see it. Joan E. Bartlett retired from Bethesda Hospital in Cincinnati, where she had worked as a clerk-secretary for many years, and died on December 27, 1977, at the Christian Science Nursing Home in Columbus, Ohio. She was eighty-seven years old.

Yellow-poplar is the tallest tree in the eastern United States, reaching heights of 200 feet or more in our pre-settlement forests. Indiana pioneers often built their cabins from poplar, which is naturally straight, easy to work, and resistant to termites. I have read of what was called a three-log cabin: three large-diameter yellow-poplar logs stacked one atop another to give plenty of head clearance inside. Also called tulip-poplar, tuliptree, or simply tulip, yellow-poplar is the state tree of Indiana. Its fall color is yellow. The springtime flowers, which give the tree its tulip name, are more colorful and very showy.

Sassafras is far more colorful in the fall, turning fiery orange and red. The fruits are also colorful. The stalk or peduncle is bright red, the fruit a strongly contrasting dark blue. The Latin name is now Sassafras albidum.

White ash, now reduced in numbers because of the emerald ash borer, is a common tree throughout Indiana and widely planted as an ornamental. The fruits are like little canoe paddles. Fall colors are extraordinary: an indescribable mix of purple, yellow, and crimson, all occurring on the same tree at the same time but at different depths for a unique three-dimensional color-effect.

Sugar maple is the king of the fall forest in brilliant, almost luminous, yellow and orange hues. We are nearing peak season for autumn colors. Go out and see them before they are gone.

Revised and updated, January 30, 2020. Thanks to the commenters below, Monique, William (Anonymous), and Theresa, for information that has led me to updating this article on Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett. Thanks also to the website Find A Grave and the people who have posted information there. If you go to that site (click on this link), you will find abundant information on the Bartlett family and related families.

Text and captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley