Descendants of Captain Arthur Fenner

Ethelyn Knowles Fenner

[b 4 Nov. 1854 in Providence, RI; d Sept. 1929 in Brooklyn, NY] Ethelyn Knowles Fenner was raised in a musical household, her father being a professional musician. As a child, she likely spent time around the Providence Institute of Music, heard her father singing in the local Orpheus Club or playing in the American Brass Band. In 1872, when Ethelyn was nearly 18, her family moved to Hampton, VA, where her father was hired as music director for the Hampton Institute, a school for African Americans, many of whom were freed slaves. The rest of the family was also involved. Her mother Sabra directed the Girls’ Industrial Department, while Ethelyn assisted her father. Thomas prepared a choir for touring and transcribed spirituals. It’s possible Ethelyn went along on the concert tours. The whole family would have learned a lot about African American culture. They stayed at Hampton for three years. While there, her sister Lucia met and married Dr. James Thacher Boutelle, a graduate of Harvard University (1871), “who for many years rendered valuable service to Hampton Institute as its attending or consulting physician” (Southern Workman, Dec. 1912, pp. 685–686). One surviving piece of art by Ethelyn, oil on canvas, depicts three black children in a rural setting, likely inspired by children she met in Hampton.

In 1875, her father took a position at Temple Grove Seminary, an academy for young women in Saratoga Springs, NY. Temple Grove students were offered instruction in English, Latin, Greek, French, German, chemistry, history, zoology, religion, physiology, botany, physics, astronomy, geology, and math. Ethelyn evidently enrolled as a student or participated in classes. In a surviving recital program from 12 June 1877, she sang “When all within is peace,” a setting of the William Cowper text by Giulio Roberti, from Six Trios for Women’s Voices, No. 2, and she played in a string quartet arrangement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 7, K. 45. Thomas worked at Temple Grove until 1880, then the family moved to Boston, where he took a position teaching voice at the New England Conservatory (1881–1887).

In the 1880s, Ethelyn turned her attention toward developing her art skills. She studied at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia from 1882 to 1884. Her education seems to have overlapped with a stint teaching at St. Mary’s Hall in Burlington, NJ, where students could enroll in classes such as English, French, Latin, German, music, drawing, and painting; she was listed in Boyd’s Burlington County Directory for 1883–84. Starting in 1884, she took classes at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; she was listed as living in Boston at 22 Claremont Park in The United States Art Directory and Year-Book for 1884. She earned a diploma from the Museum in 1887, and that year, her parents moved back to Providence, RI. In 1888, she moved to Walla Walla, WA, where she taught art in the public schools and at Whitman College from 1888 to 1890.

In 1890, Ethelyn was hired by the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, as an art teacher, her specialty being watercolor painting. In 1896, she spent the summer in Paris studying under Raphael Collin at Fontenay-aux-Roses:

She describes his outdoor studio as ideal in its beauty. She and the Brooklyn contingent worked there from the model, a Breton girl posing, and a peasant maid, who is of the true type used by Millet.[1]

Evelyn’s mother died 24 November 1898 in Providence, RI. The following year, she married Daniel Sayre Shaurman [b 17 Mar. 1861 in NY; d 1 Feb. 1926 in Brooklyn, NY], son of Nelson & Maria Shaurman, on 24 June 1899 at Norwich, New London, CT, described in newspapers as “the bride’s former home.”[2] At the time, Daniel was working as a salesman for Charles A. Schieren & Co. in NY, a manufacturer of leather products. It was a small ceremony, attended mainly by close relatives, and they spent their honeymoon in Connecticut. In the 1900 census, they were living at 244 Vanderbilt Ave. in Brooklyn, in a home large enough to accommodate five renters.

Ethelyn continued to teach at the Pratt Institute for the rest of her natural life. Her professional affiliations included the School Art League of New York City and the New York Water Color Club. In the Pratt Institute Monthly, January 1902, she offered some insight into her work:

The instruction in water-color is intended to stand for something more educational than the handling of the medium pure and simple. It supplements the study of form and values, composition, and design taken up in other classes, and adds to these most important fundamentals the harmony of color.

This new medium, capable of so diverse an interpretation, has a charm and subtlety distinctly its own. Through it the student finds expression in a free, broad handling of masses, or in crisp suggestive sketches—sparkling hits of related color. For discipline in directness, there is no more severe test of training than to make an artistic, sincere sketch in transparent water-color. The peculiarities of the medium make it necessary to establish a perfectly related whole from the start. To do this successfully the judgment must be swift and correct and the power of selection wise, in placing one thing after another in a sequential order, so that they naturally follow and fit together without break—no easy task without experience. There is no medium that requires so complete a command of all one knows.[3]

Her father died at Hampton on 15 October 1912. Her sister’s husband died less than a year later on 6 August 1913, also at Hampton. Her sister Lucia was living with her and Daniel in Brooklyn when the 1920 census was taken. Her husband Daniel died 1 February 1926, leaving an estate worth about $50,000 to Ethelyn. At the time, they were living at 51 Quincy St. in Brooklyn; she kept the home and continued to live there. Her sister Lucia died 10 October 1927 in Tryan, NC, and was buried at Hampton. Ethelyn died two years later, 5 September 1929. In the 1930 yearbook for Pratt Institute, the school published a touching memorial:

FOR thirty-nine years her unfailing devotion was a constant source of inspiration. She gave of herself unsparingly; no effort was too great, nor time too much that might bring to her students an appreciation of all that was beautiful and true. Intensely interested in her work, she awakened a like ardour in those about her. Teaching those who were to become teachers, she infused them with the qualities of her own mind and heart, and opened to them the treasures of a rich experience. In passing away she leaves in the hearts of her friends an enduring monument to a rare character and beautiful spirit.[4]

Lineage:
Arthur | Thomas | Thomas | Daniel | Daniel | Thomas | Thomas | Thomas | Ethelyn

Sources:
1. “Local Art Notes,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (13 Dec. 1896), p. 23.
2. “In the Social World,” The Daily Standard Union, Brooklyn (26 June 1899), p. 7.
3. “Annual Report of the Department of Fine Arts: Supplementary work in water-color,” Pratt Institute Monthly, vol. 10, no. 3 (Jan. 1902), pp. 70–71: HathiTrust
4. Prattonia (Brooklyn: Pratt Institute, 1930), p. 312: Archive.org
5. Ethelyn’s memorial at FindaGrave, no. 57667671