This story of the life of Emily Parker Groom was compiled by three sisters, Elizabeth (Betty) Groom, Mary Poser and Helen Johnston—the daughters of Samuel and Helen Groom. It was pieced together over a period of more than 20 years. Helen and Betty started collecting information and photographing all the Emily Groom paintings they could locate, noting their provenance as best they could and placing them in albums. Betty began using old family letters, postcards, newspaper clippings and the memories of many people to write a biography of Emily. Pat Groom Reed (daughter of John and Bertha Groom), another niece of Emily, shared her memories as she grew up in Milwaukee and was close to Emily during her early years. Pat Reed’s daughter, Ellen Hofford, has also contributed her recollections of Genesee and Milwaukee. Nancy Swenson (daughter of John and Mable Ruka) who lived in Boscobel, WI where Emily often visited and painted, also contributed to this biography.

 

Helen visited the Orkney Island of Hoy and saw Melsetter House. Betty spent a couple of days gathering information on Woodstock, NY. Helen has lived in Milwaukee all her married life and spent much time tracking down Emily’s paintings to be photographed. Together Helen and Betty visited museums, starting with the Milwaukee Art Museum and its archives, and then proceeding to the archives of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Vanderpoel at the Beverly Art Center in Chicago, and going on to visit a number of Wisconsin museums that had a connection with Emily.

 

Later Mary took over the project and brought it into the 21st century and the era of computers. After a start with a borrowed city computer, she acquired her own, and with invaluable help from her eldest grandson Christopher Poser, she started to record as much information as she could find about the many shows in which Emily exhibited and the many artists also involved in these shows, plus other pertinent information. These have all been sent to the West Bend Art Museum. Christopher was instrumental in digitizing and documenting all the photographs of the paintings. Christopher set up a web site (www.emilygroom.com) giving access to these photographs and other information. Mary wrote this document using part of what had already been written and adding much new material. She did a good deal of research on her own in many areas including the century of history that spanned Emily’s life. In addition she ferreted out a number of interesting new venues and connections to her aunt.

 

During this twenty-year period, two other sisters (daughters of Charles and Ann Denny) Betsy Warner and Nancy Solodar transcribed from the original pen and ink and beautifully annotated the letters of several of the Denny/Groom families written as they traveled to Europe and in the United States. These were printed and nicely bound. They also typed and bound a delightful history of Sarah Dorothea Middlemore and her eight siblings written by her niece, Rosemary (Middlemore) Hughes Smith which is entitled Leaping Over Oblivion. All of these helped to broaden and deepen the understanding of the family, their activities and the times they lived in.

 

During the same period, the West Bend Art Museum became a major source of information about Wisconsin art and had acquired paintings, (including two Emily Grooms) by many Wisconsin artists. In 2001, Emily was included in their show Women’s Work: Early Wisconsin Women Artists. The museum has recently changed its name to the Museum of Wisconsin Art and is planning to expand in order to better serve its purpose as a repository for paintings and information about Wisconsin art.