All Paintings Have a Story: This One Returns to Me Most Surprisingly!

Once upon a time...(all good stories start that way), I went to a flea market...(this has got to be a great story)....

My daughter, Rachel and I, went to Brimfield Flea Market in Massachusetts this year in May 2016. We arrived way too early. Even before the vendors woke up and unfurled their tents.

Original Photo - Copyright James E. Martin 2016
Rachel at Brimfield Early Morning

Rachel had some furniture items on her wishlist list to outfit a new apartment. I didn't buy too much this particular trip. Rachel tracked our walking that day and we trekked 18 miles! We passed and gazed at a lot of dealer tables and booths.  With serendipity, I did happen upon a painting that caught my eye halfway down a booth's aisle under a tent that I negotiated down to $25. I wasn't impressed with the frame. The dealer did not know much about the painting other than he had bought it at a yard sale.

Original Photo - Copyright James E. Martin 2016
Raggedy Ann and Teddy

I am always on the lookout for paintings and this one caught my eye because of the impressionistic style but most notably because of the signature flourish. It was very similar to the flourish that my best friend, Bob Cassidy, would use to address his Christmas card to me over the years.

Original Photo - Copyright James E. Martin 2016
Michael J. Cassidy Signature Flourish

I also knew that Bob, had a brother, Michael Cassidy. I wasn't sure of Michael's middle initial, though. And the subject matter didn't seem to be representative of content that Michael may have chosen. I had, however, a self-portrait of Michael's that Bob had given me years earlier with a similar impressionistic style. I could compare the paintings. So I took a chance on the purchase. I hoped to share the picture with the family and determine Michael's middle initial and if anyone had any recollection of this painting.

We met Betty Cassidy at the summer camp in Maine in mid-July. It was so good to visit with her at camp this first summer after Bob's passing.

Original Photo - Copyright James E. Martin 2016 
Discussing the Painting with Betty Cassidy

Betty only had a small, vague, remote feeling that the painting might be Michael's. She wasn't able to confidently assert much about the picture initially. She wasn't absolutely sure of Michael's middle initial. But she recommended we talk with Joanne, the oldest daughter of Lee and Edie Stone, our Maine friends for many years. Betty went to visit with Joanne and told her about the painting.

Joanne recalled the painting and knew it had hung in the Little Red Schoolhouse in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine for a time before its closing in 2001. Which explains the child-appropriate content of the painting.

The summer camp that Bob and I built for his family was on a lake in upper Central Maine surrounded by the towns of Sangerville, Dover-Foxcroft, Guilford, Dexter, and Garland. Bob was a professor of speech and language pathology and had practiced early in his career in the area before moving to Illinois and marrying Betty.

His very first speech and language client in Maine was Jayne Stone. Bob had become close friends with Jayne's parents, Lee and Edie Stone over the years. Lee was a WWII veteran, local farmer, and retired from the Dexter Shoe Factory. Edie was the town manager for Garland, Maine for many years.

Original Photo circa 1978 Courtesy of Cassidy Family

Lee Stone, Edie Stone, Jayne Stone, Greg Cassidy, Kim Cassidy, and Betty Cassidy

One of the passionate causes that Bob Cassidy and Edie Stone had during those early years was the parent-run, community-based Little Red Schoolhouse in Dover-Foxcroft. which closed in 2001. Bob had asked his brother, Michael, an accomplished amateur artist whose creativity Bob admired, to paint a picture for the schoolhouse in those earlier years. The painting, "Raggedy Ann and Teddy", hung in the schoolhouse for some time when Jayne Stone was younger and attending the school.

Also, Joanne recalled that her Mom, Edie Stone, had retained the painting in her home for a time after that school installation. Perhaps Edie reclaimed the painting from the schoolhouse once Jayne graduated. According to Joann, and Bob's kids, Kim and Greg, they all remembered the painting at Lee and Edie's Garland farmhouse.

In the early years, when I was helping Bob build the camp buildings as an undergraduate student, Jayne had a surprising teenage crush on me. I had hair back then.

Original Photo 1978 Courtesy Cassidy Family

Jim the Builder

She and I were of a similar age but I was dating someone else at school so I wasn't available! But I remember being embarrassed and rather awkward at responding to her attentions! Once she met my then girlfriend, Ruth, (now my wife), she was not very kind to her rival at first! We have many blessed and humorous memories of these folks over the years.

Joann indicated that Bob Cassidy had asked for the Raggedy Ann painting sometime after Edie's retention of it to give back to his brother, the artist. Edie returned the painting to Bob. Bob returned it to his brother. Michael J. Cassidy later died in the midwest, in Ohio I think, in 1994, and, allegedly, according to Betty, many of his belongings were sold at a yard sale, which was a plausible disappointment to Bob at the time. And resulted in the "loss" of the painting for a time.

Betty was cleaning at the camp later in the week of our 2016 summer visit and found a painting turned upside down on the floor of the camp. Lo and behold, a Michael J. Cassidy abstract impressionistic painting! What a confirmation opportunity!

 

Original Photo Copyright James E. Martin 2016

Untitled Abstract Impressionism by Michael J. Cassidy

Replete with a comparable signature!

 

Original Photo Copyright James E. Martin 2016

Michael J. Cassidy Signature Flourish

Later in the week of our visit, we unexpectedly met Joann at the local shopping mecca, Renee's in Dexter, Maine. After joyous hugs and hellos, I ran out to the van to get the painting. When Joann saw it, she said with a smile on her face, "Yup, that's it!"

Original Photo - Copyright James E. Martin 2016 

Betty and Joanne Affirming the Painting's Heritage to Jim

You can see my happiness in the moment at completing the story, the history, and the reunion of this painting!

We had a funeral service in July 2016 for Bob Cassidy, my friend of 38 years, in Derry, New Hampshire, where he grew up. He was interred at the Cassidy family plot.

Original Photo - Copyright James E. Martin 2016 
July Graveside Service for Robert D. Cassidy in Derry NH

I had a chance to visit with his spouse, Betty, and his kids, Greg and Kim the night before the service. The kids were amazed and excited about the story of the painting as we continued to formulate the story of its heritage and re-discovery.

Michael J. Cassidy's (1930 - 1994) gravestone is on the family plot in Derry, NH. He was the artist for the painting "Raggedy Ann and Teddy".

Original Photo - Copyright James E. Martin 2016 
Grave Marker for Michael J. Cassidy II 

So...this painting means a lot to me in that it wraps up many memories and recollections over the last 38 years:

• Bob Cassidy as speech and language pathology professor and clinician in Illinois and Maine
• Bob's intended respect to his brother and his request for the painting's creation
• Bob's love and respect for family and family values...and for art; The installation at the schoolhouse for a time was highly valued by Bob and Edie
• Michael J. Cassidy, brother of my best friend, and artist, who I never met personally, but he had the same flourish in his signature as Bob did; He also used brown and orange in the painting, Bob's favorite colors in artistic usage - which might have facilitated Bob's perception of the painting's details considering his color-blindness...an interesting side anecdote
• Jayne Stone and her unusual, cute, giggly, teenage crush on  me
• Lee and Edie Stone retaining the painting after its installation at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Dover-Foxcroft and placing it in their Garland, Maine farmhouse
• Bob's requesting the return of the painting so he could return it to his brother, the artist
• Sun-struck Fourth of July's at a picnic table laden with lobster, corn-on-the-cob, chowder, and clams, each and every year, full of stories and smiles, with all these folks mentioned in this blog entry
• Central Maine summer jaunts in Dexter, Garland, Guilford, Sangerville, and Dover-Foxcroft
• Bob and I building the camp buildings for fellowship with friends over the years....his initial dream realized
• Visits with friends, and friends of friends, at camp
• A college professor, named Bob, and one of his undergraduate students, named Jim, met in Maine to remodel a summer camp for the professor. There was lots of sun, some swimming in a cold, clear lake, some beer drinking, some fishing, some telling of tales, lots of laughs, some philosophy of life dialog, some destruction of the old camp, and some building of the new, and an unfolding of relationships through the years
• Emotions and tears welling up in me since my friend, Bob, has completed his earthly toils
• Amazement at finding this painting at this time in these places
• Reconstructing the heritage and story of this painting with dear friends and family who remain behind...Joanne and her husband Peter, Betty, Kim, and Greg
• Summers in Maine all these years with all my girls (Ruth, Rachel, Anna, and Rebekah)

Just thinking on things, as the memories and blessings come full circle within this painting.

Original Photo circa 1978 - Courtesy of the Cassidy Family

Betty Surveying the Construction Work While Jim Contemplates Deep Thoughts

It is quite a Jaunt to go to undergraduate school in Illinois, meet Bob Cassidy and his family and friends in Maine, meet my wife, have a family, get together with folks in Maine all these 38 years, go to Brimfield in 2016, find this one painting among the tens of thousands of objects there in the aisles, travel it back to its home country in Maine, reconstitute its heritage, and have it return to my hands where I can appreciate its simplicity and its depth in honor of Bob Cassidy and his love of art.

We built some buildings. And a lot of friendships and a lot of memories, Bob. This one is an amazing part of the continuing saga.

Original Photo circa 1978 - Courtesy of the Cassidy Family

Jim and Bob Building at the Summer Camp

A painting always has a story. This one is pretty darn amazing to me. It wasn't just about Raggedy Ann and Teddy at its face value, was it?