Week 6 – Earning a Living
My grandfather, Tony Sauerwald, was an artist. Born Franz Georg Emil August Anton Sauerwald on 2 February 1873 in Wetzlar, Lahn-Dill-Kreis, Hesse, Germany, he was the oldest child of Emil and Eva Sauerwald. In the summer of 1883, his father left for the United States and found work in a mine in Crimora, Virginia. In October 1886 Tony, his younger sister, Margaret, and their mother Eva arrived in the United States. They had been here less than a year when his father died in a mining accident in the summer of 1887. Tony was 14 and Margaret was only 9. Live must have been very difficult for the family.
The family moved to Richmond, Virginia by 1893. Tony was listed as a fresco painter in the city directory that year. In 1895 he married Louisa Christina Wolff. Tony was also known as an excellent soloist. In November 1906 the Catholic Cathedral in Richmond was dedicated, and Tony was the soloist at the ceremony. My mother had the invitation that her mother, Louisa, was send so she could attend the ceremony. Mom donated that to the Cathedral’s archives before she died.
Several of the frescoes that Tony painted no longer exist. When the Jeffersonian Hotel in Richmond was remodeled many years ago, they were covered. He also painted frescoes at the Benedictine Belmont Abbey in North Carolina. I have copies of the letters about his commission to do them. They no longer exist, and the current abbot has no record of them. However, some have survived. In 2015 we were able to visit a home in Richmond where the ceilings of what would have been the front and back parlor still have them! The fresco is around the chandelier and along the ceiling near the walls. They both have flowers and branches. In the one near the corners the pink flowers are more pronounced. Around the chandelier they might not appear so bright because of the lighting.
Tony also did landscapes. We have three of his paintings. One that I always liked was stored in my grandmother’s basement and had a large L-shaped rip in it. We had it repaired and cleaned and now it hangs in my daughter’s dining room. Tony did landscapes and not portraits. Any people in this painting were usually walking away or at a distance.
Tony died in 1916, when my mother was only two years old. We’ve always speculated that his death was caused by close contact and exposure to the lead-based paints that were used at the time.
It appeared that the talent of an artist had been lost in the family, however my granddaughter is quite the artist, but she mainly does portraits, which is different than her second great grandfather Tony. But perhaps the artistic talent has not been lost!
Patricia Coleman Genealogy LLC 