Launt Thompson circa 1870
On Glucksman Ireland House NYU radio Hour, on April 8, 2017. at 27.45 Dr. Miriam Nyhan interview Michael Burke on his research of the artist Launt Thompson. Listen to it here go to 27.45 minutes. http://www.nyuirish.net/radiohour/2017/04/08/saturday-april-8-2017/
After her marriage she moved to Italy, where she lived for the rest of her life.
Her apartment in Florence was a Mecca for the whole Potter tribe. Her love for the family was all the greater. She reveled in the presence of her brothers, and she was the most delightful of companions. Her house became a resort of what was most distinguished and dignified in Americans there, but most of her friends were Italian, so that her children were brought us a Italians, and she had the rarest of all privileges for a foreigner, that of being invited to stay with her Italian friends in their houses. Her weekly receptions were delightful affairs, marked by a certain quaint formality with which belonged to the old Florentine society, and which, perhaps, she had inherited as well from stately Grandfather Nott.
She was a clever writer and published a great many things, chiefly magazine articles. Her only book was "The Legend of St. Gwendoline. The last year of her life was saddened by the death of her son Lance, who gave his life for his country. She spent this year in making a translation of his book, "Il Trentino, la Venezia Giulia e la Damazia nel Risorgimento Italiano." When this work, literally of love, was finished she seemed to lose all interest in life and all desire to live, and only longed to go to her beloved child.
Maria Louisa Thompson
( 1839 - 1916 )
Picture provided by Trevor McClurg Potter
Alonzo Potter's daughter, had the misfortune to lose her mother when she was born, and she suffered from it as all motherless children must. This had a live long effect on her. Much of her childhood was spent with her Godmother, Cousin Mary Garrettson at Rhinebeck. But she wasn't a cousin, she was no relationship. Much of Maria's girlhood was spent with Grandfather Nott at Schenectady. She never lived with the family in Philadelphia.
Maria grew up in Grandfather Nott's household, and pursued many of the studies which belong to college course, Latin among them, and some Greek. This developed in her a natural gift for writing which she never ceased to exercise until the end of her life. her last work was to translate Lance's book on Italia Irredenta, that "Unredeemed Italy" which has since been joined to the motherland.
She married the distinguished sculptor, Launt Thompson, whose best known work in this country is the equestrian statue of General Scott in Washington.
Obituary of Mrs. Launt Thompson - click on the link below and go to the lower right hand corner page and zoom in.
Potter Family History