by Linda Mullen
There are many mysteries at the Freestone County Historical Museum. It is always magnificent when one of them gets solved. Would you believe that your local county museum has a painting on display that was painted in Rome, Italy by the same artist that has works on display in prestigious museums across the nation?
For many years a sleeping baby portrait has hung on the museum wall unnamed and unsigned. The infant sleeps behind a very delicate lace veil and is often thought to have been deceased.
One day the archival records of Mrs. Emma (Richardson) Hill were randomly pulled from the files. The mysterious babe was finally given a name: Helen Saunders. Mrs. Emma Hill had donated the painting to the museum in 1967. The portrait was painted by Miss Saunders’ father, William Carroll Saunders, around 1857, the year of Helen’s birth, while the family lived in Rome. Mr. Saunders was serving as consul to Rome during this time.
The Saunders family came to Texas in the late 1880s settling in and around Austin. While living in Austin, Mr. Saunders kept an art studio and his wife operated a boarding house. They later moved to Conroe to be near their daughter, Isabelle Glover, married to John Allen Glover, and their granddaughter, Mary Belle (Glover) Tharp, married to D.C. Tharp. After Mr. and Mrs. Wm. C. Saunders passed away, many of the remaining family moved to Teague.
In 1907, Teague was a fast growing and bustling railroad town. The Tharps came to Teague to set up a banking business and built a fine home on the corner of Main and 8th Avenue in early 1907. Sadly Mr. D.C. Tharp passed away within a few days of moving to Teague. C.L Saunders, brother of Helen, operated a furniture store in the Tharp building on 409 Main Street for numerous years (Western Auto Building); later consolidating with the E. H. Robinson Hardware Store to form the Teague Mercantile Company. The Saunders and Tharps were very active in the Methodist Church and it was reported in the Freestone County History Book, Vol. I, page 624, that Mrs. Tharp donated the stained glass windows on the south wall of the sanctuary. C.L. Saunders also had Fairfield connections. In 1933, he opened the General Commission Office on the east side of the square selling feed, seed and flour. In 1937, he sold his produce company to J.E. and J.C. Lambert.
Miss Helen Saunders; however, was the beloved music and expression superintendent and teacher at the Teague School until her death in 1922. Many of the productions at the Teague Opera House were under her direction. Miss Saunders was so well loved that the Teague High School built in 1922 on Main Street was named Helen Saunders High School. A photo of this school can be found in the Freestone County History Book, Vol II, page 651. Mrs. Emma (Richardson) Hill also taught school at Teague. This is no doubt where their friendship blossomed. After Miss Saunders passed away, her brother gave many of these paintings away to close friends. Numerous canvases were also sold to the Teague School Board, where they remained on display at the Helen Saunders High School for many years. A complete listing of these paintings is on file at the museum, as described by Mrs. R.H. “Una” Waldrop, a close associate of the Saunders family. Some were painted by Wm. C. Saunders and some were painted by Miss Helen, who was also a prolific artist. Great works of classic literature and poetry were the inspiration behind most of the paintings.
Sadly there is a very great mystery concerning the whereabouts of these grand works of art. Were they carelessly destroyed or were they obtained by anonymous individuals? The answer will probably never be known. One of Miss Saunders’ paintings was reported by Rita Walker, of Teague, to have been so large that it covered a whole wall of the high school auditorium. It was dismantled and trimmed to fit on a railway car to be placed on exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair in the 1930s, winning 2nd place. This painting was identified by Mrs. Walker’s mother as entitled, “Ginevra”. In Mrs. Waldrop’s descriptions of the artwork, “Ginevra” was a popular poem written by Samuel Rogers and published in 1822 in his book, Italy. This poem has inspired many great artists throughout the years. “The Legend of the Mistletoe Bough” is a retelling of this historic poem as well.
A similar scenario had occurred in previous history. Two canvases done by Helen’s father were at one time hanging in the Agricultural Department building at the Austin Capitol building. These were mentioned in the Jan. 20, 1887 and March 10, 1889 Austin American Statesman and also in the obituary of Mr. Wm. C. Saunders in the Sept. 5, 1902 issue of the Conroe Courier. Heartbreakingly, they were also reported as damaged or destroyed. In 1913, Miss Helen had filed a claim for damages with the State Senate for $1,000 (Senate Bill 377, p. 674).
Mrs. Rita Walker’s mother, Marguerite (Bowers) Wertz, was one of the fortunate friends of C.L. Saunders; as he gave her one of the paintings from his home. Another individual also presented Mrs. Wertz with one of these paintings, giving her a total of two of these precious treasures. Mrs. Wertz had attended Helen Saunders High School, graduating in 1926. Miss Helen was her adored piano teacher. Rita Walker and her sister, Mary Wall, inherited these paintings. In 2009, they donated the oil given by Mr. C.L. Saunders to the Teague Historical Society to be hung in the Teague Hotel after it was restored. This work hung in the school library and was entitled Diana, Goddess of the Chase from Greek mythology.
The remaining Wertz family painting is hanging in the home of Mrs. Mary Wall. It is the depiction of a very beautiful young woman. Oh, only if someone through time had marked the back with the information. Her identity is forever lost in time.
If your family owns a mysterious unsigned painting—Mr. Saunders rarely signed his works, a grand treasure may have been inherited unknowingly. If you believe that your family owns one of these rare works, the museum would really like to see it and obtain a digital image of the painting for their Saunders file. Neither C.L. nor Helen Saunders married and did not have any children. Their only living heir was a niece, Mrs. Wm. Lake “Zelma” (Tharp) Watson. This Watson family later moved to Waco. The Bill and Patricia Watson Women & Newborns Center at Providence Hospital, which opened in 2012 in Waco, was named after their son and daughter-in-law. In modern times, Mr. Saunders’ paintings have sold in auctions in other states for anywhere from $6,000 to $20,000. It is so very sad that so many of these works have been lost, making the museum’s precious “Infant Portrait of Helen Saunders” all the more valuable. To think that this painting has been around the world, survived the tests of time and is now hanging on the walls of your local county museum. How amazingly mysterious is that?
