Behind the Monument: Aunt Lou

Are you curious about the details on the Aunt Lou monument? Are you more curious about the details not included on the monument?

Are you familiar with the Linda Ellis poem, The Dash? It laments that tombstone lists the year of birth and year of death, separated by a dash, and it's the life of the person represented simply by the dash. There's no dash on the Aunt Lou monument. In fact there's only her nickname, not her actual name, so who was this Aunt Lou that merited such a beautiful monument?

Here's our "dash" on Aunt Lou. Latitia Robb died in 1900. The interment record doesn't list her parents or her age. We know that she worked as a housekeeper for Henry Farny, a local artist famous for his landscape portraits. She also worked as a housekeeper at the Cincinnati Art Club where Farny was a member.

We also believe that Latitia's association with local artists began with Thomas S. Noble, another prominent local artist and inaugural president of the Cincinnati Art Club and a professor at the Cincinnati Art Institute. Noble grew up on a plantation in Lexington, Kentucky, owned by his parents. Noble confided to friends that he felt more akin to the slaves on the plantation thaan he did with his own family. Many of Noble's more famous portraits depict the cruelty and horrors of slavery. We believe that Latitia was one of the slave children on the Noble family plantation and Thomas Noble wanted to help her after the liberation so he introduced her to Henry Farny who needed a housekeeper. Henry Farny didn't marry until a few years after Latitia died.

The Cincinnati Art Club was known to be a "bohemian" group, meaning the members tended to enjoy extravagant parties and Latitia was often charged with driving the carriage to get the Covington participants safely home. In addition to the housekeeping duties Latitia also served as a model for some of the artists in their preliminary work.

John Meyerding was one of Noble's sculpture students at the Cincinnati Art Institute. Meyerding sculpted the bronze plate affixed to the second Aunt Lou monument in 1920. The original monument was stolen from her grave and never recovered. When the theft was reported to the Cincinnati Art Club Meyerding was tasked with sculpting the new bronze plate and he proudly listed that work in his Who's Who in American Art resume.

We hope this article gives you a little appreciation for the amazing life of Latitia Robb and the artists she inspired as she lived out her "dash" and merited the praise of the Cincinnati Art Club as "Faithful to the End." We also hope that the next time a monument catches your attention you will seek to learn the story behind the monument. Look for the story of the life or event depicted, the artists that created the monument, the funders that commissioned it, and the property stewards that found it to be appropriate for the location.

Author: Pete Nerone, LG Board of Overseers