Celebrate Women Artists: Sarah Stilwell-Weber

Sarah Stilwell-Weber was one of The Saturday Evening Post’s most sought after artists. She even turned down Post editor George Horace Lorimer’s offer to have regularly scheduled pieces because she didn’t want to work on another’s deadline. Between 1904 and 1925, her work was featured on over 60 covers of both the Post and The Country Gentleman (a sister publication of the Post).

A student of famous illustrator Howard Pyle and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, one of the top art schools in the country, Stilwell-Weber captured a lighter side of the Victorian Era and the early 20th century in her work. Her young subjects were often on the move, playing games and exploring the world around them. Her mentor, Howard Pyle, told her never to marry, as it would interfere with her artistic life. However, she ignored him and married anyway.

While the children are forming their own marching band, Mom and Dad wonder if Santa takes returns.

Forget flower crowns, these girls made a flower cape for their May Day parade grand marshal.

Is there anything better than splashing in waves, soaking up sun, and building sand castles?

In the early 1900s, the Post covers were printed with a “duotone” two-color process: black and another color, usually red. This process is what makes the umbrella, flowers, and rosy cheeks on this little girl and her doll pop.

House cats are just too tame. This stylish young woman dared to make a leopard her pet.

While many Post covers just show portraits of pretty young women, Stilwell-Weber adds life and movement to the traditional medium. This woman joins in the children’s fun after a stray snowball almost hits her.

Rolling her way straight into your heart, this tot on wheels is ready for a hug.

With that mischievous grin, this little one could be gathering momentum to jump or complete a loop-de-loop over the tree branch.

Hospice Girl Friday | ‘When a Child is Terminally Ill’

Devra Lee Fishman’s dear friend and college roommate, Leslie, died from breast cancer one month shy of her 46th birthday after a four-year battle with the disease. Being with Leslie and her family at the end of her life inspired Devra to help care for others who are terminally ill. Each week, she documents her experiences volunteering at her local hospice in her blog, Hospice Girl Friday.

My mom called me over the weekend to tell me about Kelly, her manager’s daughter. “She finally died, after twenty round of chemo and 5 surgeries,” my mom said, with an audible exhale full of sadness. “At one point they even removed one of her kidneys. Poor little thing.”

I had never met Kelly, but I felt like I had since my mom and I had talked about her so much over the two years since Kelly had been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a dangerous yet common childhood cancer. That was right after her third birthday and right around the time most three-year-olds are learning to catch a ball and ask important questions like ‘Why is the sky blue?’

My mom thought that Bob, her manager, avoided confrontation at any cost, and she was frustrated by the way some of her co-workers seemed to take advantage of him on a regular basis. But when Bob came back from a long absence and told his team that little Kelly had cancer, my mom changed her attitude. After that, whenever my mom complained about work all I had to say was “Yes, but his daughter has cancer,” and her frustrations about Bob melted away into compassion.

“How is Kelly doing these days?” I’d ask.

“She’s on a new chemo that is making her sick, but Bob said they are going to stick with it. I hope they’re not chasing rainbows.”

“Mom, I can’t imagine what they’re going through. It must be impossibly difficult for everyone.”

“You’re probably right, but I just feel so bad for the little girl. She is sick all of the time from the chemo treatments. They keep taking her up to New York for surgeries. When does she get to be a kid?”

“I think Bob and his wife are trying to make sure she gets to be a kid. And a teenager. And a grown-up. How does a mother give up on her child’s future? You never would have been able to when we were little. You wouldn’t even now that we’re all grown.”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” my mom said without hesitation. “I just feel so badly for that little girl.”

There is a natural order to life: we are supposed to outlive our parents. It was my mother who first pointed that out to me when my friend Leslie was told there were no more treatments available to try to beat her cancer. Leslie’s parents were with her when she died a month shy of her 46th birthday. They are still outliving her.

I do not have kids so I know I will never understand how a parent might feel at any and every stage of a child’s life. But I have watched my own parents’ hearts soar with every high and break with every low that one of my brothers or I experienced. No one in my family has ever had to go through what Bob and his wife went through with Kelly (knock on wood), but I asked my brother David what he would have done if one of his now-grown sons was diagnosed with cancer at a young age. Would he let his child have some quality of life, or would he chase a cure?

“I would pursue every possible treatment, making any sacrifice necessary, even if it meant risking my own health and well-being,” David said. “Not doing so would not even enter my mind. Your thought of providing some quality of life is a consideration, but not at the expense of finding a long term solution or cure.”

David’s answer did not surprise me. My guess is my other brothers, who have two kids each, would say the same.

My hospice is for adults only so I have no experience with parents choosing–or not choosing–hospice care for their children. Still, most of the patients I see did not choose comfort care for themselves. They are in hospice because they exhausted all curative treatments available to them. Some patients have accepted their fates (not all loved ones have, however). Others are in denial or angry at the world or their god or their bodies for being so unfair. Modern medicine has done wonders to keep us alive longer than ever before, but now we are so ill-prepared to face death I often wonder if I would choose to forgo treatments that might prolong my life yet make me so sick I would not enjoy living, or if I would prefer to make the most of whatever time I might have left.

If I think I would have trouble making that decision for myself, I cannot begin to understand how Kelly’s parents could make any other decision than the one they did for their little girl. It’s a decision they will sadly have to live with–without her–for the rest of their lives.

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