RE: [Leica] Fame is oh so fleeting....

["bdcolen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

I guess that's one way to look at it - another might be that being a
professional woman in those days was a real killer. Yes, there were the
exceptions who broke through, but by and large....So did she end up as
she did because her private life was a mess, or was her private life as
a mess due to her professional/artistic frustration. God knows there
have been countless successful men in the arts whose private lives were
"in disorder."

Gene Smith for one...But if "disorder" means having affairs and multiple
marriages, the question might be what male artist hasn't had them....;-)

B. D.

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of S Dimitrov
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 12:43 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] Fame is oh so fleeting....


Truly a tragedy! I guess the truism is true after all, one can't have
their professional life in order if their personal life is in disorder.
Slobodan Dimitrov

bdcolen wrote:
> 
> Obituaries in the News
> 
> By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
> 
> Filed at 7:50 a.m. ET
> 
> ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Marion Carpenter, one of the first female 
> White House photographers who traveled with President Harry Truman and

> covered him daily, has died. Though Carpenter broke ground in her 
> profession, she died alone and destitute at age 82.
> 
> Her body was found late last month on her couch, bundled up tightly 
> against the chill because the thermostat had been lowered to save 
> money.
> 
> The body, found Oct. 29, is still with the medical examiner while 
> friends -- most of whom met Carpenter at garage sales or thrift shops 
> -- try to track down her only child, a son whom she had not seen in 
> more than 30 years.
> 
> ``She sounds like the type of woman upon whose shoulders we all 
> stand,'' said Susy Shultz, president of the Journalism and Women 
> Symposium. ``It's sad that we don't know about a Marion Carpenter. The

> women who came along in the '30s, '40s and '50s had it the hardest. 
> They were the women breaking paths.''
> 
> In the 1940s, Carpenter was one of the first women in the White House 
> News Photographers' Association. She was the only woman among a 
> handful of photographers who traveled with Truman.
> 
> In her belongings when she died were photos she took of Truman, which 
> the president inscribed to ``Miss Carpenter.''
> 
> One of those photos, which showed Truman striding uphill toward the 
> Washington Monument, bears the message: ``It's good exercise if you 
> keep it up, but not for high-heeled shoes, Miss Carpenter.''
> 
> According to what she told her friends late in life, a love affair 
> with a married man may have helped end her career prematurely.
> 
> Carpenter's marriage to a Navy officer who abused her ended in 
> divorce. In Washington, she fell in love with a Capitol journalist. 
> When the affair ended, Carpenter married again. Her new husband, a 
> radio announcer, took her to Denver, where she had a son. By late 
> 1951, the marriage -- and her career -- were over. She was 31.
> 
> Back in St. Paul, Carpenter ran a wedding photo business and worked as

> a nurse to support her mother and child.
> 
> Her son, Mjohn Anderson, ran afoul of juvenile authorities and left 
> home at 19. According to friends, Carpenter never saw him again. He 
> would be 52 now.
> 
> ``She was sensitive, and kind, with an overflowing heart,'' said a 
> friend, Beverly Allstopp. ``But that heart covered up a lot of 
> bitterness ... She had a heartache, and I think it caused her to be a 
> recluse.
> 
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