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Spotlight Topic - Bess Bruce Cleaveland
Bess Bruce Cleaveland graduated from Washington High School in 1894. She studied art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She taught art for six years and then turned to illustrating children's magazines, books and other commercial art projects.
Miss Cleaveland lived on Temple Street. She never married. She was a member of Grace Methodist Church, Delta Kappa Gamma and a charter member of the Browning Club.
Children and animals were her favorite subjects. In addition to drawing most of the cats and dogs in Washington C.H., she visited zoos to study and sketch wild animals. Her backyard garden attracted birds, squirrels and rabbits, all of which she sketched.
She became so well known in the community as an amateur naturalist that when people found a strange animal or bird, they brought it to Bess to identify. It never left until after she had sketched it!
Bess Bruce Cleaveland was born June 13, 1876, (d. Oct6, 1966) in Washington C. H., Ohio. Her father was James Wilson Cleaveland, a druggist in this city, who graduated from a medical college in Cincinnati of which his uncle was said to have been president. James W. Cleaveland was born in Ludlow, Vermont.
Her mother was Mary Lyman Hubbard, of Lebanon, Vt., daughter of a doctor, Benjamen Tyler Hubbard.
By a previous marriage to Mary Wendel of Washington C. H., her father had five children, Charlotte Amelia, Thomas Henry ("Tom"), Nellie Elizabeth, William Henry, and Benjamen Wendel. Father died when Bess was thirteen months old, leaving her mother and Charlotte to carryon. Her older brother, E. E. Cleaveland better known as ("Ned") did commercial drawings.
Charlotte began teaching before graduating from High School and her mother did fine sewing to make expenses. Between them they gave Bess six years at The Art Students League in New York City, followed by a correspondence course in Normal Art. This gave a year's credit at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N. Y. from which she graduated in 1905. Two years as Art Instructor in Parkersburg, W. Va., then four more in Washington C. H. led into work as an illustrator of educational magazines, children's books and various odds and ends. Her drawings are almost en-tirely in pen and ink and watercolor. She has made hundreds of animal sketches from life to be used in illustrations.
For years Miss Cleaveland was salaried with the F. A. Owen Publishing Company as illustrator for Normal Art and Primary plans. With The Standard Publishing Co., of Cincinnati, she illustrated a set of Bible Readers, Sunday school papers, posters etc. The Southern Pub. Co. of Dallas, Texas, published a set of Favorite Stories, The Mystery of Numbers and a book on Holland, "Windmills and Wooden Shoes". She illustrated "The Little Brown Bowl"; has pages in "Boys and Girls Bookshelf" and has numberless posters dealing with various foreign countries. With others she collaborated in revising a. set of drawing books. Her posters touching on foreign countries and mentioned above were with The Ideal School Supply Co., of Chicago, Illinois. With Milton Bradley Co., she furnished pages for American Childhood and published the "Year Round Holiday Projects". She has also contributed to the School Arts and Nature Magazine.
