Los Angeles herald., 1907-01-24
IN PURSUIT OF ART
GIRL LOSES MIND
YOUNG WOMAN PAINTER is DE-
CLARED INSANE
Working at Her Easel In the BroiIine
Sun on the Desert in Arizona
Proves Her Mental
Undoing

Fighting and struggling for her
freedom and occasionally swearing at
her guards, Miss Lucy Van Meter, a
talented young artist, yesterday was
taken before the insanity commission
in department two of the superior
court and there adjudged insane.
The young woman lost her mind in
the pursuit of her art.
Miss Van Meters mother, Mrs.
Fannie Van Meter of Twelfth street,
testified that her daughter had been
good girl all her life, that she had
never even heard language of ques-
tionable character, and yet as soon as
she became crazed her one thought re-
verted to the language of the streets
Miss Van Meter is 20 years of age
and a native of Illinois. She began
painting when she was little girl and
simply gave up her life for the sake
of art Throughout Missouri, Nebraska
and Illinois in the various places she
has lived with her parents, her work
had been continued and some of her
clever sketches of mountain scenery
are now gracing fashionable eastern
homes.
Paints in Bistering Sun
For several years she restricted her
work to portrait painting and then she
decided to come west The oils and
water colors of the great American
desert lured her. She had seen such
paintings on exhibit and her one ambi-
tion was to paint the desert, to trans
NIT the marvellous hues of morn and
eve to canvas, and she came west with
her father and mother to live. The
father settled at Macy, Ariz., and the
girl went to the desert. Day after day
the horrible heat beat down upon her
head and she became nervous. Her
people attempted to persuade her to
give up her work, but she refused to
listen to them. She painted and
painted the sun blistered the varnish
on the easel and beat down on her
head, but her brush was untiring.
One day several months ago she
walked into her mothers room and
stood there looking at her parent.
Then, without a word, she fell to the
floor as though she had been shot.
For fourteen days and nights Miss Van
Meter remained unconscious. On the
fifteenth day when she awoke from her
sleep of paralysis she failed to recog-
niZe her people.
Operation Is Fruitless
Her mother and brother brought her
to Los Angeles on Christmas day in
the hope that she might gain strength
here. She was taken to a hospital and
since that time the girls mother has
been her constant attendant.
Several days ago an operation was
| performed in a last forlorn hope of
bringing back to sanity the wandering
mind Of the girl, but the operation
proved fruitless.
| Yesterday when Miss Van Meter ap-
peared in court she~s brought some
scraps of drawing paper with her. She
would place some object before her and
carefully measure the dimensions with
her eye as though preparing to begin
some drawing, and then she would
laugh, and her long slender fingers
would crush the paper.
The examination was short one and
the girl was declared insane. AS she
sat there, waiting to be taken back to
the county hospital before her trip to
the asylum, she sang in a sweet, clear
voice the refrain Of mo, Never Alone"
then without another word she accom-
panied the guards on what will prob
ably be her last journey, for her case
is considered nearly hopeless.