Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1915-11-02
new YORK SCULPTOR
BORN IN This CITY
Miss Abastenia Eberle, Sculptor Of
Children, Spent Part Of Early
Life Here.

st. Leger Eberle, of New York City,
lived in this city for the first FIVE or
six years of her childhood, having
been born in the little house known
as the old Derr property on the north
side. She was known as "Tenie"
Eberle among her little friends and
the older residents of this city re-
call that she had little friend
about her own age who was called
"Tiny'' on account of her diminu-
tive proportions.
This months issue of the Techni-
cal World gives very interesting
illustrated article upon Miss Eberle
and her work but does not mention
her birthplace nor the fact that her
wonderful knowledge Of and liking
for anatomy, must have been due to
the fact that she was her fathers
child, DR.. Harry A. Eberle having
been practicing physician in the
early seventies in this city, later go
ing into partnership with his broth
er, the late C. I. Eberle. The Tech
meal World has the following to say
of Miss Eberle and her chosen ca
reer:
Almost underneath laundering
Manhattan Bridge, hidden away in
Madison street, New York, in a top
tenement apartment that faces to
the rear school, and to the front a
crowded mill-race street with huge
brick tenements rearing up from it
three, four, five, even six stories
high-there is at. least to those who
love little children, the most inter
esting room in all America. Night
auds this room populated with lit
.e beings made of clay, each atop a
pedestal, each peeping out from un-
der poncho-like little covers. tossed
over them to keep the dust away.
Day finds this room full Of playing
children, romping, ragged, very real
little children of the flesh, with a
tall woman standing knee-deep, as
it were, among them working at a
tile clay image of child posing
eainst the wall. This tall woman
nth q face strangely full Of feeling
Pnd affection, is one OF those elusive
.creatures-a sculptress-a very won
lderful sculptress of the joys of child
hood. She is Miss Abastenia st.
Leger Eberle. and the very interest
ing room in which she is working
is her studio.
It goes without saying, that she
loves little children. And children
certainly love her. The whole East
Side knows her. She is an East Side
institution. When she goes down
the crowded streets, children run at
ter her and cry "Miss Eberle, will
you make statue Of mel" It is
thus that she has come to know
them. and she knows them well. It
b thus that She has learned to
"sculp" them, and a more wonderful
sculptor Of the joys Of childhood
does not live. ''In fact" says George
Grey Barnard, nowhere in America
ts there man or woman sculptor who
knows the human anatomy better"
To magazine writer's Miss Eberle
modestly acclaims the reason of her
residence on the East Side as this:
"The little children down here do
not wear SO many clothes, for they
are artless. And don't you remem-
Der when you were little. didn't you
like to get very dirty once in awhile
and stay comfortably dirty while
you enjoyed YOURSELF" A little dirt
is democratic-this is what most
Americans feel until they have chill
dren Of their own.
She knows what q woman's pas
sion for beautiful things is, because
it wasn't SO very long ago that she
came from long way west Of New
York with very little schooling and
no money, and began her long climb
to recognition for service rendered.
She knows what it is to sit on
bench In Union Square and make her
meals of peanuts-friends. often
found her there cheerfully making
the best of bag Of them. 1t Is the
talk of New York artists how she
climbed and fought for training
with George, Grey Barnard, with
Gutzon Borglum and ut the Acad-
envy, and then backed away from all
Of them and went where her biggest
hunger took her-deep down In the
East Side.
The Metropolitan Museum in New
York bought the "Girl on Roller
skates' in 1907, when Miss Eberle
WAS fairly on the way toward sue