The Nome nugget., 1934-09-01
Bust of Whistler in
 Hall of Fame, New York UnIveTsitY

eldest of a family of i've children.
 It would be pleasant to be able to record the fact that 1t was case of love at first sight for Cadet Whistler and Anna McNeih. But that is doubtful for soon after he was graduated from West Point he was married, but not to Anna McNeill Shortly afterwards young Whistler was left a widower and early in the sos he again met the motherly older sister of his classmate, William Gibbs McNeill, and married her. In 1888 Whistler resigned from the army and the next year to George Washington Whistler and Anna Mathilda Whistler was born son to whom was given the name James Abbott McNeill Whistler, thus perpetuating the name of his uncle, James Abbott, the Detroit trader at Fort Dearborn, as well as his paternal and maternal families, the McNeills and the Whistlers.
 After George Washington Whistler's resigna- ton from the army he rose to eminence as an engineer and in 1842 he went to Russia to enter the service of the czar in the construction of the railroad from St Petersburg to Moscow, winning for himself from Car Nicholas the decoration of the Order of St. Anne To Russia with him went his wife and their two sons one of them slender, weak lad, affectionatey known to his mother as "Jamie." And "Jamie" he was to her to the end of her days even when he became world-famous painter. For the close tie be- tween the mother and the son who was to i'm mortalize her on canvas began during this Rus sian experience.
 She nursed him during those bitter years and when they were ended in the death of Major Whistler and when the widow and her two sons were reduced to poverty she brought them out of the land of snows back to her sunny North Carolina. When Jamie" grew up he decided to follow the profession of his father and become soldier. He secured an appointment to West Point in 1852, but his career there was Q short one. In fact, 1t lasted only two years. But the loss to the military world, if indeed it was a loss was the gain of the world of art After leaving West Point, Whistler went to Paris resolved to become a painter, and his career in that role Is too well known to need further | comment. During the years he was rising to fame his mother was in Europe, also, not with him always, but nearby in case he should have need of her. For somehow her little Jamie" never seemed to grow up enough to be without his mother. In 1860 Whistler left London for three years more of study in Paris and his mother returned to America for a last visit with her relatives in North Carolina. For Whistler had decided never to return to his native land to live. So his mother was going to wind up what few affairs she had there and then return to London, where they would live on the scant means which the son could provide.
 While she was visiting in Cumberland and Bladen counties in North Carolina, the storm of the Civil war broke and her return to Europe was postponed indefinitely. Finally early in 1864 came word from her son that he had returned to London and established himself there. So she announced her intention of Joining him. But no matter how much her relatives told Anna Mathilda McNeill Whistler that 1t would
 be impossible for her to go to Europe now, her only reply was the calm statement that her Jamie" needed her and she was going. And 90 she did Somehow she arranged to take passage
 on a Confederate blockade runner and on 1t arrived safely in England.
 | There she lived to the end of her days, the in separable companion of the man who came to be hailed as one of the greatest painters in the world.
 Oby Western Newspaper Union.