A Grandma Moses Type Painting of Condit
Town at the Turn of the 20th Century

Horse is Trotting East along Hartford Road at 605

Condit Town as seen by a young girl at the turn of the 20th century and recalled in her golden years.  This is known as South Condit.
 

George and Rachel Clark of Pennsylvania were living in Condit in 1850 census with their 9 children on a farm know as Pleasant Hill. Their daughter Rebecca married Albert Cook, son of Benajah S. and Elizabeth Cook of Harlem township. Their son Seely Cook married Nettie Meeker (daughter of Stephen and Rosanna Meeker). Hazel Hoover was born to this union.

The 1908 map shows Rebecca owning part of George's land southeast of the Hartford & 605 intersection. Some of this land was later owned by the Comstocks.  Census record show Seely and his family living with Rebecca and working the farm. The white house near the Blacksmith's shop would have been their home.  Others remember the lane going up between the store and the house to DeWitt's sawmill which is not shown on this painting.

Hazel Cook Hoover didn’t begin painting until after the death of her husband, Dwight Cring Hoover in 1959. At the age of 68, Hazel asked Florinel Cring to take her to buy oil paints and pork chops, something she loved but her late husband did not so she had not cooked them in years. Do not know how the pork chops turned out but we know her painting was successful.

Not only did she have an eye for color, Hazel had a remarkable memory of her childhood life in south Condit. In 1979, working in her home at 14 E. Cherry Street (where Mollie’s Flowers is today), she painted a fall scene across Hartford Road from the Condit Presbyterian Church. In the style of Grandma Moses, Hoover shows the church, store, blacksmith’s shop, brick school and many houses recognizable to those who live in the community.

Lanes lived in the white house at the far left.  In the middle of the painting and up a long driveway is Ralph Comstock's house.  His parents the Glendon Comstocks lived in the white house at the upper right of the painting.  The barn up in the trees was the Comstock sugar camp.

The painting went with Dr. and Mrs. Dale M. Brevoort to California and recently returned to Sunbury via their son to Minneapolis and then a nephew to Columbus. Thanks to the generosity of the Brevoort family, the painting  has been donated to the Myers Inn Museum  and is once again facing Sunbury Square.  To make it ready to hang in the gallery, Alice Chapan  had the painting framed. 

The public is invited to view the painting and help with the identification of the various buildings. 
There are still many buildings we are not sure who lived in them.
 

Thanks to Lenny Lepalo for taking the photo of Condit Town

(05/14/2011)