When I first came to Frankfort in 1973 I soon heard about this native son named Paul Sawyier. He was a really good artist, they always said. Then, invariably, they would add:  He was always drunk—he’d whip you out a painting for a couple of bucks so he could go buy a bottle.  Then they’d usually add: “Oh yeah, he had a girlfriend, what was her name…?” I can’t count the times I heard this—and something about it never rang quite true. I also saw Sawyier paintings in many private homes, and they always seemed proud to own them, even though they usually repeated the cliché about “good artist—always drunk—had-a-girlfriend.” It was only years later in retirement, when I decided to research and write a biography of Paul Sawyier, that I learned the true story of this splendid artist and the lady love who shared so much of his life…

Paul Sawyier’s life period was 1865-1917:  from the end of the Civil War to US entry into WWI.  I see his life story as unfolding in four distinct periods:

• The artist apparent (childhood to age 18);
• The young artist (in training);
• The mature artist (unfolds in three parts); and
• Imitation of life (his final five years).

First Life Period:  The Artist Apparent  (Childhood to age 18, 1865-1883)

Paul Sawyier had deep roots  in Frankfort. Reuben & Sarah Anderson came from New Jersey around 1792 and built a two-story house on Broadway, just where the front doors of Kentucky Historical Society are today. The house would become the family home over a century. Smith Wingate came from Delaware in the late 1700s, married Susanna Capes, and their youngest son Henry would be Paul’s maternal grandfather.

Those generations of Andersons and Wingates would produce 2 grand-daughters, Penelope (who would marry a Wingate) and Parmelia (who would marry a Sawyier) who became Paul’s two grandmothers. Being sisters, Paul’s grandmothers thus were also his great aunts. Paul’s grandfathers were prominent citizens of old Frankfort. Nathaniel Sawyier, Sr. was an attorney. Henry Wingate became a leading banker and inherited the house his father had built on Broadway.

Penelope’s youngest child, Ellen, was Paul’s mother, Parmelia’s son Nathaniel, Jr. was his father. Descended from the two sisters, Paul’s parents thus were first cousins. Nathaniel was artistically talented and wanted to study art, but his father refused; he went to medical school and became a doctor.

Nathaniel & Ellen were betrothed and married on the same day, January 9, 1861, and  lived their first five years on a farm the Sawyier family owned in central Ohio. They had eight children, of whom five survived to adulthood:  Lillian born in 1862, Henry 1863, Paul 1865, Natalie 1869, & Mary Campbell in 1870.

When Paul was five years old the Sawyiers moved to Frankfort, which was then a mere town of 5,400 population, and moved into the Broadway house with Ellen’s widowed mother. East Broadway was considered “a very select neighborhood” at the time. Income from his father’s medical practice was much improved over sparsely settled rural Ohio, and Paul’s early years were marked by general prosperity. Like his father, who continued to draw & paint, Paul showed early artistic talent.

In September 1871 the four older Sawyier children were enrolled at Second Street School, newly opened in 1868. There’s no doubt a little girl named Mayme Bull also entered first grade that year, as the Bulls lived just two blocks from Second Street School. It follows that Paul and Mayme had to have known each other nearly all their lives.

Second Street School only went thru tenth grade, so Paul finished his last two years of high school at Dudley Institute, an Episcopal parish school on Second Street where city hall stands today.  During his teens he attended many art exhibits in Frankfort and Louisville, only a train-ride away. Young Paul was also gaining quite a reputation as an excellent dancer. There’s no doubt that in the small town Frankfort was in those days, Paul would have heard the tragic news that Mayme Bull’s two elder sisters – Jennie, 22, and Annie, 19 – died of a fever within 2 weeks of each other. At age 16, Mary Thomas Bull – known as Mame or Mayme – became the Bull family’s eldest daughter.