TOMKINS, Mrs. Floyd W. (Ann Maria Grant Cutter)

A letter from Reverend Floyd Tomkins (born February 7, 1850, died March 24, 1932) of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia (which still stands in the centre of Philadelphia), dated June 19, 1908, written to Mrs. Richard Meirs – Muller-Ury’s patron who had commissioned his first portrait of Pope Pius X in 1907 – and not the artist, is in the artist’s papers, and reads as follows:

‘My dear Mrs. Meirs:

I am so perfectly happy over my picture that I must write and tell you so, & thank you again for your great kindness. It means so much to me. I have seldom been so impressed by any picture as I have been by this. It will help me.

Wishing you and yours every joy, & with prayers for a happy summer for you all. I am, dear Mrs. Meirs,

                 Sincerely & gratefully yours,

                                     Floyd W. Tomkins.’

The implication of ‘It will help me’ is that the clergyman’s wife has died and that the artist has produced a posthumous representation of her. They had had four children: Sarah Graham, Ann Gibson, Floyd W., and Jeannette.