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Reprinted from
May-June 1988 issue of Montana Magazine
“On a moonlit night, do you know what really makes that
silvery pathway toward you across a lake or a river? Some people will tell you
that it. is just the reflection. of the moon, but there are others who know.
AII children do, and they have let a few grown people in on the secret. It is
fairies' wings. Every night when the moon shines, the fairies slip out upon the
water to dance. And it is their wings-all fluttering and glistening as they
gaily tread their elfin measures --that make that entrancing pathway.”
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The above quote
was written by Fanny Y. Cory for St. Nicholas
Magazine, May1915.
Fanny’s World
The life and
Art of
Fanny Cory
Cooney
By Dave Walter
All illustrations courtesy of Bob Cooney
Fanny Y. Cory (Cooney’s) description of the
full moon rising on a July night over the Big Belt Mountains as a trail of
fairies' wings across the Missouri River's Lake Sewell, reveals at once her
special gift. She was able to reach beneath and beyond the harsh realities of a
central-Montana ranch and grasp the natural beauty and wonder of life.
Despite repeated personal
tragedies, this nationally renowned artist and cartoonist never lost the
curiosity and the optimism of children. Perhaps it was this faculty to meld
successfully her two distinct artistic careers with her role as a ranch wife
and mother that made her so remarkable.
Just over five feet tall, with sparkling eyes, Fanny could combine an
appreciation of the natural world with a penchant for seeing the humor, the
fantasy and the whimsy in life. Fanny Cooney brought this refreshing talent of
enjoying life on several levels to her family, friends and her art. She remained
throughout a modest, loving, sensitive, creative woman--characteristics
derived from a life of trial, disappointment, recommitment and determination.
Had Fanny been born 50 years earlier, she would have been hailed as the
archetypal pioneer mother on the western frontier. Certainly Governor John W.
Bonner believed her to be equally remarkable in the 20th century: He
designated Fanny Cooney the Montana Mother of the Year on April 6, 1951.
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"Gettin' Ready"
Fanny Young Cory was born in 1877, in the town of Waukegan, Illinois,
to Benjamin Sayre and Jessie
McDougall Cory. She was the fifth of six children in this struggling
Midwestern family. But, because her eldest and her youngest brothers died in
childhood, Fanny was raised with only three siblings: two brothers, Jack and
Bob (10 and 7 years her senior, respectively), and a sister, Agnes (five years
older than Fanny). Her earliest childhood memory involved lying on the living
room rug as a three year old, pencil in hand, drawing fanciful pictures, while
her admiring family walked around or over her. Always her artwork was encouraged
by her idol Jack, who also loved to draw. Yet life was not easy for the Corys,
and Fanny was forced early to assume adult responsibilities. Her father,
Benjamin, while charming, was selfish and alcoholic; he argued constantly
with members of the McDougall family, who felt he mistreated their Jessie. As
a traveling salesman, he often was gone from the household for long periods,
and his job provided poorly for his family's needs. From this experience, the
Cory children learned to rely on each other for support.
This
strength proved vital when Jessie Cory died of tuberculosis in 1887. A
devastated Fanny was only 10 years old at the time. She and 15-yearold Agnes
had nursed their mother to the end. By this time the two older boys had been
banished from the home by Benjamin. Jack was working as an illustrator for a
Chicago newspaper. Bob--lured west by stories of mining fortunes made
overnight had hired on in the Montana Territory mining camp of Wickes (north of
Boulder, in Jefferson County). Since Benjamin would not permit Agnes and Fanny
to live with their McDougall aunts, the girls tried to combine their schooling
with keeping house for him.
After three
years, the situation in Waukegan had deteriorated so much that Bob invited the
family to join him in Montana. He had relocated from Wickes to Helena, secured
a job as a teamster, and rented a small house on Beattie Street. This move
sparked a great adventure for 13-year-old Fanny. While her father and Agnes remained
in Illinois to dispose of the family's few belongings, she embarked alone on
the six-day train trip to Helena. Fanny cradled her doll in her arms for the
entire trip, and remembered hoping that other passengers would think she was
a young mother with a baby.
These
pictures are from the F.Y. Cory Fairy (Alphabet) Series. F.Y. Cory Publishers
Inc. holds all copyrights to the Fairy Series illustrations and verses.
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G is for gnome who is
digging for gold, but the beetle does most of the work, I am told.
J for Jack Frost, a plump
little fellow. He's painting the leaves all scarlet and yellow.
K is for kelpie, a
wee water sprite, who giggles and laughs at a traveler's plight.
W stands for ... now let me
see ...why will-o'-the-wisp --and this is he.
Fanny's adolescent days in Helena were somewhat more carefree. On
picnic days she explored nearby hills and gulches, and brother Bob organized
fishing and hunting parties for the two of them. School held little interest
for Fanny (she never finished the eighth grade), but she read voraciously. She
once said that, by the time she was 16, she had read every book in Helena's
public library! And, in Mary C. Wheeler, Fanny found someone to appreciate and
encourage her artistic work.
Wheeler was a local artist of some repute, who was just beginning her
decades-long direction of the art program in the Helena schools. She
immediately recognized Fanny's unusual talent for drawing and watercolor, and
she urged the quiet girl to develop these skills-even if that meant going east
to art school.
While Fanny, Agnes and their father
were living with Bob in Helena, doctors diagnosed Agnes as afflicted with
tuberculosis, possibly as a result of nursing her
mother in Illinois. Fanny was told that Agnes might die of a pulmonary
hemorrhage at any time. So again the young girl assumed adult responsibilities: She determined to become a
professional artist and to support her sister and herself.
Brother Jack-by this time married and a newspaper cartoonist in New York
City-provided the money for the train trip east. Since Bob was engaged to be
married and held a steady job at the Helena post office, he seemed in safe
hands. Thus, in the fall of 1895, Fanny, Agnes and their father moved to New Jersey,
to live with Jack and Bertie Cory.
With Jack's encouragement and financial help, Fanny enrolled that fall
at New York City's Metropolitan School of Fine Arts, with aspiring artists
from throughout the nation. She worked diligently in her classes and quickly
rose among her peers. The next year Fanny was accepted in the prestigious Art
Students' League, but she never finished this program.
With Agnes' health deteriorating, she decided to leave school and go to
work. Screwing up her
courage-portfolio of sketches and paintings pinched under her arm-the
19-year-old wisp of a girl confronted the intimidating halls of New York's
elite publishers: Harper; Century; Scribner; McClure; Holt. At the turn of the
century, the field of magazine and book illustration was almost exclusively
the domain of men. Still, after numerous rejections, Fanny Cory broke into the
business with the Century Publishing Company.
She recalled: "I sat fearfully in the receptionist's room, thinking
all the time of Mary Mapes Dodge, Louisa May Alcott, and the other great
authors associated with St. Nicholas Magazine. Then I was ushered into
the art editor's office, and he silently reviewed my samples. I was really
taken back when he offered me $12 for one drawing, and I told him I thought
that was too much. He kindly reduced it to $10."
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So St. Nicholas Magazine gave
Fanny the break she sought. By 1897 she was contributing illustrations
regularly to such national periodicals as Harper's Bazaar, Scribner's, Century,
Youth 's Companion, Saturday Evening Post, McClure's, Ladies' Home Journal and
the original Life. These magazine illustrations brought Fanny immediate
recognition and a series of contracts to illustrate books for the major
publishers. In July 1900, the prestigious art magazine The Critic reviewed
Fanny's work and praised her use of art nouveau decoration and puckish
humor: "She has fancy, brightness, and quaintness; she has the faculty
which is not to be underestimated of focusing these qualities into timelessness
and practical use. Her best pieces
depict charming children, whose sweetness is tempered by mischievousness. "
Throughout the blossoming of her artistic career, Fanny Cory cared for
her failing sister Agnes. With her commission fees, Fanny rented a comfortable
house for her sister and father, and she refused all social engagements
--preferring to spend the time with her beloved sister. Her greatest pleasure
was to bring Agnes little gifts that she desired; Fanny concentrated on
spoiling her beautiful, invalid sister. And then the end: "In the night I
was wakened by Agnes' tapping rapidly on the coverlet. I jumped up, struck a
match to light the gas, and saw my own scared face in the mirror. I turned to
find my darling vomiting great amounts of blood, her frightened eyes on me. I
held her in my arms, praying to God, I think. It was not long-the frightened
look died, the eyes grew dim, and I knew she was gone. Though I expected it,
what a shock it was … It took many, many years before I got over waking and
crying her name at night, thinking that she had called me. Nothing can quite
fill her place."
With Jack's help, Fanny arranged
for the funeral service in the parlor of their New Jersey home. She then accompanied
the body on the train to Illinois, and she buried Agnes in the Cory family
plot, beside their mother. Upon returning east, Fanny resumed her career in
art, but the loss of her sister brought immense grief, which did not dissipate
for years. Nevertheless, during this period, she illustrated several of the
volumes written by Lyman Frank Baum, known best for his work The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz (1900). This book sequence often is cited by critics as
"the high point in early 20th-century illustration" and includes The
Master Key (1901), The Pete and Polly Stories (1902), Maisie and
her Dog Snip in Fairyland (1902), The Enchanted Island of Yew
(1903), and The Well in the Wood (1904).
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Becoming one of the most prolific
illustrators in New York (at the age of 25) could not assuage Fanny's grief.
When, in 1903, brother Bob invited her to visit Montana, Fanny decided to
return permanently to the site of her happier adolescence. As she departed the
Century Publishing Company, the editor of St. Nicholas, William Faye Clarke,
gave Fanny a copy of Owen Wister's recently published work The Virginian. His
inscription called her "the Little Sister of the Century Company'"
and suggested that she might find her own "Virginian" in the West. He
could not have been more prophetic.
On April 12, 1904, Fanny Cory and
Fred Cooney slipped away to the little church in Canton (near Townsend), where
they quietly married. Happiness again reigned in Fanny's life, as she and Fred
created a home on the 1,800-acre Cooney ranch, seven miles up the Missouri
River from the small town of Canyon Ferry.
The Cooney patriarch, Thomas, had
walked with three companions from Iowa to Virginia City in 1863 (a 3½ month
journey) to try Montana's placer diggings. He had settled with his young bride
along the Missouri in 1868 to raise cattle for the mining camp markets. The
Cooney family grew to nine children, but the ranch was permanently altered by
the construction of the first Canyon Ferry Dam (1898), which created Lake Sewell
over much of their lush river bottom hay land. Fred, the fourth Cooney son, had
taken over operation of the ranch for his parents, and the home to which he
brought Fanny in 1904 was the "new" ranch house, reconstituted on the
east shore of the lake. Fred ran hundreds of head of cattle as well as large
herds of horses, which he sold to the federal government for cavalry mounts.
Even as a new bride, Fanny's highly
successful career as a magazine and book illustrator continued. In addition to
scores of magazine drawings, she completed illustration contracts for three
books in 1903 and five books in 1904. In fact, her highly acclaimed depictions
of young children and fanciful woodland creatures focused her determination to
begin her own family. Against the advice of her physician, this small,
delicate woman became pregnant in 1905. Then tragedy struck Fanny for the
third time in her 28 years: The much-sought baby was lost in childbirth-a
devastation that rendered her reclusive for more than a year. As she refused
illustration contracts, Fanny's preeminence in that highly competitive artistic
field quickly receded.
Slowly, with the tender assistance of Madeline Massa, an Italian nurse/companion
secured by Fred, Fanny emerged from her grief. In fact, she rebounded with a
staunch determination to become a mother. Despite the risks, this tenacity was
rewarded in 1907, with the birth of a daughter, Agnes Sayre. Fred and Fanny completed
their family with two sons, Robert (1909) and Ted (1910). For the opportunity
to raise her children, Fanny willingly subordinated her career as an
illustrator.
Between 1907 and 1913, she accepted
only four book contracts: Our Baby Book (1907); Sunshine Annie (1910);
Jackieboy in Rainbowland (1911) and The Fanny Cory Mother Goose (1913).
The personal joy in which Fanny reveled while raising her infants is reflected
in her art-her Mother Goose is frequently acclaimed as the premier work
of her illustrating career.
The years of childhood and adolescence
on the lakeside ranch were magical for the Cooney children and joyous for their
parents. While Fred managed the ranch operation during the 1910s and 1920s,
Fanny handled the chores of the ranch wife and mother: canning meats and vegetables;
milking cows and gathering eggs; dispatching local rattlesnakes; keeping a
large garden; helping with the late-winter calving; cooking for the family and
the help; washing clothes by hand; ironing with flatirons off the wood cook
stove. As much as possible, Fanny and the children were
outdoors, immersed in the beauty of the Missouri River wetlands and its
wildlife. And always, Sayre, Bob and Ted had the advantage of their mother's
peculiar talent to experience life on that level of fantasy beneath its harsh
surface.
One of the family's rituals was the evening storytelling, with the children
gathered on the living-room floor around Fanny's rocking chair, warmed by the
crackling woodstove. A kerosene lamp illuminated the cozy scene. Sayre recalled:
"Mother knew long passages of Sir Walter Scott's poetry, and she
loved to recite them and teach them to us, at least the most thrilling parts of
them. But mostly she would read from her favorite books-Little Women, Little Men, Under the Lilacs, Treasure Island,
Kidnapped, Ivanhoe, David Coppeifield, A Christmas Carol, The jungle Books,
Captains Courageous. We
would be spellbound, night after night, because she lived the stories as she
read them to us. We felt so acquainted with Scrooge, and Oliver Twist, and
Uriah Heap, and Robinson Crusoe and so many other colorful characters, that
they became a part of our daily lives and play.
"But I liked it best when
Mother would tell us episodes in the continuing saga of 'The Nine Little Green
Men,' which she created as she went along. Bob and Ted and I would appear as
central characters, with dialogue and actions that seemed to fit each of us.
"And how easily these tales tripped from Mother's lips. We would
always beg for more poems, or stories, or adventures, and the time for our bedtime
prayers came much too quickly."
When the need arose, Fanny would punish any misbehavior "in the
good old-fashioned way," with her hand on their bare bottoms. What the
children recall, however, is Fanny's more frequent approach to discipline:
"When we really got after each other, Mother would give us her
serious, motherly talk, which we knew she meant and which we never forgot
(although we didn't always act on it). It was this: 'Do you know that love is
the most important thing in this whole world? It is the very strongest thing in
this whole world, too!'”
"At the time we couldn't quite see how this was true-but if Mother
said so, it must be! Later, after we grew up, we knew she was right. Perhaps
her teaching of love and forgiveness was her most valuable lesson to us all."
The schooling of her children was paramount to Fanny Cory Cooney. One year, when they were small, the
Cooneys hired a teacher who lived that winter on the ranch. Later Fred rented a
cabin in the town of Canyon Ferry, where Fanny and the children spent the
weekdays, so they could attend grade school. When the children were ready for
high school, the Cooneys took a house in Helena each winter, 25 miles from Fred
and the ranch. By the early 1920s, Fanny and Fred realized that sending three
children to college posed a serious financial dilemma. The Cooney ranch, like
those all across Montana, was suffering from the agricultural depression, arid
prospects for a recovery appeared dim. Although Fanny had abandoned her
highly successful illustrating career to raise her children (she had not
illustrated a book for more than a decade), she decided to reenter the field of
commercial art to finance three college educations.
What she found, however, was that times had changed. The style of her
earlier work had become dated, and many of her former contacts in this
extremely competitive field proved fruitless. After numerous attempts to
reestablish her career, Fanny secured only a single contract to illustrate a
book, About Bunnies (924).
To the rescue of Fanny and her family came her brother Jack-then a
noted political cartoonist for the New York World --who suggested that
she try newspaper cartooning. Fanny had made an abortive foray into this field
in 1916, with a daily strip entitled "Ben Bolt, or, The Kid You Were
Yourself." With only this failure as background, Fanny (now in her
mid-40s), prepared a test series that she called "Other People's
Children." As its title suggests, the cartoon depicted the inherent
confusions produced by a child's approach to an adult world. In 1925, when she
sold the "Other People's Children" concept to the Philadelphia
Ledger Syndicate, Fanny's second career in commercial art was launched. Soon
the cartoon panels appeared in newspapers across the country. On the advice of
Ledger Syndicate executives, Fanny then developed one of the characters in
her cartoon series as a protagonist. He was a curly-haired, precocious imp of a
boy by the name of "Sonny." In childish dialogue, "Sonny"
comments on life from the perspective of a droll five-year-old. The
single-panel cartoon "Sonnysayings" became an immediate success, was
purchased by scores of newspapers, and gained a loyal following throughout the
nation, as well as in Canada, Australia and Japan. Of the comic series, the Indianapolis
Star raved:
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Fanny Cory Cooney retired from
cartooning in 1956. She had drawn 10,000 Sonnysaying by then.
Photo courtesy of Bob Cooney
"'Sonnysayings' is the most
valuable feature of its size in any newspaper today. 'Sonny' has been adopted
for keeps in every home that he enters. He is already a household pet in Indiana.
Our women readers, every new father and mother, and even the grandparents, join
in this chorus, 'Isn’t he cute! He's just like our baby!'"
In 1935 the huge King Syndicate
purchased "Sonnysayings," and Fanny Cory Cooney's readership became
even more extensive. At the Syndicate's urging, Fanny produced another daily
cartoon strip, called "Little Miss Muffet." The series involved the
adventures of an adolescent girl in an adult world and was designed as a direct
competitor to the popular "Little Orphan Annie." This syndicated
strip attained wide-spread success, but Fanny never enjoyed drawing it as much
as she did he "Sonnysayings."
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From the Cooney ranch near Canyon
Ferry, Fanny Cory Cooney drew and captioned a panel of "Sonnysayings"
(usually working about five weeks prior to publication) for each day of the
year for 30 years! She also wrote and illustrated a book on Sonny
Sayings(1929) and one on Little Miss Muffet (1936). By the time she
retired as a cartoonist in June 1956, Fanny had created more than 10,000
"Sonnysayings" cartoons; and "Little Miss Muffet" had run
daily for 21 years.
More important, Fanny's plan had
worked. With the earnings from her cartooning career, the Cooneys' three
children attained college educations: Sayre became an artist and a nurse; Bob
began a distinguished career with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and
Parks; Ted became a physician who returned to practice in Montana. And two
little tykes-"Sonny" and "Miss Muffet" made all that
possible. What turned possibility into reality was Fanny's determination to
give her children every educational opportunity. As Sayre once said,
"Mother's big concern was to make her loved ones' lives as happy as she
could, for as long as she could."
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Little Miss Muffet
Surprisingly Fanny found the time
to maintain her first love, the depiction of fairies, elves and other creatures
of her fantasy world. During her cartooning decades, she also worked on a
series of watercolors, which she called "A Fairy Alphabet." Each
sylvan scene was accompanied by a short verse, tied to the respective letter of
the alphabet. Although Fanny considered this series her best work, only
recently have the pieces been made public (through the courtesy of the Cooney
family), in the form of small prints and note cards. Fanny's assessment was
correct: The watercolors are exquisite and the accompanying verses reveal her
crisp humor and buoyant optimism.
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With her retirement from a
commercial art career in 1956, at the age of 79, Fanny decided to leave Montana
for the warmer climes of Puget Sound.
In 1949 the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
had begun construction on the second Canyon Ferry Dam. By 1953 the enlarged
reservoir covered the old town of Canyon Ferry, the original Canyon Ferry Dam
and virtually all of the remaining Cooney property. Fred had died in 1946, so
he never saw the eradication of the Cooney ranch. Alone, in the mid-1950s, Fanny
moved to Camano Island, Washington, near Sayre and her family, where she
purchased a cottage on the Sound. Despite slowly failing eyesight, she
continued her watercolor painting and dabbled in oils for the first time in her
life. That life ended quietly, on July 28, 1972, in Sayre's home. At the age
of94, Fanny Cooney finally relinquished her deep sense of responsibility for
her family-from her mother, to her brothers and sister, to her husband, to her
own children. A fitting eulogy is contained in a description written by her
children:
"Fanny Cory Cooney had more
than her share of tragedy and heartbreak in her life. Yet she saw and
appreciated the beauty in the world more than most of us-its sunsets, rainbows,
bird songs, spring flowers, babies, crisp winter mornings, clouds, and breezes.
Through her trials, she emerged with a sparkling laugh and a contagious sense
of humor that could reveal the whimsy in the most mundane things. Her humor
and her imagination always bravely came back to make life more joyful and
beautiful for the rest of us. She brought sunshine from the shadows."
As a tribute to Fanny Young Cory
Cooney --the artist, the wife and the mother --these words cannot be surpassed
in sincerity or in accuracy or in depth of devotion. The Montana Mother of the
Year for 1951 really was a Montana Mother of the Century.
The
author wishes to thank sincerely the two surviving children of Fred and Fanny
Cooney: Sayre Cooney Dodgson, of Camano Island, Washington and Bob Cooney, of Helena,
Montana, who graciously provided photographs,
illustrations, precious pieces of family documentation, advice and
encouragement during the preparation of this piece. They are truly Fanny's
children.
Dave Walter is research director
at the Montana Historical Society Library, Helena
This page was created by Fanny Young Cory’s
grandson –Bob Dodgson
Article supplied by Ann Dorsey –F.Y. Cory’s
granddaughter
Email comments, questions to dodgsonr@yahoo.com
F.Y. Cory Publishers,
Inc.
21230 Damson Road
Bothell, WA 98021
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