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Purcell and Elmslie, Architects Firm active :: 1907-1921
Minneapolis, Minnesota :: Chicago,
Illinois |
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Ye Older Grindstones
8/29/2002
Because of the sale of some Elmslie-designed terra-cotta, I have added the commission list of Elmslie's work done after the dissolution of the P&E partnership, circa 1920s-1930s. The list is as complete as I can make it, though undoubtedly there are other works from that period not shown.
The amount of technical effort required to maintain a web server amazes me (and I have four). In addition to keeping up the basic components of computer hardware and software, a constant assault of service packs and security hotfixes can cause what starts out as stable configuration to become otherwise. In this case, the offense was addition of Microsoft Office Service Pack 2. After that went in FrontPage stopped accessing my networked web server. No persuasion would get the application to agree that there was a web site there when trying to open one even already listed in the Recent Webs menu, and when trying to create a new one I was informed one already existed. The perfect Catch-22. Lo, four hours of directory work and restarting later, the site is accessible again. I think of all the images that could have been scanned and mounted, instead. Plus, I am serving all this from an ancient Pentium I 100-Mz with 81 MB RAM, which means everything goes all the more slowly.
8/27/2002
You can see the pressure cooker at work when the pleasure of P&E must be dormant for nearly two weeks. Two photos of Bill Purcell sat unscanned in front of me all that time, though I drove by Westwinds on Sunday. Made me wonder where Dorothy O'Brien (sister of Purcell's second wife, Cecily, and co-executor of his estate) was laid to rest, since I lost touch with her just before her death. They don't make English ladies like her anymore; right out of Masterpiece Theater (intended as a high compliment), she was a former British intelligence operative active during WWII. Perhaps I need to go to the Presbyterian retirement home in Monrovia that was her final earthly residence and see if they can/will tell me anything, then I can pay one last visit. She was a charming soul, witty and generous. She went through hell after the Purcell estate closed out, ending her sole source of income after ten years. "What did Bill expect me to do?!" she asked in sad exasperation, a question that lingers yet on magnetic tape. Finally a sister of hers, or other relative, saw her living in squalor and left some stock, which she used to buy into her last apartment-like dwelling. I lack enough words to express my joy in her friendship, and my appreciation of the many documents (the records of Purcell's mother's suicide, among others) and fine gifts that she bestowed on me over the years; particularly the very special acrylic painting by Andre Nejavitz, a Polish survivor of Auchwitz Birkenau, whom Purcell helped get back to some semblence of life after the war.
Another great friend, one I wish I could have done better by with my sustained correspondence, is Helen Purcell, WGP's great niece. Long the resident of the Charles A. Purcell house built in 1909, she was forced to sell the house in the 1970s and thereafter lived in a series of ever smaller, even declining, circumstances. A favorite story she had of her own life was the trip across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary in First Class alongside the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Her generosity to the wellbeing of her children was more important to her than her own creature comfort. This depleted her retirement, though she astonished me with lunch at a place where the menus lacked prices and the waiters wore white gloves, as well as a Marshall Field gift basket to say thanks for the afternoon when I got back home to Minnesota.
That day, we visited the Purcell/Gray gravesite and sundry other family locations of note to those who care. She sent me chatty family letters faithfully for many years, and I saw her whenever I made it to Chicago. Alas, as my own fortunes shattered hither and yon, I failed to write back properly. At my best, though, I did give her my author's copy of the Art and Life on the Upper Mississippi book properly inscribed, as we sat at lunch at the Chicago Historical Society. God bless her classy soul, wherever she is; couture was created for people like her. Perhaps one day I will recall here the trip afterwards to Purcell Palmer's nearby Gold Coast pied-a-terre, where I marveled at the art collection (this is not the main house, either, you know). Purcell is an interesting woman, a worthy continuance of the family spirit, whom I last saw over very fine wine and hors d'oeuvres at the Napa Valley Grille in Minneapolis. Another person I wish I could have remained in touch with, but life had other plans.
In case you haven't seen them yet, some Elmslie-designed architectural fragments are for sale at the Perrault-Rago Gallery web site. These are from the demolished Morton Township High School (Calumet City, Indiana 1934; William S. Hutton, architect, GGE, associate architect) and Edison School (Hammond, Indiana 1936; William S. Hutton, architect, GGE associate architect). These pieces wistfully recall the glory days, lacking the fine touch of Kristian Schneider as modeler. I have yet to confirm where they were made. However, almost like foghorns against the oblivion that rose up around the Prairie modality, tesseract glyphs [" :: "] are emblazoned on some of these pieces with a lack of subtlety that for Elmslie must have been like one last howl in an empty, lonely wilderness. William Hutton explained his continued occasional partnership with Elmslie, especially this late in the game, by saying that "He always gives a good design for the money." Elmslie died broke and largely forgotten, much like his master Louis Sullivan. Remind me sometime to account for the attendees at his funeral, which attracted from afar and resulted in a variety of quaint, telling remarks in letters to Purcell.
research courtesy mark hammons