I received an interesting email recently from Patricia Boyer. Patricia inherited two H. Lewis works, a chalk landscape and a floral oil painting. The pictures came from her parents, who had received the works as a wedding gift September 9, 1935 from an “H. Lewis”.
Pat didn’t know who H. Lewis was; “I have a distant relative, Marion Rosendahl, whose father was Harloff & mother was Garnett, who died when Marion was young. Marion was raised by someone else & used the Lewis name. The story which I heard was that H.Lewis was a painter who worked for a big department store in Pittsburg & knew our family.”
It turns out Patricia’s father was a cousin to Marion Lewis Rosendahl. Marion was the daughter Harlof Rosendahl and of Garnet, Hubert’s daughter who died in the flu epidemic in 1918 just months after giving birth to Marion. Hubert and Sarah Lewis took baby Marion and her father Harlof in to their home after Garnet died. After some time, Harlof left Marion to be raised with the Lewis’s, her grandparents, as he went out to start his business in California.
It would seem Hubert liked to give his art as wedding gifts, especially to those in the family. The gift to his granddaughter’s cousin was noteworthy in that it shows there was still a familial tie to Harlof’s side of the family 17 years after the death of Garnet. The newlyweds lived in Carlisle, PA, about 180 miles away from the Lewis’s.
If my accounting is correct with my ancestry skills, I believe that Patricia and I are each first cousins once removed to Marion, but no relation to each other. We both learned some new things about Hubert Lewis and our respective families.

H. Lewis landscape 1935 owned by Patricia Boyer

H. Lewis signature circa 1935

H. Lewis floral circa 1935 owned by P. Boyer