Bertha Fisher Hamilton

Throughout the month of November, the paintings of Bertha Fisher Hamilton will be exhibited at The Castle. Ms. Hamilton's art, and her story, became part of Castle history when she was the Fourth Street neighbor of Stewart and Bertlyn Bosley. To the Bosleys' new house, which became known as The Castle, she contributed an 1840 portrait of her grandmother, Julia Booth, daughter of Marietta's first mayor, and a cherry wardrobe. The Bosleys also acquired many of her paintings.

Bertha Fisher Hamilton (1879-1977) was an accomplished artist whose work, like that of many small-town women of her time, has remained unknown and unsung. That she was serious about being an artist is evident in the fact that she studied at the Maryland College Institute of Art in Baltimore. Later, in Marietta, she studied with A. James Weber, a professional artist. According to one of her fellow students, who remembers her fondly, she loved to paint, especially scenes featuring Marietta' s alleys and sidewalks. But it was as a dressmaker that Hamilton earned a living. A Marietta woman, who recalls the days when middle-class people had their clothes sewn, says that Hamilton had a fine reputation as a seamstress. She also made materials for the Altar Guild at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where she had her own pew.

Bertha and her husband John had two children and two grandchildren. Unfortunately, their genealogical trail has gone cold and few Mariettans remember this woman who lived to be 98 years old. The legacy of her paintings remains in the community, however. It is this legacy that will be on display at The Castle, offering a glimpse of Marietta's mid-20th-century past and a testimony to the talent of this woman who lived in history's shadows.