MAMA'S PAINTINGS

If anything is treasured above everything else material by the children and grandchildren of Pearl Stainton McArthur, it surely must be her painting. Every time there is a gathering of her family, the subject of her painting always seems to come into the topic of conversation. Mama was an artist as a young lady. I don’t know how young she was when she painted her first picture, but I am sure she started out at a very young age. By the time she was married, she had created many oils, water-colors, and pastels.

 One of my favorites was a large oil painting of the famous race of the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez paddle-wheel boats on the Mississippi River.  It hung over the mantel in the dining room of my Grandmama Stainton’s home in Laurel, Mississippi. Since this was a copy of someone else’s picture, she did not sign her name. She explained that you put your name on a painting only when it was original. This picture made me want to take a river boat trip on the Mississippi, something Margaret and I did, an evening cruise out of St. Louis on our honeymoon  and later a shorter one out of St. Paul in cold wearther. We also crossed the river on a ferry —a thrill in itself. Unfortunately, that picture was lost in a fire which destroyed Grandmama’s old home.

Several of her pre-marriage paintings survive. I had in my possession one of these, a steam ship picture. For some reason, it was not a favorite of mine, so I let David McArthur, who served in the Navy during World War II have it.

When Mama began to raise her family, her painting activity seemed to fade away. It was only after she became a widow that some of the children encouraged her to take up painting again, and provided her with an oil set to get her started.  She always said that painting was one way she could forget about all her troubles.  She took some painting lessons from time to time, but we were not sure that they really helped her that much, except to continue her interest in art.  She, along with most of her children, preferred the realist art rather than some of the modern art of others.

One of Mama’s greatest joys in addition to painting was sharing her art with her family. She was never satisfied with her creations and spent many hours fine-tuning them, but they seemed to satisfy the rest of us.  One of her first grandson’s, David A., took up picture framing as a youngster, so he kept her supplied with frames.

For our wedding gift, Mama painted us the magnolia picture. She painted several of these over the years as the magnolia was the State Flower of Mississippi, and there was a beautiful magnolia tree in Aunt Chad’s yard next door, and later on in her own yard.





For my ordination to the ministry, Mama painted from a church bulletin cover the picture of the Easter lilies and open Bible. I guess this must have been mostly her creation since she did sign that.

While we were living in Nesbit, Mama sat on the front porch of the manse and painted the Presbyterian Church where I was ordained. One of the old-time members thought she should have left the ugly chimney off since it was not on the original building, but Mama painted what she saw. She did leave out the power lines, though!




When we lived in Florida, she painted several pictures for us.  We had beautiful hibiscus blossoms in the yard of the manse in Miami that Jean picked, so Mama painted her a picture of those.

  She said she wouldn’t make the pink one as big as it really was, because no one would believe that it could be that big.  She sat on the beach at Naples and painted the coconut palm tree and the beach.




One day we traveled out into the Everglades and saw a beautiful, complete rainbow.  I had to take two slide pictures to get it all in. Later, Mama took one and created the beautiful Rainbow over the Everglades picture for us.

In our dining room in Meridian hung a delicious-looking fruit picture, including a very tempting slice of watermelon. This picture, after being restored by an artist, hung in the Stainton McArthur home in Tuscon. We liked that picture so well that Mama painted a different fruit picture for us.  Since we were living in Florida at the time, she included an avocado from our yard. We have always hung this picture in the dining room wherever we lived.

One day Margaret admired a painting that hung in Mama’s bedroom in Meridian. It was a painting of the waterworks pond in Meridian.  Mama responded, “You are the first person to say you liked it, so you can have it!” She went on to explain that it did not have the right kind of frame on it, but we could change it.  We never did!

So, we have been very fortunate in receiving a number of Mama’s paintings.  For the family reunion held in the McArthur Recreation Center in Lakeland, Florida in 1990 we had poster-sized photographic copies made of her paintings and displayed them. These were given to various members of the family.

We hope our children and grandchildren will treasure these as we have.