William Lucius Homer Bradfield Leavitt (1868 - 1951)

Born 23 Apr 1868 in Sandwich, Massachusetts, United States

Husband of Ruth Baird (Bryan) Owen — married 3 Oct 1903 (to 1909) in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States

Descendants

Died 8 Aug 1951 at age 83 in Winthrop, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Maren B. [send private message]

Biography

William Homer Leavitt (April 23, 1868 – August 8, 1951) was an American portrait painter who married the daughter of politician William Jennings Bryan. For a time, Leavitt was a sought-after society portraitist, until he departed for Paris to pursue his art. He was subsequently divorced by his wife, and his two children were raised by their politician grandfather. Leavitt's two children became the subject of a heated custody battle chronicled in the newspapers of the day.

William was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, to Aaron Littlefield Leavitt and his wife Sarah Clark. The family subsequently removed in 1880 to Newport, Rhode Island, where William Homer Leavitt, having studied art in Paris, returned and set himself up as a society portrait painter. He was much in demand, and among the many well-known figures he painted was United States General Joseph Wheeler, who after the portrait session lent Leavitt his black horse, Alabama. The horse bucked and threw Leavitt onto Newport's Bellevue Avenue. Initially Leavitt was not expected to recover, although he did later make a full recovery.

Two years later Leavitt's career had taken off, causing The New York Times to note that "artist Leavitt has won distinction in his work and has a host of friends in intellectual circles." That same year, 1903, Leavitt went west to Lincoln, Nebraska, to paint the portrait of attorney and Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. The 32-year-old artist and the politician's 18-year-old daughter Ruth Bryan struck up a friendship. The couple married in October of that year in a small civil ceremony.

Following the abbreviated ceremony, painter Leavitt and his wife departed for the East Coast and the South, and briefly to Europe where they honeymooned. Later the couple settled at their home at 81 Pelham Street in Newport, Rhode Island, where Leavitt set himself up in a studio devoted to his portraiture. But the union was apparently rocky from the start, and within six years Leavitt had departed for Paris to paint, and his wife sued for divorce on the grounds of non-support. The couple had two children, Ruth and Bryan Leavitt.

Leavitt eventually returned to America from Paris, continued to paint, and married as his second wife Gertrude (Leeper) Leavitt, daughter of the Rev. Dr. G. Leeper of Cleveland, Ohio. Leavitt lived at his old home in Newport with his wife, who died of appendicitis on April 15, 1914. Leavitt's died from heart disease on August 8, 1951 in Winthrop, Mass. He was buried in Island Cemetery, Newport, Rhode Island.

Sources

• Wikipedia contributors. "William Homer Leavitt." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
• Find A Grave: Memorial #109553006