From Falling Leaves to Kewpies

Wednesday's dawn once again lit up the bright yellow leaves just outside our hotel balcony. The ground is littered with leaves that graced the limbs above when we arrived in Branson 6 mornings ago. The temperature was near 70 degrees by 8:30 am when my wife and I arrived at a secluded parking lot 9 miles north of Branson. In 1896, construction was started on a home near where we sat that would become known as "Bonniebrook." The owner was famed artist Rose O'Neill, born in 1874, but whose artwork had already made her a millionaire at the tender age of 22. Though she would eventually own 5 homes around the world, Rose declared that the best days of her life were spent at Bonniebrook, deep in the wilderness north of Branson.

In 1909, Rose drew her first kewpie doll. In 1912, a German company produced the first kewpie doll, an item that has helped spread Rose's fame far and wide for the past century. She used her wealth to provide free room and board at Bonniebrook to aspiring artists. Thomas Hart Benton was a frequent visitor.

In 1947, three years after Rose passed away, her autistic brother "Clink" burned the house to the ground. Some say it was an accident. Some say it wasn't. We were told Clink could speak 5 languages but couldn't tie his shoes. After the fire, Clink spent the rest of his life in a mental institution in Nevada, Mo.

Rose O'Neill, her mother and father, and several brothers and sisters are buried deep in the woods at Bonniebrook, next to the bubbling creek that inspired the home's name. Rose said the sound of the water running over the rocks helped inspire her artwork, as did the "friendly monsters" she saw at night in the outlines of the trees from the her third story balcony.

Rose was known to locals as eccentric, ahead of her time, an early hippie. According to the caretaker, though Rose was well-liked, local residents considered it scandalous when she went to the movies in Branson wearing flowing Bohemian dresses and open-toed sandals, or even barefoot, her toenails painted bright red.

Rose O'Neill's name became a part of my family tree when my grandfather's sister, Geneva Reece, married Rose's nephew. Rose died in Springfield on April 6, 1944 at the home of that nephew, my grandfather's brother-in-law. That home, now owned by Drury University, has just been completely renovated. According to Susan Scott, President of the Bonniebrook Historical Society, a ribbon cutting and dedication of the Rose O'Neill house will take place on Thursday, October 25, at 6:30 pm.

Susan is spearheading an effort to have a bust of Rose enshrined in the "Hall of Famous Missourians" inside the Missouri State Capitol.   She is also interested in having the Kewpie doll declared the official State doll of Missouri. That should please Columbia Hickman high school alum, who chose the Kewpie doll as their school mascot.

For more information on the only one of my relatives whose house I have to pay eight bucks to get inside, go to:

www.roseoneill.org

Bonniebrook today, rebuilt after 1947 fire

Rose O'Neill grave in family cemetery at Bonniebrook