Canvas & Keys

16. Amazingly, There Are Some Things Hattie Devereaux Doesn't Know

Chapter 16

Amazingly, There Are Some Things Hattie Devereaux Doesn't Know

Even for a girl like me, who loved anything about art or history or any combination of the two, I must admit I didn't know anything about Johanna Hummel. That ended when I found a biography book on her online and had it shipped overnight to Pallandino. The next day, Drake didn't have to force me to stay in my room, because I spent it reading about her. I wanted to know more and wasn't disappointed. I got to know her just as much as Lorraine and Jesse did.

Johanna Ingram was born in the same year as Lorraine was, though she'd grown up under very different circumstances. As the daughter of a prostitute, she was on her own by the age of fourteen, tired of the life she was. After leaving her home in Chicago, she found her way to New York and began working as a governess to a wealthy family upstate. She stayed with them until she was seventeen, taking care of the children and getting an education right alongside them. The family she worked for quickly became more like her actual family and they treated her as such.

It was then she met her future husband, Roy Hummel, a man nine years her senior. As the son of a wealthy businessman, he'd had pretty much everything handed to him throughout life, never having to work for anything. But when he and Johanna met by chance in New York City, that changed.

Johanna wasn't about to let a man sweep her off her feet, promise to give her everything, and then pull it right out from under her just as the father she never met did to her mother. Every pursuit was shot down, but Roy wasn't about to give up.

He started out small, sending her bouquets of flowers or sweet notes that made her smile even when she didn't want to. This went on for weeks as she and the family stayed in the city.

Lucille, the woman Johanna worked for and who became like a mother, encouraged Johanna to give Roy a chance. She'd see the way the flowers and notes had made her smile like she never had before. She still refused, so Lucille took it upon herself.

She and her husband, Peter, had been invited to a picnic charity event held by Roy's father. The children had been invited also, which meant Johanna would go, too. It was there they finally had a real conversation...and that was it.

Six months after the picnic, after back and forth letters, and after weekend meetings in the city, Roy and Johanna were engaged. Three months after that, they were married. After another four months, Johanna was expecting their first child, a daughter named Lucille.

It was during her first pregnancy Johanna picked up a new hobby – painting. She had her own room in her and Roy's home. At first, they were just something she'd played around with, different colors and strokes on the canvases. Then, she began studying artists of every era, falling in love with every movement.

Her paintings, which mostly consisted of landscapes and architecture, were displayed in their home. It was along the hallways that they began gathering the attention of their guests whenever they were over. Many asked for paintings of their own, which Johanna happily abliged. The name Johanna Hummel was a household name on the eastern coast of the United States and was quickly spreading.

From there, I went to the journal of Lorraine's to read more about her relationship with Johanna. It was at one of her and Roy's dinner parties that she and Lorraine met. Dr. Ellis, Lorraine's father, had been one of Roy's favorite professors at Harvard. This had taken place a few years before Lorraine and her father had even meet Wesley Parsons and Jesse Gordon.

Lorraine and Johanna became fast friends, keeping in touch through letters throughout Lorraine's travels with her father. However, after what had happened at Paddon Manor in 1923, Lorraine's letters stopped. It was also around the time Johanna and Roy's daughter, Lucille, was born.