Monday, March 26, 2012

Calling card of Miss de Neergaard



Calling card of Miss de Neergaard.  




I wonder if she was Elna de Neergaard, a Danish-born, Sweden-trained weaver and dyer, who emigrated to the United States and taught weaving as occupational therapy to men recuperating in hospital from wounds during World War I.  She was also an instructor at the Waterbury Institute of Craft and Industry.


An example of her work:




Here is an article from the New York Tribune of March 2, 1919 entitled "The Little Lady of the Looms".


Elna Mathilde de Neergaard was born in Denmark on 7 September 1872, the daughter of Karl Ferdinand de Neergaard and wife Mathilde (Bodenhoff) de Neergaard.


I found Elna and her sisters Golla Betsy, a pianist, and Sophia Margrethe, a therapist, I believe, in the 1920 Census of New York City; there was no one else enumerated in the household.


Golla had married Arthur Henry Krieger, who died in 1920, after the Census was enumerated, so perhaps they had separated by then.  Sophia Margrethe had married Hjorleif Flood; they were divorced before the 1920 Census.


I don't believe Elna ever married.  She died in 1946.


I also found a Miss de Neergaard, Genevieve de Neergaard of San Jose, California, whose engagement to Stanford graduate George H. Berhaus was announced in the May 21, 1913 issue of The Call, published in San Francisco.


Perhaps a reader knows of another possible Miss de Neergaard.


Thanks for stopping by!

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