Wife of C. C. Cowgill
Ellen (Nellie) Baker-Cowgill, daughter of Bakersfield’s founder Col. Thomas Baker and his wife, Ellen, could very well be the first artist to live in Bakersfield. She did not achieve fame, nor leave behind a collection of works, but those who knew her during her short 25 years of life considered her an intelligent, kind and energetic woman who was a highly gifted artist, writer and musician.
Nellie was born in Visalia on June 23, 1861, and moved to Kern Island with her family when she was 2 years old. Her father passed away when she was 11, and it is said that she inherited his intellect.
As a young schoolgirl, Nellie was a bright student and a talented musician and writer. During a school presentation covered in the January 29, 1880, issue of the Kern County Californian, the students were accompanied by Nellie on the organ as they sang the words to “Happy Land.” The grand finale consisted of the reading of students’ short stories from the school journal.
Despite the quiet demeanor she was known for, Nellie had the ability to express herself in unexpected ways through her literary skills. In a short story titled “School Girls,” the young author speaks of longing for the end of her school days but knows that she will one day wish she was “a happy child once more, trudging to school to recite some lessons and to do plenty of mischief.”
A shift in the story’s mood reveals a young author who not only possessed a witty sense of humor, but one who was not afraid to use her writing as a tool to challenge established gender stereotypes. She quickly moves from a verse of future longing to one completely unexpected. She challenged the schoolboys who often spoke of the schoolgirls’ silliness and wrote that the boys are not any less awkward than the girls, “nor is our laugh any more ridiculous than the great whining schoolboys.”
She does not stop there but instead continued to write about the boys’ attitudes when dealing with “us poor individuals of the female gender that they look down upon us from their majestic heights (which, as far as I can see, consists only of tallness and not mental capacity).”
Just as quickly as she digressed from writing of happy school days, she closed her story with, “I do not think we will ever regret our happy school days, which will never return.”
She married Christopher C. Cowgill on June 18, 1885, and gave birth to her son Edgar in July 1886. Sadly, she succumbed to consumption on May 6, 1887. She was gone too soon but her family kept her memory alive.
On Friday, March 11, 1927 – nearly 40 years after her passing – Nellie’s brother Thomas Alverson (T. A.) Baker, former Kern County Sheriff, shared with The Bakersfield Californian a story about one of her drawings. Laced with elements of mystery and perhaps miracles, T. A. shared the circumstances surrounding a fire that occurred at his home in 1919.
The story began around the year 1881 when Nellie drew a crayon picture of the head of Christ. All who viewed the picture considered it a “masterpiece.” The picture was placed in storage with other family photographs and papers and almost forgotten until a fire ravaged the storage shed. T. A. recalled that the box full of photos burned, as well as his diploma from Washington College, but beneath the ashes, he discovered something that he could only describe as an “intervention of providence.”
Nellie’s crayon picture of Christ was the only object to survive the fire and T.A. proclaimed, “The cloth is not scorched.” Residents of Bakersfield were given the opportunity to witness this unexplainable phenomenon when the picture was placed on exhibit at Hughes Drug Store on the corner of Chester Avenue and 19th Street.
In her obituary in the May 14, 1887, issue of the Kern County Californian, she is remembered for her intelligence, purity and goodness of heart. Her legacy will forever remain as one who “possessed a high talent for painting, drawing and music.” Her strength of character and inherent talents solidifies her place as the first artist to live in Bakersfield and as a member of the great community of women in the arts.
By Julie Plata, Bakersfield Life Magazine – September 2015
Ellen (Nellie) Baker-Cowgill, daughter of Bakersfield’s founder Col. Thomas Baker and his wife, Ellen, could very well be the first artist to live in Bakersfield. She did not achieve fame, nor leave behind a collection of works, but those who knew her during her short 25 years of life considered her an intelligent, kind and energetic woman who was a highly gifted artist, writer and musician.
Nellie was born in Visalia on June 23, 1861, and moved to Kern Island with her family when she was 2 years old. Her father passed away when she was 11, and it is said that she inherited his intellect.
As a young schoolgirl, Nellie was a bright student and a talented musician and writer. During a school presentation covered in the January 29, 1880, issue of the Kern County Californian, the students were accompanied by Nellie on the organ as they sang the words to “Happy Land.” The grand finale consisted of the reading of students’ short stories from the school journal.
Despite the quiet demeanor she was known for, Nellie had the ability to express herself in unexpected ways through her literary skills. In a short story titled “School Girls,” the young author speaks of longing for the end of her school days but knows that she will one day wish she was “a happy child once more, trudging to school to recite some lessons and to do plenty of mischief.”
A shift in the story’s mood reveals a young author who not only possessed a witty sense of humor, but one who was not afraid to use her writing as a tool to challenge established gender stereotypes. She quickly moves from a verse of future longing to one completely unexpected. She challenged the schoolboys who often spoke of the schoolgirls’ silliness and wrote that the boys are not any less awkward than the girls, “nor is our laugh any more ridiculous than the great whining schoolboys.”
She does not stop there but instead continued to write about the boys’ attitudes when dealing with “us poor individuals of the female gender that they look down upon us from their majestic heights (which, as far as I can see, consists only of tallness and not mental capacity).”
Just as quickly as she digressed from writing of happy school days, she closed her story with, “I do not think we will ever regret our happy school days, which will never return.”
She married Christopher C. Cowgill on June 18, 1885, and gave birth to her son Edgar in July 1886. Sadly, she succumbed to consumption on May 6, 1887. She was gone too soon but her family kept her memory alive.
On Friday, March 11, 1927 – nearly 40 years after her passing – Nellie’s brother Thomas Alverson (T. A.) Baker, former Kern County Sheriff, shared with The Bakersfield Californian a story about one of her drawings. Laced with elements of mystery and perhaps miracles, T. A. shared the circumstances surrounding a fire that occurred at his home in 1919.
The story began around the year 1881 when Nellie drew a crayon picture of the head of Christ. All who viewed the picture considered it a “masterpiece.” The picture was placed in storage with other family photographs and papers and almost forgotten until a fire ravaged the storage shed. T. A. recalled that the box full of photos burned, as well as his diploma from Washington College, but beneath the ashes, he discovered something that he could only describe as an “intervention of providence.”
Nellie’s crayon picture of Christ was the only object to survive the fire and T.A. proclaimed, “The cloth is not scorched.” Residents of Bakersfield were given the opportunity to witness this unexplainable phenomenon when the picture was placed on exhibit at Hughes Drug Store on the corner of Chester Avenue and 19th Street.
In her obituary in the May 14, 1887, issue of the Kern County Californian, she is remembered for her intelligence, purity and goodness of heart. Her legacy will forever remain as one who “possessed a high talent for painting, drawing and music.” Her strength of character and inherent talents solidifies her place as the first artist to live in Bakersfield and as a member of the great community of women in the arts.
By Julie Plata, Bakersfield Life Magazine – September 2015
Wife of C. C. Cowgill
Ellen (Nellie) Baker-Cowgill, daughter of Bakersfield’s founder Col. Thomas Baker and his wife, Ellen, could very well be the first artist to live in Bakersfield. She did not achieve fame, nor leave behind a collection of works, but those who knew her during her short 25 years of life considered her an intelligent, kind and energetic woman who was a highly gifted artist, writer and musician.
Nellie was born in Visalia on June 23, 1861, and moved to Kern Island with her family when she was 2 years old. Her father passed away when she was 11, and it is said that she inherited his intellect.
As a young schoolgirl, Nellie was a bright student and a talented musician and writer. During a school presentation covered in the January 29, 1880, issue of the Kern County Californian, the students were accompanied by Nellie on the organ as they sang the words to “Happy Land.” The grand finale consisted of the reading of students’ short stories from the school journal.
Despite the quiet demeanor she was known for, Nellie had the ability to express herself in unexpected ways through her literary skills. In a short story titled “School Girls,” the young author speaks of longing for the end of her school days but knows that she will one day wish she was “a happy child once more, trudging to school to recite some lessons and to do plenty of mischief.”
A shift in the story’s mood reveals a young author who not only possessed a witty sense of humor, but one who was not afraid to use her writing as a tool to challenge established gender stereotypes. She quickly moves from a verse of future longing to one completely unexpected. She challenged the schoolboys who often spoke of the schoolgirls’ silliness and wrote that the boys are not any less awkward than the girls, “nor is our laugh any more ridiculous than the great whining schoolboys.”
She does not stop there but instead continued to write about the boys’ attitudes when dealing with “us poor individuals of the female gender that they look down upon us from their majestic heights (which, as far as I can see, consists only of tallness and not mental capacity).”
Just as quickly as she digressed from writing of happy school days, she closed her story with, “I do not think we will ever regret our happy school days, which will never return.”
She married Christopher C. Cowgill on June 18, 1885, and gave birth to her son Edgar in July 1886. Sadly, she succumbed to consumption on May 6, 1887. She was gone too soon but her family kept her memory alive.
On Friday, March 11, 1927 – nearly 40 years after her passing – Nellie’s brother Thomas Alverson (T. A.) Baker, former Kern County Sheriff, shared with The Bakersfield Californian a story about one of her drawings. Laced with elements of mystery and perhaps miracles, T. A. shared the circumstances surrounding a fire that occurred at his home in 1919.
The story began around the year 1881 when Nellie drew a crayon picture of the head of Christ. All who viewed the picture considered it a “masterpiece.” The picture was placed in storage with other family photographs and papers and almost forgotten until a fire ravaged the storage shed. T. A. recalled that the box full of photos burned, as well as his diploma from Washington College, but beneath the ashes, he discovered something that he could only describe as an “intervention of providence.”
Nellie’s crayon picture of Christ was the only object to survive the fire and T.A. proclaimed, “The cloth is not scorched.” Residents of Bakersfield were given the opportunity to witness this unexplainable phenomenon when the picture was placed on exhibit at Hughes Drug Store on the corner of Chester Avenue and 19th Street.
In her obituary in the May 14, 1887, issue of the Kern County Californian, she is remembered for her intelligence, purity and goodness of heart. Her legacy will forever remain as one who “possessed a high talent for painting, drawing and music.” Her strength of character and inherent talents solidifies her place as the first artist to live in Bakersfield and as a member of the great community of women in the arts.
By Julie Plata, Bakersfield Life Magazine – September 2015
Ellen (Nellie) Baker-Cowgill, daughter of Bakersfield’s founder Col. Thomas Baker and his wife, Ellen, could very well be the first artist to live in Bakersfield. She did not achieve fame, nor leave behind a collection of works, but those who knew her during her short 25 years of life considered her an intelligent, kind and energetic woman who was a highly gifted artist, writer and musician.
Nellie was born in Visalia on June 23, 1861, and moved to Kern Island with her family when she was 2 years old. Her father passed away when she was 11, and it is said that she inherited his intellect.
As a young schoolgirl, Nellie was a bright student and a talented musician and writer. During a school presentation covered in the January 29, 1880, issue of the Kern County Californian, the students were accompanied by Nellie on the organ as they sang the words to “Happy Land.” The grand finale consisted of the reading of students’ short stories from the school journal.
Despite the quiet demeanor she was known for, Nellie had the ability to express herself in unexpected ways through her literary skills. In a short story titled “School Girls,” the young author speaks of longing for the end of her school days but knows that she will one day wish she was “a happy child once more, trudging to school to recite some lessons and to do plenty of mischief.”
A shift in the story’s mood reveals a young author who not only possessed a witty sense of humor, but one who was not afraid to use her writing as a tool to challenge established gender stereotypes. She quickly moves from a verse of future longing to one completely unexpected. She challenged the schoolboys who often spoke of the schoolgirls’ silliness and wrote that the boys are not any less awkward than the girls, “nor is our laugh any more ridiculous than the great whining schoolboys.”
She does not stop there but instead continued to write about the boys’ attitudes when dealing with “us poor individuals of the female gender that they look down upon us from their majestic heights (which, as far as I can see, consists only of tallness and not mental capacity).”
Just as quickly as she digressed from writing of happy school days, she closed her story with, “I do not think we will ever regret our happy school days, which will never return.”
She married Christopher C. Cowgill on June 18, 1885, and gave birth to her son Edgar in July 1886. Sadly, she succumbed to consumption on May 6, 1887. She was gone too soon but her family kept her memory alive.
On Friday, March 11, 1927 – nearly 40 years after her passing – Nellie’s brother Thomas Alverson (T. A.) Baker, former Kern County Sheriff, shared with The Bakersfield Californian a story about one of her drawings. Laced with elements of mystery and perhaps miracles, T. A. shared the circumstances surrounding a fire that occurred at his home in 1919.
The story began around the year 1881 when Nellie drew a crayon picture of the head of Christ. All who viewed the picture considered it a “masterpiece.” The picture was placed in storage with other family photographs and papers and almost forgotten until a fire ravaged the storage shed. T. A. recalled that the box full of photos burned, as well as his diploma from Washington College, but beneath the ashes, he discovered something that he could only describe as an “intervention of providence.”
Nellie’s crayon picture of Christ was the only object to survive the fire and T.A. proclaimed, “The cloth is not scorched.” Residents of Bakersfield were given the opportunity to witness this unexplainable phenomenon when the picture was placed on exhibit at Hughes Drug Store on the corner of Chester Avenue and 19th Street.
In her obituary in the May 14, 1887, issue of the Kern County Californian, she is remembered for her intelligence, purity and goodness of heart. Her legacy will forever remain as one who “possessed a high talent for painting, drawing and music.” Her strength of character and inherent talents solidifies her place as the first artist to live in Bakersfield and as a member of the great community of women in the arts.
By Julie Plata, Bakersfield Life Magazine – September 2015
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