Collette and Christy
Howard Chandler Christy painting Collette Ramsey Baker in the 1930s.
In the Summer 2024 issue of Hearing Health magazine, we share a story from James Head, an attorney and author, who met Collette Ramsey Baker ("Collette") at her home in Vero Beach, Florida, in 2007 to discuss American illustrator and portrait painter Howard Chandler Christy (1872–1952). James is the author of the book series “An Affair with Beauty: The Mystique of Howard Chandler Christy.”
In 1958 Collette founded the Deafness Research Foundation, now called Hearing Health Foundation (HHF), to fund scientific research like the discoveries that helped reverse her hearing loss. Two experimental fenestration operations in the early 1950s restored her hearing in both ears and in gratitude she wanted a way to fund hearing science.
Here we share some of the additional letters and materials that Collette showed James when he visited. “They clearly had a fond relationship,” as he says in the story.
He adds, “Having met the artist through her aunt, Collette developed a deep friendship with him that was further enriched through their mutual experience of a sensory loss that was eventually regained.
“For Collette, it was her hearing, much of which she lost starting at age 13 due to otosclerosis only for it to be completely restored when she was 35 thanks to a novel surgical procedure; for Christy, it was his eyesight, which he lost in the summer of 1907 only for it to be miraculously restored on Easter Sunday 1908, which he attributed to his faith in God.
“Aside from their friendship, Collette modeled for Christy for several of his works, including the 1945 Metropolitan Opera House cover (in the gallery below, second row), titled ‘HIS DAY,’ honoring the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars.”
This holiday card from Collette to Christy’s widow Nancy mentions her ear sugery and is part of Lafayette College’s Christy collection, in Pennsylvania.
From Christy’s letters to Collette that James was able to photograph and then transcribe, their correspondence spanned from at least 1936 to 1950, starting with her marriage to Hobart Ramsey and making appointments for Christy to paint her.
While we do not have Collette’s letters to Christy, he refers to their content in his responses. They exchange phone calls, photos, fruit, and paintings. They share birthday wishes as well as Easter, Valentine’s, and Thanksgiving greetings. Christy celebrates the birth of Collette’s first child, also named Collette (he refers to her as “Little Collette”), followed by Janet—and there are frequent entreaties to meet in person.
Christy’s letters were sent mainly from New York City, where he lived at the Hotel des Artistes, an apartment building for artists whose first floor was the restaurant the Café des Artistes, whose legendary murals he painted. (The restaurant is now called The Leopard at des Artistes.) The letters arrived to Collette in Hackensack and then Short Hills, both in New Jersey.
James Head and his wife Rita.
Christy passed away at age 80 in 1952, and Collette continued to correspond with his widow Nancy.
A few years after his death a holiday card (above) from Collette to Nancy reads, ”Have thought of you often – do hope you are well. We… have had a very busy fall, including an ear operation…. I now hear well!”
Hobart Ramsey passed away at age 90 in 1981. Several years later Collette married Maurice Baker, when she was in her late 60s. Collette passed away at age 91 in 2010.
HHF is so grateful to James Head (left, with his wife Rita) for sharing his story of meeting our founder. Learn more about his books about Christy at anaffairwithbeauty.com.
