Julia Kennett Colt, 1878-1948

Publication Year: 1949.

JULIA KENNETT COLT 1878 - 1948

Julia Kennett Colt, the eldest child of John and Violet Kennett Whittaker, was born on 1 April 1878, in St. Louis, Missouri. The Whittakers spent the summers in Bar Harbor, Maine; and there as a child, accompanied by an energetic governess, she scoured the hills of that rocky coast and no doubt acquired the love for climbing and exploring any region where she found herself that she kept to the end of her life.

In 1896 she was married to James S. Wadsworth and came to live in the Genesee Valley of western New York, where she at once took an active part in the country life and sports for which it was then well known. She quickly became a good horsewoman, devoted to riding and hunting. The following 25 years she passed chiefly in these surroundings. Of her two sons the elder, Livingston, was killed in active service in France, August 1918, at the age of 20.

In 1908 she married Henry V. Colt, of Geneseo, New York; and in the fall of 1920, with their three daughters, they sailed for Europe where, with the exception of a few brief returns to America, she remained for the next 15 years. At this time, one or two summers spent in the Austrian Tyrol gave her the opportunity to climb again for the first time since her childhood; and from 1925 until 1933, with her daughters, she spent every summer in the mountains of Switzerland and northern Italy.

Her climbs included the Cima di Jazzi, Petite Dent de Veisivi, Aiguille de la Za, La Roussette, Aiguilles Rouges d'Arolla (traverse), Col d’Hérens, Col de Bertol, Neues Weissthor, Aiguille du Géant, Gran Paradiso, Grivola, Monte Viso, Ortler, Gross Glockner, Riffelthor, Monte Cristallo, Punta Fiammes, Cinque Torri (all), Croda da Lago (traverse), Tofana di Mezzo, Cimone della Pala, Fünffingerspitze, Torre Stabeier, Catinaccio (Rosengarten), Poma- gagnon.

She was a clever artist from youth and during this time spent several winters studying in Munich, where she became much interested in the Dutch school of flower-painting and developed a fine technique for this style of art. Fortunately she has left a number of exquisite examples of this now little known manner of painting.

Her sudden death on 14 July 1948 came as a great shock to her family and friends.

Julia Colt was a rare and gifted person of wide and varied interests. The foregoing account of her life is inadequate and far from doing full justice to all her qualities— her exceptional intelligence, understanding and vitality, which left an indelible impression on all who knew her.

J.C.

[It is of particular interest to add that in 1927 Mrs. Colt rented a herdsman’s hut high up on the Alpe de Breonne in order to study with the Swiss painter François de Ritanpierre, who was living near by. She did a pastel of the head of the Ferpècle Valley with the Dent d’Hérens and Bouquetins in the background. This picture is now in the possession of her daughter, Mrs. Julia Colt.— W. S. C.]