Bertha Wainwright Guiher (1870-1951) -- student

The daughter of Madison County, Iowa, pioneers, Bertha Wainwright was born in November 1870. Her father, Vincent Wainwright, was an attorney and one of the first men to permanently settle in the small community of Winterset. Among his six children, Bertha and a sister were the only ones to survive childhood. Bertha completed studies at the local high school, then married, and was widowed by the age of twenty. She turned her energies towards art and studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Broadmoor Art School (Colorado Springs, CO), and had private lessons while in San Jose, California. An art teacher and professional painter, she showed several works in Des Moines-area galleries. “The Quilt Maker” (1932), which figured prominently in Iowa Art Salon competitions and shows from the Iowa Federation of Women’s Clubs, features a Winterset matron (“Grandma Robbins”) who assisted George Washington Carver during his brief stay in the community (late 1880s). Two flower studies, “Victorian” and “Spring Colors,” had viewings in the Marshalltown (IA) and Cedar Rapids (IA) art communities.

Wainwright married John A. Guiher, who was also a Winterset attorney, and attended the second session of the Stone City art colony (1933). She returned to central Iowa and served as the art district chairperson for the Iowa Federated Women’s Clubs and offered art classes to Winterset residents. Her activities included being a charter member of Chapter AG, P.E.O. International (Winterset, IA), local women’s clubs, and being a prominent member of the city’s Presbyterian Church. Guiher left Winterset in 1946, relocating to Glendale, California, where she died in 1951.

Online Resources on Bertha Wainwright Guiher:

IAGenWeb Project, Madison County Obituaries. “"Bertha D. Guiher (1951): Obituary.” Available: http://iagenweb.org/boards/madison/obituaries/index.cgi?read=139388.

The fiftieth anniversary celebration of Chapter AG, PEO International, Winterset, Iowa (1942). Photo courtesy of Paula Hedlund and Ruth Tucker, Chapter AG, PEO International, Winterset, Iowa.