Over the years, Fred Thompson has written a number of books on Maine and New England. My copy of “Reflections of Portland Maine” is well-thumbed. He has also written about lightships and his own Rines family, whose members have been leaders and philanthropists in Portland over nearly a century and a half.
He himself is the former chairman of the Maine Broadcasting System. An earlier example of his family’s trailblazing, Thompson’s grandmother, Adeline Bond Rines, was Cumberland County’s first female attorney. The Bond family had a close friend named Mary Neal Richardson, and in the early decades of the 20th century, she was a much sought-after portrait painter.
Richardson painted several members of the Bond family, including Adeline. One can guess that it was this portrait that whetted Thompson’s interest in the artist. When he found out how little was known about her, he decided to see what he could do to change the situation.
The result: “Mary Neal Richardson, (Maine Artist 1859-1937): A Universalist Esthetic & Cosmic Interpreter.” “Mary Neal Richardson, (Maine Artist 1859-1937): A Universalist Esthetic & Cosmic Interpreter” By Frederic L. Thompson Congress Square Press, 90 pages $29.
95 Mary Neal Richardson was born in Mt. Vernon, Maine. Her father was a man-of-all-trades, but his calling was as a violin maker.
Her mother was a school teacher in Canton, where the family moved soon after Mary’s birth. The “eclectic talents” of her parents, writes Th.