Caroline Couper Stiles Lovell
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Caroline Couper Stiles Lovell | |
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| Born | May 7, 1862  |
| Died | February 12, 1947 (aged 84) |
| Occupation | Artist |
Caroline Couper Stiles Lovell (May 7, 1862 – February 12, 1947) was an American artist and writer. She was a central figure in the cultural life of Birmingham, Alabama in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Caroline Couper Stiles Lovell was born on May 7, 1862 at Etowah Cliffs, the Bartow County, Georgia plantation of her grandfather, William Henry Stiles. She was one of eight children of Robert Mackay Stiles, a merchant in Savannah, Georgia, and Margaret Wylly Couper, daughter of planter and slave owner James Hamilton Couper. Due to the American Civil War, Robert Stiles had sent his pregnant wife from coastal Savannah to inland Bartow County in northern Georgia.[1]
Following the Civil War, Robert Stiles built a home near Etowah Cliffs he called Malbone, after his cousin, the painter Edward Greene Malbone. When Caroline was 12, her father died in a carriage accident, leaving her mother to raise the children. Her childhood was divided between Malbone and her aunts in Savannah, and her early schooling was at the Massie School and Oglethorpe Academy. She was an avid writer and artist as a child, even starting a family magazine called The Malbone Bouquet, largely created by her and her cousin Daisy Gordon.[1]
At 15, she was sent to boarding school at Madame Lefebvre’s School in Baltimore, Maryland. There she received her first formal art lessons from a Mrs. Cuyler. [1]
She returned to Georgia in 1882 and in 1884 married William Storrow Lowell, nicknamed "Tod", a grandson of John A. Quitman. Initially they lived on William Lowell's father's plantation near Natchez, Mississippi, but in 1888 they relocated to Birmingham, Alabama. [1]