Local woman donates her grandmother’s life work to Coronado Library 

Will Bowen | Downtown News

Suzy Hagstrom finds herself in her paternal grandmother, Esther Painter Hagstrom’s, art. As she looks into the watercolors and prints that her grandmother – an art teacher at Coronado High School from 1939-1951 – created, she continually rediscovers her unknown ancestor, and in so doing, finds a part of herself.

“I never knew my grandmother in real life,” Hagstrom said. “She died before I was even born. But I grew up hearing about her from my parents, who were childhood sweethearts at Coronado High. And we had her art all through our house. When I got older and moved away, I would bring some of her work back home with me whenever I visited my parents.

“You see, I was an only child, so I was often alone, with no one to play with, so I would entertain myself with books and pictures. I remember that an old Coronado High School Year Book, with her picture in it, was really important to me. I think being alone so much as a child led me to develop an imaginary relationship with my grandmother that was bigger than life – and it has lasted all through my life.”

Hagstrom recently donated the entire collection of her grandmother’s watercolors and prints to the Coronado Public Library, located at 640 Orange Avenue in Coronado.

“I am the only child of only children so there will be no relative to pass this art down to when I am gone,” she said. “And I didn’t want to sell it and break up the collection.

“It’s been a burden in a way – the responsibility of finding a home for my grandmother’s art. I decided to donate it to the Coronado Public Library [which] is right across the street from where my grandmother taught and it serves the community that she lived in. Her work is a piece of Coronado history and in the library it will remain that way.”

Christian R. Esquevin, the director of library services at the Coronado Library, said he was happy to receive the collection of Esther Painter Hagstrom’s art work.

“Now that we have refurbished the library we can start focusing on hanging more art,” Esquevin said. “Combining art with books is reminiscent of the classic libraries of the East Coast at the turn of the century; it is something we want to do.”

The exhibit will run from March through May and will include a series of paintings and prints of Painter Hagstrom, as well as the work from nine of her former students at Coronado High School, all who went on to find success in the arts and are still alive. In April, there will be a special reception for all of these students at the library.

Esther Painter was born in Walla Walla, Washington, and earned a bachelor’s in Fine Art in 1927 from the University of Washington. After college, Painter married a Navy man (Hagstrom), but ended up getting divorced and becoming a single mother. She settled in Coronado where she taught art from 1939 to 1951. She also served as the art curriculum director for the entire Coronado School District.

Tragically, Painter Hagstrom died in 1951, at the age of 46, from a brain hemorrhage. Her memorial service was held at Coronado High School auditorium and the class of 1951 dedicated their yearbook to her.

Suzy Hagstrom grew up near San Francisco, in the Oakland Hills and the fishing village of Martinez. After receiving a degree in journalism from UC Berkeley, she took a bus trip across the country looking for work in the journalism field.

She eventually landed a job as a financial writer for the Richmond News Leader in Richmond, Virginia. Later in her career, she was lured away by the Orlando Sentinel the newspaper of Orlando, Florida.

While in Orlando, Hagstrom wrote an article for the Sentinel about the Orlando Holocaust Museum. This experience led her to write a book called “Sara’s Children: The Destruction of Chmielnik” which was a historical account of the suffering of a Polish Jewish family during WWII.

“After I wrote my book, my life took a different turn,” she said. “I quit my journalism job and I went around the country trying to promote my book.”

Hagstrom worked her way across the country, finding herself in Point Loma, taking care of her mother, but grandma Esther’s artwork was still on her mind. Eventually she contacted the Coronado Library about a possible endowment and recently constructed a website devoted to her grandmother’s life and work (estherpainterhagstrom.vpweb.com).

“You know, because of my grandmother Esther, I have learned many new things and developed skills such as art appreciation, historical research, and how to build a web site,” Hagstrom said. “I wanted to be a visual artist like my grandma but my skills were more in writing. I am happy that I could use them to honor her. I guess you would have to say that by her absence she was a presence in my life. And that presence has lasted all through my life.

“When I am over in Coronado and go for a walk in the park, I think that my grandmother probably walked here, too, and looked at these trees, just as I do.”

A portion of Painter Hagstrom and her student’s watercolor paintings will be on exhibition at the Coronado Library throughout March, April and May. Library hours are Mon. through Thurs. 10 .am. – 9 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m.– 6 p.m., and Sun., 1 – 5 p.m. The library is located at 640 Orange Avenue. For more information about the exhibition, visit estherpainterhagstrom.vpweb.com or call the library at 619-522-7390.

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To the Grandmother I Never Knew

 by Suzy Hagstrom

We never met

yet we connect.

Our bloodlines,

your brush strokes

are ties that bind.

We walk the same path

at different times

You in your century

I, in mine.

Do our steps match?

From school to park,

from books to beach,

To walk and wonder

decades later your

pictures still speak.

I hear you in stories of

students and friends

bridging past to present,

a distance immense.

Do my words reach?

I see you in trees,

rocks, mountains and sand

you captured on canvas

nature surrounding

this island, this land.

I feel you in colors,

mostly shades of gray,

from lighter to darker,

windblown leaves and waves.

A palette of emotions

shifting time and space.

These people who knew you,

this endless landscape

are ways to connect

what was broken by death.