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Isabelle M. Stover

Isabelle M. Stover (1905-1987)

Isabelle Marshall Stover (1905-1987) grew up on Mount Desert Island, Maine. In 1925, she married Arthur Milton Stover. The couple moved to the town of Bar Harbor, where Arthur worked as a gardener. Isabelle Stover raised her children and stayed active in the Bar Harbor community, serving as Marshal to her local chapter of the Rebekahs, an all-female branch of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Sometime around 1941, Stover became secretary for Beatrix Farrand’s Reef Point office. During her time at Reef Point, Stover took care of office work, bookkeeping, ordering, and correspondence for Beatrix Farrand. She became well acquainted with the library at Reef Point, and when Robert and Mildred Bliss visited the property in 1949, Stover led their tour. She frequently performed such tasks on behalf of the elderly Beatrix Farrand. Isabelle Stover stayed at Reef Point until the fall of 1952, when Farrand closed her offices for good. At that time, Stover accepted a position working for Robert Patterson, the landscape architect who replaced Beatrix Farrand at Dumbarton Oaks.  When Patterson left Dumbarton Oaks in 1956, so did Stover. She died in 1987 and is buried in Bar Harbor, Maine.

 

References:

“District Meeting of Rebekahs Held at BH.” Bar Harbor Times (Bar Harbor, ME), April 12, 1956. http://islandhistory.newspaperarchive.com/bar-harbor-times/1956-04-12/page-4

“Stover-Marshall.” Bar Harbor Times (Bar Harbor, ME), May 13, 1925. http://islandhistory.newspaperarchive.com/bar-harbor-times/1925-05-13/page-8

Garden Archives Correspondence.