Art Chowder September | October, Issue 23 | Page 35

The Entry Foyer and Northwest
Corner of the Living Room
The unglazed porcelain bust of
Marie Antoinette in the Foyer
is after a work by Felix Lecompt
(1737-1817), original in the
Musée National du Château,
Versailles
The pair of French, gilt-bronze
mounted, porcelain vases in the
corner of the Living Room are
early 20th century, in the Louis
XVI style. The unusual folding
card table in front of the sofa
is gilt-bronze mounted, inlaid
tortoiseshell, Louis XIV style,
late 19th-early 20th century
productions
photo: Melville Holmes
M
iss Woldson had engaged me to
gild the frame of her mother’s petite
“slipper chair.” Because the work had to
be done in stages I went back a number
of times, and she would tell stories
from her prodigious memory — how
her father had emigrated from Norway
when he was 15 and became a successful
railroad builder; her school years in San
Francisco; how she came to acquire this
or that piece of furniture and more, from
Alaska to Philadelphia.
One time she took me to the lower level
to see the spacious music room, where
the thing I most remember was on top
of the elegant, small grand piano — a
small-framed, hand-tinted photo of a
very lovely young lady in a pretty party
dress. I asked who she was. “It is I,” she
replied.
She was 98 when we met. Before then I
had only heard of “Miss Woldson” as a
singular personage about town who had
donated three million dollars to save the
Fox Theater (an Art Deco masterpiece)
from demolition, after which it became
home to the Spokane Symphony. I didn’t
realize that she had grown up with
classical music and had played the harp
and piano since girlhood.
Miss Woldson’s mother, Edwidge
(Milot) Woldson, of French extraction
and a devotee of fine art and literature,
was both a mentor and a close
companion (the two of them worked
together on the interior décor and the
formal French garden on the property)
who instructed her girls in the social
refinements, such as kindness, courtesy,
and respect for elders.
Her father, Martin Woldson, passed
to his eldest daughter the business
acumen that had enabled him to rise to
the economic and social status which
the family enjoyed. His teaching of the
workings of the business world would
enable her to amass a fortune surpassing
his own, through wise investment
especially in real estate. Some readers
may recall the Seattle newspaper stories
about a little parking lot, prime real
estate, which the City and developers
were aching to take from some obscure
old lady in Spokane. They failed.
In 2014, not long after Miss Woldson
passed away at age 104, a call came
from the Gonzaga University architect,
requesting that I come to the Woldson
home to match paint colors, wallpaper,
and carpet.
September | October 2019
35