Mother & Child by Abbott Thayer  (Portrait of Kate Bloede)

The Bloedes were German political refugees. Kate’s mother, Marie, was a poet. The Bloedes’ home was frequented by noted writers, among them Bayard Taylor, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Thomas Aldrich and Richard Henry Stoddard. Marie Bloede’s poems and articles, both in English and German, attracted attention. She also assisted her husband, he was the editor of the New-Yorker Demokrat, a daily Republican paper, using her literary skills.

A letter was found in Lincoln’s papers from Kate and her brother and sister, thanking him for The Emancipation Proclamation.

Marie Bloede died while Kate was attending Cooper Union and Kate dropped out to care for her father. Abbott Thayer was madly in love with Kate and painted numerous paintings of her. They were married.

She and son Gerald were the subjects of Abbott Thayer’s 1886 picture Mother and Child. After the death of two baby boys within a two-year period, she became depressed and entered a hospital in 1888. Mrs. Thayer stayed at a series of hospitals and asylums until her death in 1891. Emma Beach was close to her and Abbott Thayer and took on the caretaker role after Kate was institutionalized. And later married Thayer.