Family Reunites Beside Dad’s Painting
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| Descendants of Edmund Werhner view the family heirloom, which hangs at Queens Library. |
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The Queens Library was the scene of a tearful, if unlikely, family gathering when the descendants of Edmund Werhner were reunited with a painting of the library’s book bus.
The painting hangs in the library’s Hon. Robert T. Groh Board Room. Werhner painted it from a photograph in the early 1940s. He had been the library’s official photographer in the 1930s. He met his beloved wife, Helen Cullen, when she was a young clerk working on the book bus in 1937. They subsequently married and had four children. Perhaps as a sentimental tribute to the bus’s happy role as matchmaker, Werhner did the painting and gave it to the library as a gift.
Fast forward: 67 years. While going through some family heirlooms with his brother Vincent, Edmund Werhner (the son) found a copy of the painting and asked about it. Vincent knew of the painting’s whereabouts, and told Ed that it had been a particular favorite of their father’s. Ed and his sister Barbara Reid both live in Florida. They planned a trip to Jamaica concurrent with other family business. Two cousins accompanied them.
On seeing the painting, tears flowed. There was their father’s signature, immortalized in the corner. There was the place their parents had met – and it was given a place of honor in such an important place. After the family had spent time with the painting, Erik Huber, a photo archivist with Queens Library’s Archives, gave the family a tour of the photo databases.
The elder Werhner had gone on to photograph many of the library’s important projects. He had been among the official photographers for the 1939 World’s Fair. The Archives has many of his images stored and digitized for posterity. They will shortly be made available to the public online with thousands of other images.