Location: Holly’s Printing
955 W College St, Pulaski, TN
Sponsored by: Hershel Lake
From, “A Page from the Past 150 years of the Pulaski Citizen,” by Claudia Johnson,
“She had a brilliant mind, a kind heart, and a pleasing personality. Her greatest pleasure came in extending help or sympathy to someone in need or in distress. When a poor woman or a hungry child appealed to her she gave without question.”
It was this aspect of her personality that won her the title of the “hero of compassion”.
From Bernice:
“Hershel Lake, the owner of the Pulaski Citizen newspaper, gave me the commission of painting the portrait of Elizabeth Romine. I was familiar with Ms. Romine as a poet and painter in Giles County and the wife of the owner of the newspaper around the turn of the 19th century.
What I did not know was that the Lake family owned some of Ms. Romine’s original water colors. I was treated to a tour of the little museum of printing artifacts at Holley’s Printers and got to browse through a portfolio of Romine’s art.
Later, through my research I found the Elizabeth Romine was a “Therum” painter which was a popular form of painting for women at the turn of the century. These paintings were usually studies of light on one or two objects, in water color. The painting shown in this portrait is one that is framed and on view inside Holley’s Printers.”