about Grace Hodgson Flandrau and Judge Charles Eugene Flandrau

After readings in books by, and about Charles Macomb Flandrau, I became interested in his sister-in-law Grace.   

I did surmise that Charle's early promotion of her work, diminished as her popularity grew and began to out-shine his own.  

Selected Bibliography

 Of Grace Hodgson Flandrau

 Cousin Julia (1917)

Being Respectable (1923)

Entranced (1924)

The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1927)

Then I Saw the Congo (1929)

Indeed This Flesh (1934)

Under the Sun: Tales of Love and Death (1936)

Memoirs of Grace Flandrau (2003)

Grace Flandrau was the sister-in-law and close friend of architect Theodate Pope Riddle, who provided her with a life tenancy in a house on the Hill-Stead estate in Farmington, Connecticut. Flandrau died there on December 27, 1971 at the age of 85. By the time her will was probated in 1973, her estate was valued at $10,000,000

 

The Patriarch was Charles Eugene Flandrau (July 15, 1828 – September 9, 1903) He was an American lawyer who became influential in the Minnesota Territory, and later state, after moving there in 1853 from New York City. He served on the Minnesota Territorial Council, in the Minnesota Constitutional Convention, and on the Minnesota territorial and state supreme courts. He was also an associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Judge Flandrau was married twice. His first marriage was on August 10, 1859 to his first cousin, Isabella Dinsmore of Kentucky, the daughter of Martha Macomb and James Dinsmore. The couple had two daughters, Martha Macomb and Sarah Gibson Flandrau, before Isabella died in 1867. Martha married Tilden Russell Selmes; their daughter, Isabella Selmes, became the first female congresswoman from Arizona, known by her married name of Isabella Greenway.

Flandrau married again to Rebecca B. Riddle, a widow and daughter of Judge William McClure and his wife of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They had two sons. Charles Macomb and William Blair who married Grace Hodgson.

During the Dakota War, Flandrau enlisted in the Union Army and was commissioned as a captain in 1862 to raise a force to defend settlers at New Ulm. Given his success, the governor appointed him to lead the defense of southwest Minnesota, at the rank of colonel.  Flandrau moved to St. Paul, where he had a law partnership with his former Court colleague, Isaac Atwater, before being elected Minneapolis City Attorney in 1867. He died in 1903 and is buried in Oakland Cemetery. 

Her body was moved to St. Paul and buried in Oakland Cemetery, St. Paul, Minn. in the family plot near her husband William Blair Flandrau and brother-in-law. Charles Malcomb Flandrau. Her grave is marked with a single small stone.