Racine Postscript (David)
We just heard from a good friend, Rena Koopman, a goldsmith who designs and makes beautiful jewelry. (Some of Rena's lovely pieces I have given to Lora are shown in the photograph.) The day before our Racine posting, Rena received a call from the curator of the Racine Art Museum. One of Rena's pieces is in the museum's permanent collection, and the curator needed information about the piece. The donor of Rena's piece was Karen Johnson Boyd. Rena searched her name on Google and discovered that she was a member of the Johnson Wax family and grew up in a Frank Lloyd Wright house called Wingspread. Rena had never heard of Wingspread, and lo and behold, the next morning she read about it in our posting.
Since we're on the topic of Wingspread, here is an FLLW story I forgot to include in the original posting. ("FLLW" will be explained in our Taliesin posting.) Soon after Wingspread was finished, Mr. Johnson threw a dinner party for the Governor and other luminaries to show off his new home. It started to rain during the meal and, like all of Wright's buildings, it leaked. Water from a leaking skylight window above the dining room table started dripping onto Mr. Johnson's head. Mortified in front of his guests, at a function intended to showcase the new house, Johnson had a telephone brought to the table and called Wright in the presence of his guests to complain. Wright's response: "Change seats."