History:The subject is turned to her left and seated in a chair. To her left is a table where a copy of The Confederate Veteran magazine is laying beside a single, long-stemmed white rose. A Confederate battle flag hangs on the wall. The subject is wearing a black dress with a white blouse. There is a brooch at her throat and a UDC pin on her left side. The artist's signature is at the lower left corner. The portrait was purchased by the UDC and presented at the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville November 1944 under the auspices of the TN Historical Commission.
Notes:Caroline Douglas Meriwether (1833-1914) spent her childhood at Woodstock, the family plantation near Clarksville, TN. The daughter of Charles Nicholas Meriwether and Caroline Huntley Barke, she was educated at the Greenville Institute in Harrodsburg, KY. In 1853, she married John Sturdivant and they had one son, Charles James. The marriage was so unhappy that she divorced Sturdivant and took back her maiden name for herself and for her son. After the Civil War, she moved to Nashville and in 1869, married Michael C. Goodlett. She was called "The Mother of the UDC" being the first to conceive the idea of consolidating relief work to benefit sick and disabled former Confederate soldiers. She also organized the Masonic Home Auxillary in Nashville, was a member of the Visitors of the State Blind Assylum and was active in the Women's Christian Temperance Union, all in Nashville.
Categories:Portrait paintings;Women; United Daughters of the Confederacy; WCTU; Charities.
