Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Anna WYETH
Deceased Name: Ann Wyeth McCoy
Her father, one the country's foremost illustrators, remembered his daughter humming Beethoven as a small child. It was that musical interest that later brought artistic achievement to Ann Wyeth McCoy.
A resident of Chadds Ford, she died at the age of 90 of heart failure Thursday at Riddle Memorial Hospital.
Mrs. McCoy and her five siblings, including her younger brother, Andrew Wyeth, grew up in Chadds Ford. Her father, N.C. Wyeth, taught her to paint, and she became an accomplished watercolorist.
But she chose music as her field, said her daughter Anna B. McCoy.
Her late husband, John McCoy, once told a reporter that he sometimes woke up at 4 in the morning to find that his wife had gone downstairs to compose at the piano.
Her compositions were performed by the Kennett Symphony, the Germantown Symphony, the Main Line Symphony, and organists at Longwood Gardens, and in regional churches.
She often wrote works in honor of relatives and friends, including a memorial piece in honor of her father and which the Philadelphia Orchestra performed in 1975. She also created music for a documentary about him.
In 1934, when she was 19, her symphonic work, A Christmas Fantasy, was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Leopold Stokowski. In an interview, Mrs. McCoy described the work "as an expression of my personal reactions to Christmas Day in our home."
She loved the holiday, her daughter said.
Recently, she had made lists of presents she was planning to give this year and had been dressing dolls from her extensive collection for an exhibit at Brandywine River Museum next month. Since the 1970s, the dolls had been part of the museum's Christmas celebration. They were often shown in roomlike settings that included miniature paintings by her brother Andrew, his son Jamie, and her husband.
Mrs. McCoy studied piano as a child and studied composition under Hari McDonald, a music professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
She and her husband, who was a student of her father's, were married in 1935.
Despite her artistic endeavors, she still was active as a mother and housewife. In a 1958 interview, she told a reporter that she carpooled her children to school, put up jellies and jams, baked bread "at least once a week," and was involved in civic functions in the Brandywine Valley.
In the summer the family went to Maine, where she did most of her painting, her daughter said.
A solo exhibit of her work was shown at the Somerville Manning Gallery in Delaware in March in honor of her 90th birthday. The 37 watercolors featured light-filled windows, room interiors, still lifes and occasional landscapes.
Mrs. McCoy's husband died in 1989. In addition to her daughter, she is survived by son J. Denys; daughter Robin; her brother Andrew; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at Lower Brandywine Presbyterian Church, 101 Old Kennett Rd., Wilmington.
Memorial donations may be made to Brandywine River Museum, Box 141, Chadds Ford, Pa. 19317.
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