Florence Reynolds (February 12, 1879 - December 2, 1949) was a lifelong friend and benefactor of
Jane Heap. Partner Jane Heap, Margrethe Mather
Florence Reynolds (February 12, 1879 - December 2, 1949) was a lifelong friend and benefactor of
Jane Heap.
She was born February 12, 1879 in Stanton, Michigan. Shortly after giving birth to her, her mother died of tubercolosis and Florence suffered from a variety of maladies throughout her life and she was very small in stature, just few inches above four feet. In the 1880s her father, Montgomery Reynolds, moved the family to Edgewater, a suburb of Chicago. In Chicago he established a prosperous insurance business. It was in Chicago that Florence Reynolds first met Jane Heap in 1908. Heap referred to her as Tiny Heart.
Florence, known to her family and friends as Ho, had a private income as a young woman and enjoyed traveling. A European trip with Jane Heap in 1910 was the first of several she and Heap would take together over the years. Her last trip abroad occurred in 1947 when she visited Jane Heap in London.
Florence Reynolds was graduated from the Lewis Institute in Chicago in 1901. Early in the 1930s she was a counselor and administrator at Andrebrook, an exclusive girls school in Tarrytown, New York. When the school closed in 1942, she worked in New York briefly before moving to live with her sister (Hattie Mack) and her brother-in-law in Hollywood, California.
Florence's older sister, Hattie, married Dr. William F. Mack, a dentist in Salt Lake City, and Florence visited them often between 1900 and 1906. It's probably around this time she met for the first time Margrethe Mather, who probably became her protegee and lover.
Florence Reynolds shared a lifelong relationship with Jane Heap, providing financial as well as emotional support. Jane Heap met and began a relationship with Margaret Anderson around 1915, and joined Anderson in her creative efforts to produce The Little Review, a small modernist magazine which was published from 1914-1929. Florence Reynolds was called "Mother" by Heap, a term of affection as reflected in letters dating from 1917.
Reynolds was also involved in The Little Review, offering financial support and translating the work of several French contributors to the magazine when Heap and Anderson moved to Paris.
Around 1915, Hattie and William Mack relocated to Los Angeles, and Reynolds began to regularly travel back and forth to Los Angeles from Chicago. The Macks lived at 1523 Curson Street on the western fringes of Hollywood. In Los Angeles Mather had also moved back in 1912 and in 1916 Reynolds probably financed her to open her studio at 715 West Fourth Street. After being the main woman photographer between 1915 and 1935, Mather died in poverty in 1959.
When Florence Reynolds died in Hollywood, California on December 2, 1949, her personal income was transferred to Jane Heap for her lifetime use.
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