Artist

Occupation: "artist". Remarks: "Crayon artist"

tried farming, canvassing, and selling goods on road, had to give up cos of disability - earns but little in present occupation as artist

Sidney E Flowe (Flower Art Co.) YMCA Building

Sidney Flower, artist, picture frames, etc

By 1881, Flower had given up trying to work as a salesman with his injury. His change in occupation probably came earlier, when he relocated from Angola, NY, to Plainfield, NJ. He listed his occupation as artist in 1881, adding the additional information that he was a crayon artist.

His friend Sylvia Hotchkiss noted he "earns but little" in that occupation in 1882. By 1889, Flower's listing in the Plainfield city directory mentioned picture frames as well as the occupation of artist. The directory for 1897 recorded him operating the Flower Art Company from premises in the YMCA building.

<Postcards of YMCA are available - for sale and from Plainfield Public Library>

Flower made his home in Plainfield when he first moved east. (In 1907, he recalled moving in 1875, but J G Thompson and George Caskey swore he was in Angola until 1877. Sylvia Hotchkiss says she met Flower in Eatontown, NJ in 1878)

But he appears to have lived in New York City, in Brooklyn, for several years in the early 1880s. By the late 1880s he had returned to Plainfield, where he remained until 1898. During that time he resided at several different addresses: 13 E Front st, 123 E Front st, 207 E Front st.

<Maps of Plainfield in 1890s are available>