Henrietta Howard Boit Sturgis Cholmeley-Jones (1896-1985) was an American author and artist. Born October 29, 1896 in Murray Hill, Manhattan, to Tate Robert Sturgis (of Boston and Philadelphia and New York), and Marion Sharpless (of "Laburnums", Chelton Hills, Philadelphia), she graduated from The Chapin School in 1914 and went on to study art with Frederick Theodore Weber. In June 1920, she married E.O. (Edward Owen) Nigel Cholmeley-Jones, former lieutenant in the American Expeditionary Forces and advertising representative for Current Literature, McClure's Magazine, Paul Block and Associates, and the National Geographic . For most of her life she and her husband lived in Westport and Norwalk, Connecticut.
For five years Cholmeley-Jones was a supervisor of the WPA Westport Art Project. She was active in both World Wars, as chairman of civilian groups (in Philadelphia, New York and Westport), and she was a member of the Temple of Religion committee of the World's Fair in New York. She was a member of the National Society of Colonial Dames, DAR, Society of Mayflower Descendants, Society of Daughters of Holland Dames, Huguenot Society, New York Women Poets, Pen and Brush, American Poetry League, Alumnae Association of Chapin School Ltd., and a former member of the New York Junior League. She was an Honorary Trustee of the Kips Bay Boys Club Inc. of New York City, having been one of its founders in 1915. Among her many community activities, both in New York prior to 1931 and in Connecticut thereafter, she was a chairman for Weekday Religious Education in the Greater New York Federation of Churches and spoke on religion on the New York City radio stations of 1929-1931.
A prize-winning poet, her poems have been published in nearly fifty American publications including over twenty books; she was also an essayist/ commentator on current events. With her two sons Edward and Richard Cholmeley-Jones, she authored Slow Advance (1914-1944), a book of war poems. Her pictures, done in nine media including drypoint etching, have been exhibited over ninety times - in both New York and Connecticut - including a one-woman show in 1959 in Westport, Connecticut. She was also interested in automatic writing and produced numerous examples during her life.
From the guide to the Henrietta Cholmeley-Jones Papers, 1894-1979, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)
