header 1
header 2
header 3

In Memory Of Our Poets

Priscilla Cooper Scott (Crommelin) (1919-2010) - Class Of 1938

 

Priscilla Cooper Scott Crommelin

Posted: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 12:00 am

WETUMPKA — Priscilla Cooper Scott Crommelin, 90, died Sunday morning, June 13, 2010, at her home at Toulouse Plantation in Elmore County.

Priscilla was born on the shortest day of the year - Dec. 21, 1919.

Her birthplace was Savannah, Ga., where she was baptized at St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church.

The day after Priscilla's Winter Solstice birth, her Aunt Julia Gunter, the wife of then Montgomery Mayor William Gunter, is reported to have said, “Priscilla was born, and the next day the sun shown longer.” That observation proved true for a lifetime.

Priscilla’s mother and father were Kathleen Ann Swain and Thomas Baytop Scott, of Scotia Plantation near Mount Meigs to which the family returned from Georgia while Priscilla was a little girl. It was explained to Priscilla as a child that she was the great granddaughter of Priscilla Cooper Tyler, the First Lady of the United States during the presidency of John Tyler and that she should live with that always in mind — which she did.

After a joyful Alabama childhood and youth that included ballet, schooling at Sidney Lanier High School and work for the Alabama Highway Department, Priscilla married U.S. Navy Lt. Quentin Claiborne Crommelin on May 5, 1943 and remained in marriage for 54 years - much of it as a naval aviator’s wife with the many attendant and often stressful duties.

Mrs. Crommelin is survived by her son, retired Army Lt. Col. Quentin Crommelin Jr.; her daughter, Priscilla Crommelin Ball, the executive director of the Montgomery Ballet; her grandchildren, Charles Crommelin-Monnier and Priscilla Crommelin-Monnier; her sisters. Grace Scott Lacy and Ann Scott Wood; and her brother, Robert Tyler Scott.

Mrs. Crommelin was preceded in death by her parents and husband; her infant son, Charles Laurence de Berniere Crommelin; and two sisters, Moselle Scott Pointer and Helen Scott Foster.

From her youth, Priscilla was a parishioner and communicant at St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church in Montgomery and also frequently attended Trinity Episcopal Church in Wetumpka near her home. She supported and was active in promoting the goals of the Episcopal Prayer Book Society and was notably dedicated to the Christian ministry of Sav-A-Life.

Mrs. Crommelin was a member of many national and local clubs and organizations in Montgomery and Wetumpka including The National Society of Colonial Dames of America, The First White House of the Confederacy, the Friends of the Fort, The Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Elmore County Community Foundation.

During the National Bicentennial Celebration in 1976, Mrs. Crommelin co-chaired the Wetumpka Bicentennial Committee and, in connection with those activities, she was instrumental in the establishment, naming, and early development of Wetumpka's Gold Star Park and its surrounding Coosa Riverfront.

She was notably active in many arts organizations but was most passionate about The Montgomery Ballet of which she was president from 1973-1975.

Mrs. Crommelin had a prestigious career in art as a painter. She trained initially under Charles Shannon in Montgomery and at the Art Students’ League in New York and ultimately was elected a Member of L’Academie Cultural de France.

She was one of a very few contemporary Americans to have had works selected by the Salon d’Automne at the Grand Palais in Paris. In consequence, she is represented abroad in numerous collections in Europe, the United Kingdom and the Middle East.

In 1985, she had a solo exhibition at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. She was a juried exhibitor also at the Art Expo of New York. She is represented in the Blount American Collection with Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, and Frederick Childe Hassam. Mrs. Crommelin was applauded by critics in numerous French publications including Paris Soir, Le Matin, and Le Nouveau Journal as well as winning prizes in several dozen juried shows nationally and locally. The style and quality of her work were consistently compared to that of Cezanne.

Pallbearers at the burial service for Mrs. Crommelin at Saint John’s Episcopal Church on Wednesday, June 16, 2010, were Richard A. Ball, Jr., James Marks Scott, Quentin Claiborne Crommelin, Jr., Larry Bozeman, Samuel Claiborne Forrer, Daniel Atwell Forrer, Charles Crommelin-Monnier and Samuel Alexander Forrer.

Honorary pallbearers were retired U.S. Navy Capt. Samuel White Forrer, Bishop Milton L. Wood, Robert Tyler Scott, Francis Beaulieu, John Baytop Scott, Frederick Sebastian Ball and John Campbell Forrer.

She walks in beauty, like the night

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!