Fanny Y. Cory, Grandmother of Ann Cory on her mother's side
Now I will go back in time. I will go back to one of the dearest people in my life, my grandma.
Today her art work is bought and sold today on e-bay and other sites and she is noted in books about illustrators of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Her art name is
Fanny Y. Cory, although sometimes she signed with FYC and other versions of her name. The one thing that never changed, though, was that she signed her art vertically and with carefully formed capital letters.
Fanny Y. Cory was someone who always drew from the time she was old enough to hold a pencil. One of her early memories was lying on the floor of her home drawing away with adults patiently stepping over her.
She drew so much and so well that not only could she draw anything she saw but anything she wanted to materialize out of her fertile imagination.
Fanny Y. Cory's brother, Jack Cory, a well-known political cartoonist, paid her way to attend the Metropolitan School of Fine Arts in New York City.
She took part in the Artists Student Legue there but soon needed to earn money from her art to support her darling sister who had consumption.
Many times as I grew up I heard her tell the story about her beginning attempt to sell her illustrations. The first journey at 17 up the "well-worn iron stairs" into the unknown world of "Scribners" was frightening.
"The young man at the desk flipped carelessly through my portfolio. Then he looked up and said to 'Come back when you became known' ".
"I thanked him kindly and then walked across the hall to "Century" and they took my illustrations right away."
Before long Fanny Y. Cory was known as the "Sweetheart of the Century Company," and became one of the best known illustrators in the country.
She did covers and illustrations of St. Nicholas, Life, Scribner's, Century, Harper's Bazaar and The Saturday Evening Post.
She also illustrated many books during this time among them Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1902) by Lewis Carrol, and several books by Frank L. Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz.
Fanny Y. Cory married a Montana rancher whom she had gotten to know in earlier years via his sisters and moved to his ranch at Canyon Ferry, Montana.
They raised their children there and she continued her illustration work on a limited basis.
After Fanny Y. Cory's children become older, it was apparent that they needed college training.
Fanny Y. Cory had always done her art for the good of others and to help her children have their dreams, she threw her talents into a new art field: two syndicated comic strips which she did for 25 and 30 years respectively.
One was "Little Miss Muffet," a daily strip that King Features ran originally as their answer to the very popular "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip.
Her other was a single that ran daily called, "Sonnysayings" which depicted the forever-young Sonny in his family. Its gentle humor featured life as seen from his youthful point of view.
During these years of constant black and white comic drawing, Fanny Y. Cory relieved her eyes and her creative heart, painting in watercolors her exquisite "fairy series".
There is a wonderful web site which tells yet more about her life and accomplishments:
www.fycory.com 
