Sue May Gill

From the biography of her husband Paul L. Gill, Askart.com accessed on 1/5/18:

"The following, at the suggestion of Wes Loder, Campus Librarian, Penn State/Schuylkill, heavily references the website: www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/m/w/mw12/Gill

...In 1928, he married artist Sue May Wescott, and the two traveled extensively together early in their relationship, going from England to Paris, to Italy, visiting museums and art schools and to Spain, Algiers and Tunisia and north to Switzerland. In every place, they painted side-by-side: same subjects, different results.

...Matched in their determination to succeed, work ethic and appreciation of each other's talents, Paul and his wife, Sue May, acted as mentors and chorus to each other, bringing out the best in each and contributing the finest images either would produce. They lived in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.

The depression initially cut into the Gills' income enough to prevent their practice of annual travel by car to exotic locations throughout North America. In 1930 they were painting in Isle de Orleans in Canada, but the next several years they spent most of their summers in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey.

Sue May's parents had moved to a summer resort on Long Beach Island in the 1920's, and she and Paul bought their own little cottage in Harvey Cedars just one house from the beach and from the mid-Twenties on spent much of their non-traveling time in the summers there. Paul was fascinated by the ocean dories used by the fishermen at Surf City and Shipbottom and he would return to the beach where the men would launch and bring in their boats again and again.

In 1934, the couple resumed their travels and between 1934 and 1937 visited and worked in Taos, Mexico, Taos, New Mexico, Arizona, the Gaspé Peninsula, Canada, and Nova Scotia. The trip into the Mexican interior in 1936 at a time when the countryside knew no paved roads or improved services were particularly adventurous."At one time they had to pull our car up by ropes to get us over a certain place. It was the most terrific time I have ever had."

Paul's death was sudden and dramatic. Age 44 and at the peak of his reputation, never more productive and teaching at the Women's School of Design, Paul could look forward to a national recognition. He had just completed a mural for a post office in Cairo, Georgia, and he and Sue May were preparing for another trip to Mexico. Closing up the cottage in Harvey Cedars, he went out to the car and never came back. His wife found him dead by the car a short time later."