Rosalie Marks Atkins

ABOUT Rosalie Marks Atkins

When Rosalie Atkins was a young mother, she would put her two children, Alice and John, to bed each night with a story.

As she told the stories, she would illustrate them, drawing pictures on a chalkboard.

Her husband, John Atkins, was so impressed by her drawings that he suggested she go back to school and study art.

So Rosalie Atkins, who lived in Charleston, W. Va., enrolled in the Mason College of Fine Arts and Music, which later became Morris Harvey College and is now known as the University of Charleston.

She did not earn a degree but she acquired a profession. Beginning in 1950, she spent almost seven decades creating art.