Brand - Edith Browning (Brand) Hannah (1875-1947)

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Brand - Edith Browning (Brand) Hannah (1875-1947)

Edith Browning (Brand) Hannah (1875-1947) was an American illustrator who had a long and successful career designing and illustrating adult and children’s books. She married British academic Dr. Ian Campbell Hannah and illustrated several of her husband’s books. She was born in January 1875 to James Brand and Juliet Hughes (Tenney) Brand in Oberlin, Ohio and died on December 23, 1947 in Sussex, England. The Hannahs traveled extensively while enjoying productive careers.

"Edith Brand Hannah
Mrs. Ian C. Hannah (Edith Brand) died after an extended illness in a nursing home in Sussex, England, on Dec. 23, 1947. She was the daughter of Dr. James Brand and Juliet Tenney Brand, and she grew up and attended school in Oberlin [Ohio], where her father was minister of First Church. [She graduated from [Oberlin High School] in 1892.]
After graduation from [Oberlin] College [in 1897], she studied art for a year at Cooper Union in New York City, after which she taught in the Oconto, Wis., high school and a private school in Great Barrington, Mass.

The year 1901-02 was spent in studying art in Paris, following which she held a position in Boston as a book illustrator. In 1904 she married Ian C. Hannah of Chichester, England, and they lived in Windsor, Nova Scotia, where Mr. Hannah was president of King’s College. Returning to England in 1906, they resided in Sussex until 1915 when Dr. Hannah became professor of church history in the Oberlin Theological Seminary and they came to Oberlin to live.
Her art career continued for the remainder of her life, and she gained international fame as a portrait painter and as illustrator of several of her husband’s books. Among these were “Sussex” (1912), “Berwick and the Lothians” (1913), “The Heart of East Anglis,” and “Capitals of the Northlands” (1914). Their cooperation on “The Story of Scotland in Stone” gained probably the most widespread recognition; the “London Times” said of her work in a review: “The book is richly illustrated, and a delightful feature is the series of drawings by the author’s wife, both charming and faithful.”

In 1925 they went to Scotland to live on and care for Dr. Hannah’s ancestral estate near Edinburgh. Dr. Hannah followed his career as extension lecturer for Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and together Dr. and Mrs. Hannah continued their interest in architecture and archaeology. Mrs. Hannah’s artistic ability was further recognized when, on a number of different occasions, several of her portraits were selected for exhibitions at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.
Dr. Hannah, a Unionist, was elected to the House of Commons in 1935, and he remained a member until his death in 1944. Mrs. Hannah, although bedridden for two years before her death occurred, sent greetings from Sussex last June to her class at its 50th reunion, and accompanied the greetings with a poem which she had composed for the occasion.

Surviving her are her three sons: James, a professor at Durham University; W. Walton, who has a parish in Sussex; and John, who has a church in Selkirk, Scotland. Two brothers also survive: Judge James T. Brand, ’09, of Salem, Oreg., and Charles Brand, ’95, of Roseburg, Oreg.; as do three sisters: Mrs. Mary B. Ruggles (Mary Brand, p.e. ’99) and Helen Brand, ’11, of Oberlin; and Mrs. James J. Hayes (Margaret Brand, ’13) of Oklahoma City, Okla." - The Oberlin Alumni Magazine, May 1948, p. 28.