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Sarasota News Leader May 3, 2013 Page 79 tion Abraham Lincoln for the release of Harriet's grandfather, and her grandmother reportedly walked to the White House to make that plea. After school one day, Stieff, who was 4 at the time, went to the park at the site where the Church of the Redeemer stands today on South Palm Avenue. The big sandbox was a favorite of the town's children, Stieff points Lincoln felt so sorry for her grandmother — out. she had nine children and her husband was locked up — that he agreed to release Burns if "I remember bumping my leg as I went in the he promised not to take up arms again against door" when she returned home that evening, the Union, Stieff says. she adds. The leg swelled significantly overMoreover, the family legend goes, Lincoln felt night, prompting the family doctor to recomso sorry for her grandmother that he sent the mend the services of a bone specialist in Venwoman back to Baltimore in his own coach. ice. When Owen Burns located the doctor, he learned the physician had an appointment in THAT PAINTING New York City that week that he had to keep. When the train stopped in Sarasota, her father The family tale of her grandmother and Linarranged for it to wait so the physician could coln is not the only one Stieff obviously takes come to the house to treat her, Stieff says. As great joy in recounting. In fact, a more recent soon as the doctor saw her leg, he told the incident brings a big smile to her face. "A fun, family he needed to operate immediately, with fun, fun story," she calls it. more surgery necessary in six weeks. After the death of John Jacob Astor IV on the Titanic, Harriet's father and John Ringling — After that initial operation, Burns drove the both of whom were art collectors — went to doctor back to the train station and the train an auction in New York City to purchase some resumed its journey north. of the Astor art collection. "Can you imagine that happening today?" One painting, L'Enfant Malade by Venezuelan artist Arturo Michelena, depicted a doctor attending a sick child. Her dad hung it in the hotel he had built and named for her mother, El Vernona, Stieff says. Stieff asks. "But that was Sarasota in those days, a friendly, caring place." Stieff ended up having to spend part of the following summer at the children's hospital at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, to ensure her After the hotel went into foreclosure during leg healed properly. the Great Depression, her mother refused to Therefore, with her mother and Stieff adahave the painting moved into their house. It mantly opposed to reliving those memories did not matter a whit that the painting had won by having to look at that painting every day a gold medal in a competition in Paris in 1887. in their house, Burns "farmed it out" to the Not only was it large, Stieff points out — about library, Stieff continues, which was where 6 feet by 8 feet — but it reminded her mother Florida Studio Theatre stands today on of how Stieff nearly lost her leg as a child. Palm Avenue.