Bust

In the last months of Maggie Walker’s life, as her diabetes took its final toll, members of the Independent Order of St. Luke (IOSL) began their efforts to memorialize their beloved leader. In The summer of 1934, Richmond IOSL deputy John S. Collins traveled to New York City where he commissioned sculptor Paul Beneduce to design a statuette. The Galvano Bronze Co. cast hundreds - possibly thousands - of these plaster busts for the IOSL to distribute as memorial gifts and fundraising sales items. Coinciding with “Maggie L. Walker Month,” which the City of Richmond declared in October of 1934, the presentation of these busts were intended to give Walker, “roses while she could still smell them.” Mrs. Walker passed away a few weeks later on December 15.