Beatrice Romaine Goddard was born May 1st, 1874 in Rome, Italy. Beatrice had an unhappy childhood. Her parents divorced and the family was abandoned by her father Henry. The family moved to New York City though Beatrice was no better off. Her mother was unstable and gave her affections to Beatrice's mentally ill brother while Beatrice was in charge of watching him as he would attack anyone who approached him. Despite the wealth of her maternal grandfather, Isaac S. Waterman, Jr that could have served as a safety net, Beatrice's mother turned her over to a poor family and disappeared. Beatrice never revealed where her grandfather lived for fear she'd be returned to her mother.
Beatrice entered into a marriage of convenience with John Ellingham Brooks, a failed pianist, translator, in debt, and gay. The marriage lasted less than two years; she moved to London and then to Paris, he to the Italian island of Capri, the haunt of fashionable gay men. Now going by the name Romaine Brooks, her life and luck changed dramatically as she moved among the upper crust and began painting their portraits. Around the beginning of World War I Brooks met and fell in love with writer Natalie Barney. The two women had a non-monogamous relationship that lasted more than fifty years.
Read more about Brooks at
GLBTQ and
Wikipedia and view a
few paintings.
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