There seems to be no doubt that the Frémont portrait was one of the most important works of Gutzon’s youth. It got him attention and acclaim. But more than that it got him the friendship and advice of Mrs. Frémont. The general was nearing death when Gutzon first saw him. The portrait was finished in 1888 and Frémont died in Washington, D. C., in 1890. But the motherly interest of Jessie Benton Frémont in the artist went on unbroken for many years. She helped him with letters to important people and with advice on how and where to sell his works. Some of these letters were still in Gutzon’s effects when he died. The most discriminating patron of the young artist in California was, perhaps, Spencer J. Smith. Smith bought enough canvases to give Gutzon a start toward his training in Paris. These pictures, tenderly cared for, are still in the possession of Smith’s widow in the same house where the artist saw them hung some sixty years ago. As then the house, surrounded by gardens, stands like an oasis in the heart of busy Los Angeles. Shortly before going abroad in 1889, Gutzon married Mrs. Elizabeth Putnam, whom the family called “Lisa,” a painter of ability and a teacher of art. Unfortunately, the details of the romance are lacking. Gutzon never talked about such intimate matters. His father and other members of the family met her only after the marriage. Lisa seems to have loved her husband. At any rate, his worries during the early years in Europe made little impression on her--nor on him. Yet, that there was some difficulty in their relationship is evidenced in letters written to Gutzon by friends of both of them. A young sculptor pupil, Arthur Putnam, who lived with them at Sierra Madre, mentioned the vague unhappiness he sensed in Gutzon and tried delicately to probe into the matter. But, unfortunately, only the question of Putnam is extant. Gutzon’s reply to his letter has not been kept. From the sculptor’s diary, a sporadic and sketchy document, it is plain that he was passionately anxious to have a child. It is probable that the impossibility of this was the basis of whatever trouble he had with Lisa. Moreover, she was twenty years his senior and did not care much for his strenuous way of life. Such was Gutzon’s fear of hurting her, and his almost abnormal dread of publicity in so personal a matter, that the legal tie was not broken for several years. Few of Gutzon’s friends of later years knew of this marriage, and his own children were in their teens before they heard of it. A French servant, Jeanne, who had lived with the Borglums in Europe, accompanied Lisa to California to live with her until her death. In 1931 she wrote to the sculptor about certain of his paintings that he had given to Lisa and closed her letter with a significant and touching thought. “You have two beautiful children,” she said, “and you are at last happy. You deserve it....”