Sept. 12, 2008 – Long-time resident and painter Honor Spingarn Tranum died on Sept. 9, on St. Thomas. She was 98. Born in 1910, educated and raised in New York City, Honor married Carl Tranum in 1937. The couple moved to the Virgin Islands shortly after World War II when Carl contracted a job as a builder at the Harry S. Truman Airport. They remained on St. Thomas for the rest of their lives. A successful businessman, Carl Tranum became the territory's first commissioner of conservation and cultural affairs (now DPNR) and established several businesses. He died in 1983.
Honor was the daughter of Joel E. Spingarn and Amy Einstein Spingarn. With her uncle, Joel Spingarn helped to found the NAACP at the Amenia Conference, which took place at their family country house called Troutbeck. Spingarn served as the NAACP's second president, and as chairman of its board from 1913 until his death in 1938. In 1914, he established the Spingarn Medal, which is awarded annually to an African-American for outstanding achievement. Honor's mother was a preeminent patron of the Harlem Renaissance and supported the work of many black artists and writers, such as Langston Hughes.
Surrounded by thinkers and artists, Honor became a painter. She started painting at the age of five and studied with several of the outstanding artists of the period, including Hans Hofmann. During the New Deal she painted frescoes in New York City as a part of the WPA projects. She also designed textiles whose designs reflected her travels to South America. She continued to paint successfully throughout her life, and several of her works hang in Government House, St. Thomas. She helped to found the Antilles School and taught art there during its early years.
Honor had two children, Mark, who died in 1994, and Joel, who resides on St. Thomas where he is active in business; three grandchildren: Sam Tranum, David Tranum and Martin Tranum; and three great-grandchildren: Grace Tranum, Elliot Tranum and Alexander Tranum. Honor also had two brothers and one sister who predeceased her.
She annually visited New York and her sister in England and travelled widely. During these trips, she met and drew a large number of artists, gallery owners and patrons of the arts to St. Thomas. She supported the arts and artists in St. Thomas and was an early and devoted patron of the Pistarckle Theater. She also remained engaged in politics as well as art and literary criticism with friends and from a distance. Long before Amazon, she always had a new book or avant-garde magazine before most Statesiders. Besides her love for and involvement in the arts, she was a passionate gardener. In the early days in St. Thomas before there were any commercial nurseries, she took slips from local gardens and "graduated" to orchids, which she collected and cultivated in large numbers. She was an early and long-term member of the Orchid Society.
Honor was a well-known figure on St. Thomas — out and about the town or walking on Magens Bay every day. She will be missed.
