Georgia Balch on her front porch in Johnson, VT. 

Georgia (Wells Stearns) Balch    was born in Frelighsberg,  Quebec, Canada in 1888 and died in Johnson, Vermont in 1981 at age 92.

Georgia Balch was a teenager when she immigrated with her family from Frelighsberg, Quebec, Canada to Johnson, VT, where her parents bought and ran the local hotel.  

The ebullient teenager had a passion for "dabbling in watercolor" when she married the town's most eligible bachelor in 1914, Chester Arthur Stearns.  They settled in a grand home on Stearns Street (Vermont Route 100C), built by her new in-laws as their wedding present to the young couple. 

Georgia began her education and career as an artist after the birth of her child, Joyce, and the death of her husband in the influenza epidemic of 1918.  To deal with her grief and loss, she took her child with her, from their home in Johnson, VT to Kansas City, where she studied art, presumably at the Kansas City Art Institute. 

Returning to VT, she married Roman Balch, manager of the family business, and erected a sign in front of her home that read "Paintings of Vermont by Georgia Balch,"  thus establishing an early example of cultural tourism.  For the rest of her life, tourists motoring through VT stopped to visit her studio and purchase her oil paintings, often staying to take a meal with the personable artist, who was also a legendary cook, preferring to prepare meals on her wood burning stove. 

During her lifetime, Georgia exhibited her work at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC.  A retrospective of her paintings was held at the Dibden Gallery of Johnson State College, and Georgia is listed in Who’s Who in American Art. 

Thanks to the following for the loan of artwork by Georgia Balch:  her family - Chuck and Susan Conger, Billi and Bobby Gosh, the Gosh Collection on loan to Randolph National Bank, Louise von Weise and Jonathan Gregg, and Mickey Myers.