Te Adoro, Maria Chabot

Dorothy and Maria Chabot met for the first time in 1933 in Mexico City. Maria had come down from San Antonio to study archaeology at the University and was living with her aunt Emily Edwards, when Dorothy, Margretta, and Katherine Chapman came to call.

From the moment they met, the two women were drawn to each other despite the 23-year age difference. Maria would later write to her mother, Olive, that Dorothy had the energy of an 18-year-old.

That chance encounter began a fairytale romance, as the two explored the countryside of Mexico in Dorothy’s pioneer wagon, the Austin Child; skinny dipping in steaming hot springs, devouring exotic delicacies in the Mexican markets, and witnessing history literally being drawn on the walls in the public frescoes of revolutionary artists like Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco.

When the summer of 1933 came to a close, neither wanted to part company, so the two traveled to New York City on the S.S. Morro Castle, where Maria was introduced to a glittering world of culture, entertainment, and Dorothy’s inner circle of intellectuals.

The following year, Maria came to live in Santa Fe as she explored career options. (See page titled Maria Chabot and Dorothy Stewart: A Meeting of Hearts and Souls for more details.) While their relationship remained strong, opportunities were scarce in Depression-era New Mexico, so the young Texan returned to her family’s home in San Antonio. For the next several years, each focused on her own creative endeavors, but in 1937, they reconnected for an eighteen-month odyssey to Europe, living in a 14th-century medieval castle in Villeneuve-des-Avignon in southern France. From there, they ventured out, traveling by rail across the continent and the British Isles, even visiting northern Africa.

When they returned in November 1938, Maria traveled back to New York City in an attempt to find benefactors for a research project she envisioned; the study of how indigenous arts and crafts traditions had been impacted by colonization. Dorothy stayed behind in Santa Fe to paint, frequently returning to Mexico for months at a time.

Despite their devotion to each other, a long-distance relationship was unsustainable for such free-spirited women, and in late 1939, they parted ways. In her desire to “move on,” Maria refocused her attention to her friend, Mary Cabot Wheelwright’s ranch Los Luceros in Alcalde, forty miles from Santa Fe. That year she met Georgia O’Keeffe,—a chance encounter that changed her life— and she moved to Ghost Ranch to become O’Keeffe’s handyman and property manager. Originally, she hoped living in remote Abiquiu with the famous artist would provide her with the time and inspiration to concentrate on her own writing, she soon found herself acting as little more than a hired hand.

During the years that Maria spent with O’Keeffe, she and Dorothy continued to correspond. Their letters reveal a well of truth, intimacy, and maturity as each woman weathered her own disappointments and triumphs amidst global war, advancing technology, and the passage of time. Today, their correspondence is housed at the O’Keeffe Library and Archive in Santa Fe, and forms the foundation for this story.

Their lives remained intertwined until Dorothy’s untimely death in December 1955.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story, the conclusion of my forthcoming book Dorothy Stewart: Santa Fe Artist and Printmaker, estimated for publication in March 2027.