Calista Halsey Patchin

Calista Halsey Patchin was a charter member of the Des Moines Women’s Club.  She was never a club president, but was very influential in the collecting of art and the decorating of Hoyt Sherman Place.  Before moving to Des Moines, she was the first female reporter for the Washington Post. 

Halsey was born in Chillicothe, Ohio on December 2, 1845 and moved New York state when she was orphaned at an early age.  She was first a school teacher and then a popular writer and journalist.   In 1880 she married Robert A. Patchen, “ a promising doctor” from Iowa and moved to Des Moines. Patchin died in 1920. In 2018 her career at the Post was immortalized by writer and artist Michael Cavana with a graphic story strip of her life.

Calista came from a line of well-educated clergymen, doctors and farmers. She lost both parents at and early age and went to live with relatives in Niagara County, NY. She attended a school of design in Cincinnati with her sister, Alice Halsey, where she learned wood carving and subsequently taught at Washington University in St. Louis Mo. Both she and Alice developed a lasting interest in the arts.

In St. Louis she began to write for the press writing primarily on art and travel. She was then hired by Stilson Hutchins after he founded the Washington Post in about 1878. Halsey wrote a novel, Two of Us, about “a young independent woman who finds her way working in wood.”  The book was published by GW Carleton, NY in 1879.  The Club archives contains the only known copy of her novel.  Patchin published many stories and articles in various newspapers, and her short story, “The Professor,” appears in Prairie Gold, a collection of stories by Iowa authors.

Her marriage and move to Des Moines ended her professional career, but she continued to write for journals and newspapers. She was particularly active in bringing Art Loan Exhibitions of notable paintings to Des Moines and frequently contributed to local newspapers articles on these paintings. Her knowledge and critiques contributed to the development of public taste in painting and sculpture.

Her oldest son recalled accompanying his mother late at night to the Register to deliver those day to day critiques as the exhibition ran its short course. She was a patron of painting, kept up her wood carving and writing. She found interest in every phase of mid-western life and the promise of cultural instincts of young Iowans. Patchin died in Des Moines on January 2, 1920 and is buried with her husband in Woodland cemetery.

Excerpts from Des Moines Women’s Club C H A R T