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people utterly charming. A piece of her heart was left there, as well. Pamela adds, “Mom learned Hebrew quite well, I am told. She still blurts out phrases from time to time!”

Finding Love Without Looking

A dear friend of Ann’s, Marie-Louise Snellings, introduced Ann to Dr. Frank Cline, another of Marie-Louise’s friends. Cline was a successful orthopaedic surgeon and also divorced. The two found that they shared a number of interests and began dating. Once again, Ann found love. The two were married at George and Marie-Louise’s home. The Snellings – together with Carrick and Nancy Inabnett – became Pamela’s godparents.

Suddenly Ann was mother to not just Pamela, but to three more children (Colleen Cline Stewart, Francis X. Cline III, and Cathy Cline Goggins). For the first time, Ann’s time was divided – she was a full-time wife and mother, and her art often had to be put aside. “Frank gave me as much time to work on my art as he could, but it was just hard with four children,” Ann says.

As the children grew up, life began sorting itself out again. One, daughter Pamela, followed in her mother’s footsteps. After graduating from Emory with one year at the London School of Economics, Pamela studied at the Gemological Institute of America. Then she added one year at Christie’s Education which completed the work necessary for her Masters in French Fine Arts. In the summer of 1986, she moved to Paris where she worked at Shearson, Lehman, Hutton.

In 1993-1994, Pamela lived in NYC where she studied jewelry manufacturing at FIT and became a graduate gemologist from the Gemological Institute of America. She wisely kept her Paris apartment so that she could spend 3 months a year there. Pamela moved back to Paris to live full-time two years ago.

In 1988, the Clines bought a home in Little Rock. Ann now had the time to create art. Frank would work in Monroe at his practice, and then would spend weekends and time off in Little Rock. Ann became involved in the Arkansas Art Center and spent time with the museum there. The two never actually moved permanently to Little Rock. Instead, they maintained a Monroe residence, the Little Rock house, and an apartment in Paris. “The last few years of Dad’s life were spent in Little Rock, Paris, and Monroe,” Pamela says. “They would spend about 4 months a year in Paris in the apartment that they had bought in 1997. They both loved it, and it was very sweet that they took drawing classes together at Academie des Beaux-arts.”

Finding A New Path

When Frank died in 2003, Ann says that she was left feeling empty. She remained in Little Rock, searching for the next chapter of her life to reveal itself. She and Frank had met Trent Galloway on occasion at an Anglican church in Little Rock that they all attended but she really didn’t know him.

As she was going through this time alone, Ann remembers noticing Trent again. This time he was sitting alone, looking forlorn, on a snowy day in Little Rock. Ann was serving coffee at church and saw him there, dressed entirely in white. “And there was snow on the ground! I had never seen anyone in all white in the wintertime,” Ann explains.

She took him a coffee and a friendship developed. She learned later that he was intentionally wearing all white (in defiance of that Southernmost rule – never wear white after Labor Day or before Easter) because he was in his “break all the rules” stage of life. Recently divorced, Trent was trying to find a new chapter, too.

Together, they each found their way to happiness once again. They divided their time between Los Angeles and Little Rock, and ultimately married in Baton Rouge. A little over a decade ago, they moved to Monroe and settled. Trent explains, “We came to Monroe because Ann was ready to go back home.”

Cicero wrote, “The art of living well, is of all the arts the greatest.” Ann Merriman Cline has mastered not only the fine art of painting and drawing, but she has also mastered the art of living well. We could all take lessons from her example.