Retirement
She was forced to retire as a result of a fall in Wilmington, Delaware in May 1889. After recovering in Lake Hopatcong, she attempted a comeback in 1891 and decided to retire permanently from the stage. She later resisted calls for a farewell tour. At age 45, it was the perfect time to retire - she was the richest actress in America, the theatre was changing and she got out at the top. She made one final appearance in 1915 for "Lotta Crabtree Day" in San Francisco at the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
While Lotta apparently had her share of romance, her travel, lifestyle and mother made a long-term relationship difficult and Lotta never married.
Following retirement, Lotta traveled, painted (including studying at Paris in 1912) and was active in charitable work.
Late in her life, Lotta moved to Massachusetts and was owner of acreage in the southern part of the Squantum section of Quincy, immediately south of Boston, Massachusetts. It is said to have been purchased for the benefit and health of her brother (Ashworth) and for their horses. Most of the land was sold as house lots in the 1930s and '40s. Children who walked to school through Lotta's land in those days often passed by two small markers of local granite set into the ground, engraved "Ruby Royal" and "Sonoma Girl" - two of the Crabtrees' horses. Local street names include Ashworth Road, Livesey Road, Sonoma Road, and the shoreline Crabtree Road. Ashworth was a family surname, as was Livesey. A large cylindrical stone tower constructed nearby likely had a farm-related storage purpose. Further information may be available through the Quincy (Massachusetts) Historical Society.
Lotta spent the last 15 years of her life at the Brewster Hotel which she had purchase in Boston. She died September 25, 1924 at age 76. In her obituary, The New York Times called her the "eternal child". She was described by critics as mischievous, unpredictable, impulsive, rattlebrained, teasing, piquant, rollicking, cheerful and devilish. Lotta Crabtree was interred at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, NY.
Lotta left an estate of some $4 million in a charitable trust for such causes as veterans, aging actors and animals. The estate ran into complications when a number of people unsuccessfully contested the will. The trust still exists today.
Read more about this topic: Lotta Crabtree
Famous quotes containing the word retirement:
“He who comes into Assemblies only to gratifie his Curiosity, and not to make a Figure, enjoys the Pleasures of Retirement in a[n] ...exquisite Degree.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)