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Eve's gift: Auction of paintings -- Sale aids church in Cokesbury

Thursday, September 27, 2007

By Blair Barbieri

COKESBURY -- Eve Alwyn Hinchman was a vital force from the moment she joined the Cokesbury United Methodist Church, says her friend of more than 17 years, Lynn Roncamp. "If there was a church dinner, she'd be there knocking on your door telling you to go to that church dinner," says Mrs. Roncamp.

And now two years after her death at age 91, Mrs. Hinchman is still giving back to her church. A prolific artist, among many other things, Mrs. Hinchman bequeathed a collection of about 70 paintings to be auctioned off to benefit the church and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

The auction is Sunday, Oct. 7 at 2 p.m. at the church at 610 Cokesbury Road. A preview of the paintings is set for Saturday, Oct. 6 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Many knew Mrs. Hinchman from the art classes she taught on her 100-acre Lebanon Township farm. Generations of students learned from this self-taught artist. Their first assignment was always to paint a palm tree in the Florida sand, said Mrs. Roncamp.

Born in New Zealand, Mrs. Hinchman traveled through Europe, lived in Germany and London and eventually settled in Baltimore with her mother. The pair had the first mother/daughter radio show in the city and became celebrities. They took their shtick to Palm Beach, Fla. and became the first mother/daughter hosts on TV there. "They became the talk of the town," says Mrs. Roncamp. "Eve would never tell you but she knew all the famous people. She had scrapbooks with her and celebrities and government people. They lived next door to the Kennedys. She knew Burt Reynolds when he was just starting out in Florida, but she'd never tell you that."

While in Palm Beach, Mrs. Hinchman met her husband, Roger, a real estate developer at the time. They married and "two weeks later, here she was bottle-feeding sheep" at their Lebanon Township farm, says Mrs. Roncamp. The couple raised fruit, sheep and Black Angus cattle. Mrs. Hinchman used the farm as a backdrop for her artwork and encouraged her students to do the same, says Mrs. Roncamp.

Mrs. Hinchman was proud of her students. She held an art show each year for them to display their work at the Clinton A& P. Customers would select their favorites and the winner would receive a savings bond from local dentist Charles Sgroi.

After her husband died in 1991, Mrs. Hinchman continued to work the farm by herself and continued with her social endeavors. "She was involved with everything. She never showed her age," says Mrs. Roncamp. She was very active with church fundraising activities and never hesitated to clean out her barn of old antiques and drive the truck down to the church to sell the items at flea markets, Mrs. Roncamp says.

"People loved her. Former students would come back years later to see her," says Mrs. Roncamp. "She was always very positive, very friendly. She knew so many different people and everyone knew Eve, Eve Hinchman."

Mrs. Roncamp says that her friend's work was of mostly landscapes. One piece up for bidding is of a barn on Bissel Road in Tewksbury Township. The barn has cows painted on it and Mrs. Hinchman painted a picture of that, she says. Mrs. Hinchman also had a beloved Brahma bull that was a favorite subject, along with her apple orchard, other cows and brooks.

Mrs. Roncamp is not sure of the value of the paintings. Most were found stowed safely away in a closet in the farmhouse. Only a few were displayed, says Mrs. Roncamp.

The money raised from the auction will likely go toward helping to make the church handicapped accessible, says Mrs. Roncamp. She's hoping that a lot of Mrs. Hinchman's former students and their parents can attend the auction.