As Jane Lupton sees it, The Houston Museum in Chattanooga is an “unappreciated treasure.”. Mrs. Lupton has been a volunteer member of the museum’s board for several decades. Along with her friend, Caroline Cavett, she also volunteers her time helping to run the museum dedicated solely to the collection amassed by Mrs. Anna Safley Houston during her remarkable life in the first half of the last century. How one woman of limited means and an equally limited education was able to amass such a large and varied collection of (now) very valuable antiques remains a mystery, but thanks to the foresight of a few citizens of Chattanooga it has remained intact since her death more than sixty years ago. Her enormous collection is now housed in what was once a private home in a wealthy neighborhood on the bluff overlooking the Tennessee River in downtown Chattanooga.
One of the principal sources of support for the museum is their annual antiques show and sale. Richard Winham talked to Caroline Cavett and Jane Lupton about both the sale and the remarkable woman behind the museum’s collection.
