Anna Mary Robertson, best known as Grandma Moses, loved to embroider, but as she aged, she developed arthritis, which made embroidery too painful. Her sister suggested painting instead, so Robertson, seventy-five, took up something new. She began to paint the things she knew , farm and country scenes.

The results were utterly original and surprisingly good for a late-starting amateur. Her earliest works were shown and sold at a nearby drugstore and general store in Hoosick Falls, NY. One fateful day, New York engineer and art collector Louis Caldor happened by and purchased the whole lot on display.

Caldor was so taken with Robertson's art that he went another step and began promoting her works to collectors and galleries. Largely through Caldor's efforts, Robertson's work became famous. Her paintings were hung at the Museum of Modern Art in NY in 1939, and she held her first solo exhibition in New York a year later. She was eighty years young.

Even greater acclaim followed. She had many one-woman shows across Europe and North America. In her nineties, her paintings attracted attention all over the world. Her simple scenes of everyday life - people socializing, harvesting, participating in markets and fairs, and engaging in outdoor activities like ice-skating - still captivate wide audiences.

Her most notable works include The Thanksgiving Turkey (1943), and Over the River to Grandma's House (1944), fitting for the one who was to become known around the world simply as Grandma Moses.

She wrote a lively autobiography at age ninety-two, My Life's History. Grandma Moses lived to 101, no doubt propelled to that milestone by her important work.

From the time arthritis forced her to stop embroidering to when she completed her first artworks, only three years had passed. She said if she hadn't taken up painting, she would have raised chickens. (Her fans are glad she chose the former). The plainspoken original said simply that life is what we make it.

Excerpt from Extraordinary Comebacks by John A. Sarkett, Sourcebooks, Inc 2007