My Great Aunt Ethel Wight (1885-1975) was born and grew up at 23 Fort Hill Avenue in Old Orchard Beach. She was the daughter of Eugene Wight, a painter and portrait artist and was the sister of Clement P. Wight who built many of the cottages in Ocean Park. They both held real estate licenses and one can still see the sign "Wight Agency" on West Grand Avenue. Aunt Ethel was the aunt to C. Paul Wight a photographer, botanist and artist.
Ethel Wight attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She had rented studio space on Congress Street in Portland from Governor Percival Baxter in the 1930's to develop, sell, retouch and color her photography. She then moved to Old Orchard Beach and sold her original watercolor paintings, cameras and supplies and developed film and hand colored her black and white photographs at her "The Wight Studio" on Temple Avenue in Ocean Park. In the 1960's she sold her business.
In 1999 a grouping of Ethel Wight's photographs which had been in shows throughout the country were exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine as part of the 100th anniversary of the Portland Camera Club. She had a difficult time being accepted as the first woman member. Perhaps she never was.
