Visit Dan Telvock's blog: Spotsy govt.-the odds & ends

Spotsylvania officials can't find this portrait of the late T. Stokeley Coleman. Visit the Photo Place

View the Spotsylvania County community page

CANVASSING THE COUNTY FOR A FACE FROM THE PAST

Missing portrait of popular prosecutor spurred massive search that turned up no clues

Date published: 11/18/2008

By DAN TELVOCK

The late T. Stokeley Coleman never wanted to be a big-time lawyer.

He just wanted to be a good one.

Coleman's peers thought so highly of the him that they honored him in January 1983 with a painted portrait that hung in different places in the Spotsylvania County court complex for about 15 years.

But that portrait has disappeared, and county officials have launched a big-time search for it.

"Obviously it is important to the family because it is my father," said Coleman's son, Dickie Coleman, 61. "This is a professional portrait, and I have to say it was very well done."

Deputy County Administrator Doug Barnes said he had employees exhaustively search attics, basements, closets and storage rooms. He copied a Feb. 23, 1983, article from The Free Lance-Star that included a photograph of the portrait and sent it to every employee with the message in bold letters: "If you have seen this portrait, please call Dickie Coleman."

"I don't know what else to do," Barnes said. "If there is something I missed that I can be doing, I would do it, but I don't know what that is at this point."

The portrait once hung next to one of Coleman's father, also a former commonwealth's attorney, in the old circuit courtroom next to a series of pictures of Confederate generals. While the old courthouse was being renovated, the portraits were placed in storage.

When the new circuit courthouse opened in 1994, then-Circuit Judge William Ledbetter had all portraits of prosecutors moved to the commonwealth's attorneys office law library.

Dickie Coleman complained to Ledbetter that his father's portrait had been damaged in storage and that he wanted it hung in a more visible spot. The judge directed that it be removed and restored, said Commonwealth's Attorney William Neely.

"I have no idea what became of it after that," Neely said. "It was gone for several years. I assumed it was hanging in a lobby of a building somewhere. We still have the father's portrait hanging in my law library."

James E. Jarrell Jr., Coleman's son-in-law, introduced Coleman at the 1983 ceremony. He said he had only recently found out that the painting is missing.

"I think anybody who ever knew him would tell you he was a very competent lawyer, but more important, they would tell you he was a true Southern gentleman," Jarrell said. "He treated everyone with respect, and he was held in high regard by everyone who knew him."

Dan Telvock: 540/374-5438
Email: dtelvock@freelancestar.com

T. Stokeley Coleman was appointed commonwealth's attorney in 1943 and held the post until he resigned 1962, taking a short leave of absence to serve in World War II. He then worked in private practice with his son-in-law James E. Jarrell Jr. and friend Ronald L. Hicks until 1976, when he was appointed county attorney, a position he held until 1980. He was popular among his peers. The Fredericksburg Area Bar Association passed a resolution on Jan. 24, 1983, that honored him for promoting harmonious relationships and setting standards of fairness and ethics for local lawyers. Coleman died of cancer on June 7, 1983. The artist who painted his portrait, Marion Simonson, died in 2003.

Follow us on

Read more stories about Spotsylvania
Date published: 11/18/2008

Most recent reader comments: