The Pantagraph was abuzz with the news that its favorite society couple was returning from Rome. Dr. Matilda Freitag-Savage and her husband Eugene Savage were returning from his studies and success in Europe. Eugene was a painter and had won the Prix de Rome for one of his paintings in 1914. Dr. Freitag had a medical practice in Bloomington in the early 'teens, and during some of that time she resided in Bloomington while her husband lived in Rome.
The Pantagraph was eager to claim Mr. Savage as a Bloomingtonian, but he was actually from Covington, Indiana and had studied in Chicago. Matilda Freitag was born in Arrowsmith and spent all her early years in McLean County. She took a medical degree from the University of Illinois and married Eugene Savage in Chicago in 1908.
In 1914, Dr. Freitag Savage obtained permission to display each of the winning painting from the Rome competition and they were shipped to her from Rome! Those paintings were displayed at the Withers Library. This was quite a coup for Withers, which had frequent art showings early in the century.
By 1930 the Savages were living in Westchester County, New York, where they had an 8 year old daughter, Dorothy. Savage is known for his glass mosiac map at the American Cemetery in Epinal, France, in memory of Operation Dragoon, the invasion of France from the south during WWI.