'Lit by goodness': Utah artist raffles painting, gives surviving family hope - KSL.com

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SPRINGVILLE — A woman, dressed in a tattered apron, struggles across a green field, grasping a heavy pail filled with milk as cows relax in the grass. Other women work in the back of the painting, heavy clouds hovering over the landscape.

When Jeannie Bate originally remastered French artist Julien Dupre's "The Milkmaid," she didn't think the painting would directly symbolize the struggle that her close friends would have — nor the gestures that would gather a supportive community around them.

But when she finished the painting the day before her close friend Brian Oldroyd died, Bate knew she had to do something.

Bate felt inspired to raffle the painting (even when she had never raffled or sold any of her artwork in the past) to provide funds and help Kelsey Oldroyd, the now-widowed mother of four young boys.

To support the Oldroyd family, Bate worked with Sara Anderson, another close friend of Brian Oldroyd's, to establish a Venmo* account (@raffle4kelseynboys4). Each dollar donated in the account will count as a single raffle, with all the proceeds going to the Oldroyds, Bate said.

The recreation of "The Milkmaid" has gathered over $6,000 in raffles, and the winner will be drawn on Saturday, July 15 — Kelsey Oldroyd's birthday.

"She had hoped doing this raffle would help carry us through a dark time and bring light into our life, and it really has," Oldroyd said, her voice trembling. "Some people think what they do is just small, like it's just a small thing. But I learned this last year that nothing small — like no act that you do that small for someone going through something so heavy, is small. It's all big to me."

With her oldest son being 11 and her youngest son just 3 years old, Oldroyd added, "It's been tricky navigating just the past year with them (the boys), especially after his loss."

The Oldroyd family, Brian and Kelsey, and their four sons, Stetson (11), Tanner (9), Bridger (8), and Brooks (3). (Photo: Jylare Smith Photography)

Bate had been friends with Brian Oldroyd and his family for decades before he was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic melanoma.

"It just filled his body. It started in his hip and went up in his pelvis and his spine, all the way up into his head and his cheeks and his brain," Bate said. "His pain level was unspeakable."

After he was diagnosed, Oldroyd added that her husband, who had a chiropractor practice in Spanish Fork, had tried some treatments, with one treatment completely turning around his condition for the better in December 2022.

"We thought that was that was it," Oldroyd said. "And then his body stopped responding to that treatment in about February — and then it just progressively got worse until he passed in May."

The funds from the raffle will help Oldroyd with any financial or emotional hardships to losing her husband and taking care of her four boys on her own, Bate noted.

"Anything helps right now as a single mom of four little boys," Oldroyd said.

And it's not just the meaningful gesture that has impacted the grieving family, but the painting itself had a key symbolic representation of the family's situation, which has especially touched Oldroyd.

"There's three other women that are milking cows, and it's a sweet representation of Kelsey carrying that heavy burden of milk, you know, that heavy burden that she has to do and yet seeing these other women in the background supporting her," Bate said, noting how Anderson had explained to her earlier some of the meaning and symbolism. "After the fact, I looked at it, and I thought that represents perfectly (Kelsey's) burden and people who love her in the background, helping her."

The painting was also symbolic because her husband had loved cows, Oldroyd added, laughing as she remembered one particular date when he'd talked about owning a cow with her in the future.

Despite the fact that Bate "didn't have any of that in mind" when she'd originally painted it, she noted how it was special that the painting was emotionally significant.

"There's several cows right there in the forefront with her, and I just thought there he is just watching over, you know, from heaven. He's just — he's there," Bate said.

Years before, Bate began painting to deal with grief of her own, painting the walls of her own house when she would feel particularly depressed, she said.

"I would paint the walls in my house all the time; my husband would come home from work and the kitchen would be a different color," Bate said, laughing. "One time he bought me an art set, an oil set, for Christmas and he said, 'I want you to start painting on canvas instead of the walls.'"

She had "never picked up a brush before" other than her wall painting, so when her husband encouraged her to paint on a canvas, she noted how she surprised both with her artistic ability.

"I knew that I had the capability if I tried, and so I started painting," Bate said. "I started painting reproductions of old masters' works, and I've done quite a few of those."

But "The Milkmaid," Bate said, has been particularly special because "it's just been lit by goodness."

"It's amazing just that she can use her talent, and think of a way to use that talent in order to help other people in a very real way," said Hazel Bate, the artist's daughter-in-law. "Of course, art is something that we all enjoy looking at and can appreciate the beauty — but to take that one step further and be able to use it and get the word out to support a local family, I think it's just amazing."

*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.