From Nelson C. White, Abbott H. Thayer: Painter and Naturalist. Hartford CT: Connecticut Printers, 1951, p. 99—
[Artist and naturalist Abbott H. Thayer] sometimes excelled them [his children] in the invention of fanciful nonsense, as when his daughter Gladys painted the face of an Irishman on the back of Thayer's bald head, the scant dark fringe of his remaining hair serving for the beard. When he entered the room walking backwards and giving life to this grotesque apparition by flexing the muscles of his scalp it was startlingly effective.
