Louisa Lane Drew was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 actress and theater owner.

She and her third husband John Drew were the parents of Louisa Drew (1852–1888), John Drew, Jr. and Georgie Drew (Barrymore)

Georgiana Drew

Georgiana Emma Drew , aka Georgie Drew Barrymore, was an American stage actress and a member of the Barrymore acting family....

. She had no children from her first two marriages. The Drews owned the Arch Street Theatre, where they staged performances, and she managed the business. After her husband's death Mrs Drew adopted a baby boy and named him Sidney

Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew

-Biography:Sidney Drew , or Mr. Sidney Drew as he was usually billed, was an uncle of actors Lionel, Ethel & John Barrymore. His origins have been the subject of much speculation. Sidney's mother Mrs. Louisa Drew said she adopted him not long after the death of her husband John Drew, Sr. in 1862....

. She was the grandmother of John Barrymore

John Barrymore

John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...

, Ethel Barrymore

Ethel Barrymore

Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...

 and Lionel Barrymore

Lionel Barrymore

Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...

. Her other grand children were Georgie Drew Mendum an actress (from her daughter Louisa and Charles Mendum) and Louise Drew (Mrs Jack Devereaux) also an actress( from her son John Drew Jr and his wife Josephine) as well as S. Rankin Drew, Sidney's son with his wife Gladys Rankin. She is the great-great-grandmother of Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore

Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...

.

She appeared in plays with Junius Brutus Booth

Junius Brutus Booth

Junius Brutus Booth was an English actor. He was the father of John Wilkes Booth , Edwin Booth , and Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., an actor and theatre manager...

 Sr. and his son, John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...

. The younger Booth assassinated

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 U.S. President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

. In the mid 1890s the aged Mrs Drew appeared in an all star revival of Sheridan's

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...

 The Rivals

The Rivals

The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...

. In 1897 an ailing Louisa Drew spent the summer at her annual Larchmont, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 retreat with her grandsons Lionel and John Barrymore. She died at the end of August 1897 aged 77.

External links

• 1880 portrait of Mrs Drew University of Washington Sayre Collection