What is Leonard Lester?
{{no footnotes|date=March 2022}} '''Leonard Lester''' (1870–1952) was an [[artist]], [[writer]], and [[Public speaking|public speaker]]. == Background == Leonard was born in [[Penrith]], Cumberland, on February 4, 1870 to Edward Lester and Mary Hannah Ashby. He died on June 26, 1952 in [[San Diego, California|San Diego]], California. In England, he attended the Ackworth and [[Wigton]] [[Quakers|Quaker]] schools. At the age of thirteen he became interested in writing. In 1889, at age nineteen, he [[Emigration|emigrated]] to Canada with his family. A few years later, they moved south to the United States briefly living in [[Galena, Kansas|Galena]], Kansas before settling in [[Pasadena, California]]. Leonard established his studio in Pasadena. He also kept studios in [[Redlands, California|Redlands]], [[Santa Barbara, California|Santa Barbara]], and [[Los Angeles]]. In 1901 he returned to England where he set up a studio in a castle. He got sick and became [[Unconsciousness|unconscious]] (he didn’t know for how long) and was feeble with [[asthma]] after that incident. The following year Leonard went to [[Germany]], then [[Hitchhiking|hitch-hiked]] and walked to [[France]] and Italy with a [[walking stick]] he made from an [[Apricot|apricot tree]]. == Career == Leonard created drawings for the [[Chicago]] [[World's Fair|World’s fair]] in 1893, and in 1894 [[Harper's Bazaar|Harper Brothers]] magazine paid him $75 for photo-like drawings of [[Native American]] baskets. While in Chicago, he met the leader of the [[Theosophy|Theosophical Society]] and became a member. After studying art for two years (1894-96) at the [[Art Institute of Chicago]], the Art Students’ League in [[New York City]], and the [[Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts]], he returned to California. From 1906 to 1916, Leonard went to [[Cuba]] where he taught at a Theosophical school directed by his sister, Amy Lester Reineman. He visited [[Pinar del Río|Pinar del Rio]], [[Las Quatitas]] and [[Santiago de Cuba|Santiago]]. The schools closed du