This is the tragic story of Audrey Munson, a young woman who served as the muse for the Black Angel. Formally known as the Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial, the statue is the translation of a recurring dream experienced by Mrs. Dodge. She recalled that a beautiful angel standing in a small boat appeared in the mist while she stood on the shore. With one arm stretched out and the other holding a vessel filled with water, the angel offered her a drink as well as a promise and a blessing. Feeling unworthy, she refused to take that drink over the first two nights.

When she awoke the next morning, she relayed the dream to her daughters. She finally relented on the third night and took a drink of the water, which she described as sparkling like diamonds. After that, she said it was like she had been lifted into the Kingdom of Heaven and was born again. She passed away shortly afterward, joining her husband, Civil War General Grenville M. Dodge, who passed eight months earlier.

Daughters Lettie, Eleanor, and Anne remembered their mother as a deeply spiritual woman who gave of herself to others. A passionate supporter of women’s suffrage, Ruth Anne also loved gardening, reading, music, and art, and helped found Council Bluffs’ first library. For a woman of such conviction, the dream was a fitting farewell.

To honor their mother, her daughters commissioned famed sculptor Daniel Chester French to create a memorial based on her vivid dream. French also designed the statue in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

French hired Munson to serve as the model for the Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial. Of the famous actress and model, he said, “There is a certain ethereal atmosphere about her that is rare. She has a decidedly expressive face, always changing. There is no monotony in her expression, and still the dominant feeling is that she is just such a type as many of the early painters would have selected for a Madonna.”

Starting at the age of 18, Munson appeared in four Broadway shows, four silent films, and modeled for sculptors including French over a 10-year period. The sculptures for which Munson was the model appear all over the country and overseas including more than a dozen in New York City alone.

In 1919, Munson’s career began to unravel. She was living with her mother, Kittie, in a boarding house in Manhattan. It was owned by Dr. Walter Wilkins, a man who became so obsessed with Munson that the police believed he murdered his wife to make himself available for marriage. Munson went to Canada with her mother, triggering a nationwide manhunt. When they were located, Munson strongly denied having a romantic relationship of any kind with Dr. Wilkins. He was later found guilty and sentenced to the electric chair but hanged himself beforehand. The publicity that resulted from the scandal likely ruined her career, which was over by 1921. Munson was just 29.

The event also caused much embarrassment for the Dodge family, who originally planned a public dedication of the statue in honor of their mother. As the sensational story circulated in newspapers across the country, they instead chose to install it privately on a plot of land near Council Bluffs’ Fairview Cemetery at 623 N. 2nd Street.

By 1920, Munson was supported by her mother, who sold kitchen utensils door-to-door in Syracuse, New York. Unable to make a living on her own, she attempted suicide by swallowing mercury bichloride in 1922. Munson survived, but her mental health declined. Kittie was struggling to care for her and in 1931 asked a judge to have her committed. The judge ordered Munson to be treated, reportedly for depression and schizophrenia, at the St. Lawrence State Hospital for the Insane in Ogdensburg, New York, where she spent the next 64 years of her life. Munson was surprised in 1984 when her then-unknown half-niece, Darlene Bradley, paid her a visit. It was her first visit since her mother passed away in 1958. Twelve years after that visit, she passed away at 104 years old in 1996.

While Ruth Anne and Grenville were laid to rest in a newly built mausoleum in Walnut Hill Cemetery in 1916, the woman described as America’s first supermodel was buried in an unmarked grave in New York’s New Haven Cemetery in 1996. Audrey Munson, whose likeness appears all over the world, was all but forgotten and waited another 20 years before her final resting place was marked with a simple headstone.

Over time, the eight-foot Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial began to weather, causing the cast bronze to darken significantly, making it appear as though it were black. That resulted in its nickname, the Black Angel. Since then, it has been the subject of many urban legends stating that its eyes will follow you or that staring into her eyes or touching her at midnight will result in a curse. Some even claim that she takes flight at night when no one is watching.