USA > Ohio > Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state, Volume III > Part 4
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BERNICE FRAME RHEES
A record of Ohio's advancement along musical lines would be incomplete were there failure to make reference to BERNICE FRAME RHEES of Sid- ney, who is a chorister, organist and teacher of piano and organ and who in the current year, 1939, has just completed a quarter of a century's connec- tion with the choir of the Methodist Episcopal church in the city in which she makes her home.
Born in Mortimer, Ohio, she is the eldest of a family of six whose parents were William C. and Jennie (Simon) Frame, of Tiffin, Ohio, where the father was connected with railroad interests. The mother was a daughter of Joshua Simon, who was chorister of the Presbyterian church of Macomb, Ohio, his daughter Jennie acting as his accompanist and as organist of the church. An appreciation of music has thus through several generations been a pronounced trait in the family.
Bernice Frame acquired her early education in the grade schools of Bloomdale, this state, and later was graduated in Tiffin on the completion of her high school course there. She studied for a time in the Chicago College of Music. She very early manifested her love of music and was but ten years of age when she played before Findlay College and Heidelberg College, appear-
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ing on the programs as a young pianist of promising ability. Since that time she has been before the public as a musical artist or leader and her work has had inspirational value in the lives of her students and those whom she has coached in music. She at one time coached an American Legion Club, known as the Sidney Singing Soldiers and they appeared in a national contest at Cleveland in 1936 and were there awarded second place. She also organized a group of carol singers, who were called Rheesingers, and who have appeared on various programs in this section of the state. Mrs. Rhees also started a group of eastern carollers, the nucleus of which was one of the choirs of the Methodist Episcopal church, and their activities have been continually grow- ing. The high musical standards maintained in the Sidney Methodist church are due to the efforts of Mrs. Rhees, who has just rounded out twenty-five years of service as choir leader. She began playing the pipe organ in the Presbyterian church in Tiffin, Ohio, when but fourteen years of age, and every step in her musical career has been a forward one.
Mrs. Rhees was the originator in her section of the state of the Junior Choirs school and they have a week of morning and afternoon sessions in the week just preceding the opening of the public schools. From this junior choir work has grown her junior choir in connection with which she has evolved a plan of ensemble arrangement. In addition to her coaching of these various musical groups and her choir leadership, she teaches piano and organ and she has been included in a seminar of New Jersey choirs at Princeton College and also in the Chris Johnson Choral School at Winona Lake, Indiana.
On the 11th of December, 1912, Bernice Frame became the wife of Garnet U. Rhees, of Tiffin, Ohio, who is now owner of the Rhees Clothes Shop of Sidney. They have become the parents of five children, but the only daughter, Jane, passed away at the age of fourteen years. She had displayed considerable musical talent and had accomplished much in the art for one of her years. The four sons, William, Jack, Thomas and Jerry, are in the various choirs with their mother, having inherited the appreciation of music that characterizes the family.
Mrs. Rhees is a member of the Sidney Music Club and of the Mothers Club. Among her prized possessions is an original manuscript written by Edward MacDowell and presented to her by his widow, Mrs. Marian Mac- Dowell.
GENEVIEVE ROWE
The concert stage and the radio have made the name of GENEVIEVE ROWE familiar to music lovers throughout the country, and in musical circles she is making that steady progress which comes when intelligently directed study supplements marked native talent. Wooster is and has every reason to be proud of Genevieve Rowe, a native of Fremont, Ohio, and a daughter of Professor Niel O. and Gertrude Rowe, the former an accomplished organist
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and dean of music at Wooster College, while her mother is professor of theory in the same institution.
The daughter pursued her preliminary education in the Wooster public schools, graduating from high school with the class of 1927, after which she entered Wooster College and won her Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees in 1930. During her senior year she won the national Atwater-Kent radio audition, which she says brought her the greatest thrill of her life and gained for her the five thousand dollar prize and a scholarship which enabled her to study voice in New York under such eminent instructors as Jake Yeats- man Griffith, who was her teacher for two years, and Sidney Dietch, with whom she is yet taking work and who is her art counselor. That Wooster was proud of her achievement in the Atwater-Kent audition was shown by the cordial reception and praise given her as she stepped from the train on her return to Wooster.
Two years later, in the fall of 1932, Miss Rowe won the MacDowell Club contest in New York and the following year the contest of the National Federation of Music Clubs. In 1934 she gave a Town Hall recital in New York and in the winter of 1937-8 she reached the finals in the National Seal Test Rising Musical Stars contest and appeared on a Rising Stars program on February 6, 1939.
Miss Rowe has made many concert and radio appearances and has a definite place on the Philip Morris program which is broadcast each Tuesday evening over NBC, on which occasions the NBC auditorium, seating two thous- and, is always filled to capacity. Each Sunday Miss Rowe is heard on the "Musical Impressions" program, broadcast over the Mutual network and conducted by Alfred Wallenstein. She also makes regular appearance on the program "New York on Parade." Since 1935 she has been associated with the Juilliard Graduate School of Opera and has been selected for an important role in Mozart's opera "Abduction." The press not only of Ohio, but of leading cities of the east and of the middle west proclaim her a musi- cian of marked talents and growing ability and predict for her still greater success in the future.
In private life Genevieve Rowe is the wife of Robert Payson Hill, teacher at the Wooster Conservatory of Music, who gained prominence as a pianist during his student days in Wooster and is now a member of the faculty of the Conservatory of Music. He is Miss Rowe's favorite accompanist and plays for her in her more important engagements when it is possible for him to leave Wooster and go to New York. He was graduated from Wooster Col- lege in 1931, then had a fellowship at Juilliard's in New York for three years and in 1934 returned to Wooster College as an instructor. He was born in Pennsylvania and had acquired his early education in that state. Mr. and Mrs. Hill were married August 17, 1935, and each is making definite contribution to the art and cultural development of Ohio.
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BLANCHE SCOVILLE
BLANCHE SCOVILLE, gifted singer whose career was cut short at its point of most brilliant promise, will long remain a vivid memory in her home city of Lebanon. Blanche was the youngest daughter of Dr. and Mrs. S. S. Scoville and a sister of Mrs. J. P. Owens. The family into which she was born is today one of the most prominent of the community.
After graduation-at the head of her class-from Lebanon High School, Blanche Scoville entered the Cincinnati College of Music with Signor Albino Gorno, then director of the vocal department, as her teacher. Her rapid progress in all her studies, voice, piano, theory, dramatic action, modern lan- guages, won the highly coveted Springer gold medal. On completion of the full course she was graduated with highest honors.
While still at the College of Music Blanche appeared in important public concerts. She sang at Trinity Methodist Church, at Grace Episcopal and at Avondale Methodist Church in Cincinnati and at the First Presbyterian Church of Lebanon.
Then she went to New York for a try out under Anton Seidl, famous conductor, and appeared under his direction in concerts at Manhattan Beach. Mr. Seidl was that season conducting German opera at the Metropolitan Opera House. He offered Miss Scoville an enviable place in his company as soon as she should have mastered German. Meanwhile she was given a contract for a series of concerts to be given in New York the following winter.
Returning home in order to give maximum time to study of German, Miss Scoville was offered excellent concert engagements in and around Cin- cinnati. Her feet were apparently on the threshold of both fame and fortune when fate intervened. Stricken with typhoid fever, the richly endowed young singer, admired by all who knew her, died at the age of twenty-four.
MRS. F. A. SEIBERLING
MRS. F. A. SEIBERLING of "Stanhighwood Hall," Akron, was presi- dent of the National Federation of Music clubs in 1915.
Originator of the choral festivals, Mrs. Seiberling has seen her idea be- come national in scope. The original massed chorus was presented at a biennial convention of the National Federation of Music clubs in Chicago.
CLARA ALLEN SHIELDS
CLARA ALLEN SHIELDS (Mrs. Lawrence Shields) for twelve years president of the Xenia Woman's Club, was born in Xenia, to the cultural progress of which city she has given unstintedly of her time, her talent and her energy.
Her parents, Col. Coates and Mary Catherine Kinney, trace back to early pioneer stock. Following preliminary study in Cincinnati and at Ann Arbor.
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Clara went abroad to devote three years to the training of her voice and to modern languages, in Germany, France and in Italy.
Following her marriage to Dr. Lawrence Shields, the pair went to Mexico, where they resided eight years. Dr. Shields was for eight years in charge of the American Hospital at Mexico City. Mrs. Shields was invited to sing before the wife of the Mexican president at a special concert, took the leading role in an important production of "Hansel and Gretel" and enjoyed other dis- tinctions. At the outbreak of the Mexican revolution Dr. and Mrs. Shields went to Europe where she devoted herself to further study. During the World War, in which he served as captain in the Medical Corps, Dr. Shields was assigned for a period to the military hospital at Bordeaux.
Mrs. Shields is a former president of the Xenia Woman's Music Club, and of the Current Topics Club in Mexico City, is president of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Church and is a member of the American Legion Auxiliary.
ROSE FISCHER SMITH
ROSE FISCHER SMITH (Mrs. Benedict N. Smith) has achieved a niche for herself in Cincinnati, both as a singer and as a music patron and supporter. She has received signal recognition for her efforts in behalf of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra of which she was named by the late Mrs. Charles P. Taft as co-chairman with Mrs. Albert James Bell, of the Woman's Auxiliary of the Symphony. In her work in this post, she was active on the committee that originated a distinctive series. the "Matinee Particulars" at the Hotel Sinton. She also assisted on the committee that brought to the city for the Children's Concerts, the noted Ernest Schilling, as interpreter. Her work in connection with Auxiliary included a number of benefits, among them an opera, funds from which were used for the Children's Concerts.
Mrs. Smith was very successful in creating a fund contributed by music clubs and generous individuals. This afforded the opportunity-to children from all parts of the city-who could in no other way have had' the privilege of attending the Young Peoples Concerts.
Mrs. Smith has been active for some years in the Music Department of the Cincinnati Woman's Club, and at present is assisting chairman. She was one of the early active members of the Matinee Music Club, and has served as financial secretary of this organization since 1920. She is one of the leaders of an exclusive pioneer group of musicians, the Woman's Musical Club, often referred to as an "all-star cast."
Possessed of a rare contralto voice, hailed by critics as "pure, resonant and of deeply sympathetic quality," Mrs. Smith's recitals throughout Ohio brought her enconiums that occasioned offers for a wider concert appearance. She decided, however, against a professional career on her marriage to Bene-
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dict N. Smith, prominent Cincinnati business man.
She began her studies in music at the early age of eight and at that time, sang solos. Her work with the late Emily Borger, pupil of the noted baritone, Julius Stockhausen, Berlin, Germany, brought her a scholarship and gold medal. She studied at the College of Music with W. S. Sterling, with Madame Tecla Vigna and Mrs. Adolf Hahn. Studies followed with the late Harry Turpin of Columbus, Ohio.
Mrs. Smith was born, reared and educated in Cincinnati.
DOROTHY BRIGGS SMITH
DOROTHY BRIGGS SMITH, president of the Women's Symphony Board of Marion and well known in the musical circles of this section of the state, was born in the city where she still resides, a daughter of Otto G. and Dessa (Watts) Briggs. Her father, also a native of Marion County, was secretary of the Citizens Building & Loan Company, starting with them when a young man and remaining with the organization until his death in 1922, when he was fifty years of age. He was a well known and valued resident of the com- munity, had membership in the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club and also belonged to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Watts family were farming people of Marion County throughout their entire lives.
Mrs. Smith, reared in Marion, first attended the Harding High School, then studied in the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and at the Ohio State Uni- versity. In addition to a general course in music, she specialized in the study of the pipe organ and of school music and afterward was supervisor of music in the public schools of Marion County for three years. She was next employed in a Marion Utility office until 1936, when she married Robert Y. Smith, a son of E. E. and Laura (Hemphill) Smith. Her husband is secretary and treasurer of the Smith Mattress Company, of which his father is president.
Continuing active in musical circles, Mrs. Smith is now organist and choir leader of the Prospect Street Methodist Episcopal church and she was accom- panist for the Canto Club, a male chorus organization, for ten years. She is also a member of the Le Mercure Literary Club and she occupies an enviable position in the social circles of her native city, where she has many friends among whom she is very popular.
ELLA MAY SMITH
ELLA MAY SMITH (Mrs. Dan Laws Smith) is said to have been the most popular factor in the development of Columbus as a music center. Due to her fine music training, she was thoroughly qualified for the work of music critic with which she began her service. This widened and deepened as Mrs. Smith organized trips to hear fine concerts, then local concert groups and
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then, as president of the Woman's Musical Club, began the work of establish- ing community musical schools throughout the city. Her next big idea was to obtain a fine organ for Franklin County Memorial Hall and this done, she developed programs by gifted local artists as part of the calendar of the Columbus Music Club.
After 15 years as president of the club, Mrs. Smith resigned. She travelled extensively abroad, was made much of by music societies everywhere. She deeply appreciated the great European music schools at which she was so warmly welcomed-but she stoutly upheld our own.
MARJORIE SQUIRES
MARJORIE SQUIRES, nationally known contralto, born at Franklin, has appeared several hundred times with famous orchestras as soloist and in ora- torio. Miss Squires (Mrs. Gerald Humphries) is the daughter of Mrs. J. H. Hankinson.
JESSIE STILLMAN-KELLEY
JESSIE STILLMAN-KELLEY (Mrs. Edgar Stillman-Kelley), Oxford, Ohio, former president of the National Federation of Music Clubs, several times president of the Ohio Federation of Music Clubs, former teacher of ap- plied harmony on the faculty of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, member of the faculty of Western College of Music, is regarded by many authorities as the most outstanding member of musical organizations in the United States. Mrs. Stillman-Kelley is vastly interested in the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, Young Artists as discovered by the Federation of Music clubs.
She has been an indefatiguable worker for the creation of a Portfolio of Fine Arts in the Cabinet of the United States, and during the winter of 1938-39 took up her residence in Washington to be near the scene of the activity in behalf of the passage of the bill. Although born in Wisconsin, Mrs. Stillman-Kelley was educated in San Francisco where she studied piano with Louis Linner. Later she studied with William Mason in New York and Dr. Stillman-Kelley, whom she later married.
This eminent woman holds the degrees of L. H. D. from Western College and Litt. D. from Miami University.
It is said of Mrs. Stillman-Kelley, that when she sees real merit in a musical project her interest and enthusiasm never ebb. She sees things to a definite conclusion.
MRS. JEROME M. STURM
Few if any have done more to advance Cincinnati's musical progress than MRS. JEROME M. STURM. Her life has largely been the expression of her love of the art and of earnest and effective effort to promote music
MRS. JEROME M. STURM Board of Directors, Women's Committee, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
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appreciation among the people of the city and Cincinnati is today recognized as one of the music-loving centers of the country.
Mrs. Sturm, born in Cincinnati, is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Milton S. Hoffheimer, who early began her musical education, which she pursued under private tutors and in the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. When she was but twelve years of age she began studying under Theodore Bohlman, head of the artist faculty of the Conservatory, being the youngest child he has ever consented to take as a pupil. Her father sang in the first May Festival chorus in Cincinnati with Theodore Thomas as director. He felt it was pos- sible to inculcate music in the soul of a child and as a result Mrs. Sturm has occupied the same seat in Music Hall, Cincinnati, since she was a child of five years.
She has to her credit an exceptionally long list of cultural, philanthropic and civic activities. She was made secretary of the Jewish Social Service Bureau in 1916 and was secretary of the Federated Garden Clubs of the city for many years. She has a distinguished war record as a member of the execu- tive committee of the Cincinnati committee of the Council of National Defense, as chairman of the woman's division of the local Liberty Loan committee and as a leader in work for the Red Cross. She has shown a continuous and active interest in the Girl Scouts of America since 1921, during which time she has taken part in all phases of the work, acting in turn as secretary, deputy com- missioner, treasurer and chairman of the finance committee.
A member of the board of directors of the Cincinnati branch of the Needlework Guild since 1922, at present (1939) she is public relations chair- man and vice president of that organization. She has taken a prominent part in every Community Chest campaign and has worked tirelessly for the Cin- cinnati Symphony Orchestra Association, serving with such distinction on the Women's Symphony committee that she was appointed by Mayor James Gar- field Stewart as chairman of the Cincinnati music committee for the New York World's Fair.
For twelve years Mrs. Sturm was a member of the executive board of the Council of Jewish Women. For three years, from 1930 to 1934, she acted as chairman of public relations in the campaigns of the Independent. Citizens Group for Hamilton County. She is identified with the Dixie Highway Road of Remembrance and a member of the national board of that organization. She has served the Federated Garden Clubs as secretary, vice president and auditor and is now chairman of the civic committee of this group. Thus in many fields she has put forth earnest effort for the public good, especially along cultural and philanthropic lines and Cincinnati is proud to proclaim her as one of the outstanding women of the city.
ANNIE SINTON TAFT
ANNIE SINTON TAFT (Mrs. Charles P. Taft) former president of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Association, philanthropist, patron of art
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and staunch friend of her native city, was born in Cincinnati in 1852, the daughter of David and Jane Ellison Sinton.
She came of sturdy stock. Her father, David Sinton, whose name is inseparable from the early development of his adopted city, was born in County Armagh, Ireland, of mingled Scotch, Irish and English ancestry. The latter strain is emphasized by the original name of the family, Swinton. Mr. Sinton, David Sinton's father came to America and settled at West Union, when David was three years old. In boyhood, David Sinton is said to have evidenced the business genuis which was to make him first a successful iron manufacturer and later an authority on real estate.
David Sinton was in large measure a self made man but the very qualities which enabled him to build a fortune for himself proved equally serviceable in establishing the tradition of helping others which characterized the entire life of his only daughter.
Aside from innumerable individual private and public benefactions made during her life, Mrs. Charles P. Taft and her husband left, on their death, gifts totalling many millions for the benefit of the people of Cincinnati and of strangers within their gates.
Their paintings and porcelains, one of the finest privately owned collec- tions of the entire country, were left under the administration of the Cin- cinnati Institute of Fine Arts, as a downtown Museum housed in the beautiful house on Pike Street in which they had lived virtually all their married life.
The Institute was organized in 1927 "to further the musical and artistic education and culture of the people of Cincinnati." At the time of its organi- zation, Mr. and Mrs. Taft made known their intention of providing in part for the future support of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, by a bequest of one million dollars and on the death of Mrs. Taft her will bequeathed an additional million for re-arrangement of the house as a museum and for its maintenance.
During the years she served as head of the Orchestra Association Mrs. Taft gave as unstintedly of her time and energies as of her fortune to this great cultural organization.
The George Gray Barnard statue of Abraham Lincoln, an endowment of two millions for development of the study of the humanities at the University of Cincinnati, $75,000 to the College of Law, equally munificent sums to the College of Medicine; to the Conservatory of Music; to countless charities ; to civic improvements ; to establishment of an attractive hotel for working girls and young women-these are but scattered reminders of the manner in which Mr. and Mrs. Taft manifested their affection for their city and their desire to make of it a better and a pleasanter place to live in.
Annie Sinton was educated at the Mt. Auburn School for Girls and later taken abroad by her father.
MRS. CHARLES PHELPS TAFT (Annie Sinton Taft)
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Mr. Sinton had bought from Nicholas Longworth a beautiful early Amer- ican residence on Pike Street and this remained, until her death in 1931, his daughter's home.
After her marriage to Charles Phelps Taft, founder of the Cincinnati Times-Star, it became the Taft residence and as such the center of many important gatherings and brilliant social functions.
The beautiful old home which is now the Taft Museum is an excellent example of American architecture of the first quarter of the nineteenth century and was in process of construction in 1820. It was built for Martin Baum, one of the most distinguished of Cincinnati's early citizens. Sub- sequent owners were Nicholas Longworth, who purchased it in 1830, and David Sinton, father of Mrs. Taft, who became its owner in 1871. Famous people entertained within its hospitable walls included the Duke of Saxc- Weimar; Robert Owen; Charles Dickens; Harriet Martineau; the Belgium Royal Family in 1919 and Cardinal Mercier.
Among the artists represented in the magnificent collection of paintings are Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Hals, Turner, Constable, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Goya, Ingres, Corot, Sargent and the famous Cincinnati artists Duveneck and Farny.
The collection of French enamels includes pieces from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. From the sixtenth century are the crystals and jewelry and the Italian majolica which was made by potters of Renaissance, Italy. A collection of nearly two hundred Chinese porcelains consists for the greater part of wares made during the reign of the Emperor K'ang Hsi, 1662-1722. There is also a collection of watches dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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