arnes
invited us to meet some friends at his home on Monday evening, when we
met the principal members and officers of the Handel and Haydn
Society, and after a pleasant evening of part song, solos and duets, I
was asked to sing for the company. I was reluctant to comply, as I was
not considered a solo singer, my place was always in quartette work
and duets. Contraltos were not so popular in those days as the soprano
and tenor and not considered solo voices where I ever sang before. It
was only now I realized I was to have a place also. As I sang many
beautiful duets with my husband, we favored them with a number. It was
still insisted I must sing a song. My husband, accustomed to
accompany me, arose and led me to the piano and I sang the old song,
When the Swallows Homeward Fly, in the German language, as all German
songs should be sung to bring out their full feeling and significance.
That song was the climax and I was lionized for the rest of the
evening. There were also German professors present and their
compliments would have turned any one's head were it not poised on
good common sense shoulders. My success began on that night.

There were three factions or grades of society in Boston, the
literary, wealthy and musical. The position of my husband's family
enabled us to enter all three. Consequently the sails of my ship,
success, were flung to the breeze and for four years I had fair winds
and bright skies in the realm of song. Is it to be wondered at that
memory comes floating up before me like a panorama of beautiful
pictures and remembrances of happiness--times enjoyed with souls
filled with the love of song, good comradeship and lifelong friendship
which can never be erased? It is here where I sang for the first time
with the renowned singer and actor, Henry Clay Barnabee, a young man
then, just three years my senior, over fifty years ago. There are
still five of us left to tell the stories of the singing days, when
the city of Boston held scores of the finest male and female singers
that ever pleased an exacting public.

On April 3, 1859, began the forty-third season of oratorio with such
singers as Mrs. J.H. Long and Miss Louisa Adams, sopranos; Adelaide
Phillips, contralto; C.R. Adams, P.H. Powers and J.P. Draper, tenors;
Edward Hamilton, George Wright Jr. and Carl Formes, bass; Carl
Zerrahn, conductor; J.C.D. Parker, organist, and full orchestra. Among
the productions rendered were: Magic Flute, David, C