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| Undated photograph of Isabella Beaton (1870-1929) |
***
The Cleveland Plain Dealer (April 8, 1900) noted that the concert "is being looked forward to with much interest." As before, the newspaper could not fail to mention that Beaton had "studied abroad several years."
How many people attended the Recital Hall concert is unknown, but the brief review in the next day's newspaper was certainly encouraging. Declaring that "the entire program was of a high order and successfully performed," the reviewer thought that "the compositions which [Beaton] played gave her unusual opportunities to display her talent and training." A Bach fugue was "clearly and firmly played," and a Schumann sonata performed in a "broad style, bringing out the beauties of the exacting composition in a very musical manner." Finally, the "Air Caprice" by Beaton's mentor, Moszkowski, was played "delightfully." Although the review was brief and occupied but one small paragraph in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (April 20, 1900), Beaton's first recital in Cleveland seems to have generated a warm, if not exactly boisterous, reception.
Within ten days news of Beaton's inaugural Cleveland recital made it to Marshalltown, Iowa, where the Evening Times-Republican (April 30, 1900), borrowing from a little-known Cleveland publication, declared the Arcade concert "very well attended" and "extremely pleasing." The program, the article continued,
Within a month Beaton's name was back in the public eye, reprising in Cleveland the Emma Nevada concert of the previous fall in New York. But it was Nevada who attracted attention, as the newspaper advertisements showed; Beaton and cellist Louis Blumenberg both executed only secondary roles. But Beaton could hardly complain; Nevada's fame brought more people to the concert where the pianist had an opportunity to impress.
As Beaton's aunt, Ruth Hubbard, noted in a May 23, 1900 letter to Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943), Ruth's niece and Isabella's cousin, critics applauded Beaton's performance:
With a position on the faculty at the School Beaton could count on a reliable income as well as an opportunity to offer regular piano recitals. Consequently, in January 1901 she performed again under the auspices of the school. As before, the Marshalltown newspaper (January 24, 1901) quoted a Cleveland article, claiming that a "fair-sized audience" had attended Beaton's "novel piano recital of improvisations." "Her compositions," the newspaper remarked, "were all played with a remarkable depth of feeling and expression, particularly the musical setting of Keats' 'Eve of St. Agnes' and the Berceuse."
Gratifying though these words must have been, Beaton had limited success in seeing her own compositions performed by other artists. In a 1905 letter that her father shared with the newspaper, Beaton excitedly announced that the Cincinnati orchestra had recently performed her Scherzo for orchestra, previously performed by the Emil Paur Orchestra and the Cleveland Symphony. According to the Cedar Falls Gazette (January 9, 1906),
However, at the June 1903 end-of-year School of Music concert Beaton was once again in the public eye, playing works of Chopin, Moszkowski, and Wagner-Liszt (and sharing the program with several other pianists, vocalists, and with the St. Cecelia Choir). In late November Beaton joined a violinist, a tenor, and a soprano in concert at the Council of Educational Alliance auditorium. According to the newspaper (Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 30, 1903), the hall was packed. Nevertheless, Beaton's career as a soloist continued to bump along, difficult to distinguish from all the other musicians with whom she often appeared. Part of the reason came from her teaching, obliging Beaton sometimes to serve as second piano, accompanying students' solos.
Less often Beaton had the stage to herself or shared it with only one other performer. For instance, in early May 1905 Beaton played several works of Chopin "in which she was heard to excellent advantage." A critic, remarking on Beaton's performance of pieces by Moszkowski and Liszt, described her playing as "dashing and her style brilliant" (Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 7, 1905). But Beaton could not have failed to notice little difference from her very first Cleveland concerts when a brief paragraph filled with vague compliments sufficed to describe her artistry.
In a March 17, 1905 letter to her cousin, Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943), Beaton emphasized how hard-put she was for time, especially when her Aunt Ruth, by this time in her mid-70s, fell ill. Concern for her parents' health added to the burden.
Against this background of domestic concern and further academic study, Beaton continued to perform. In March, 1905 she played Schumann and Liszt for the Sorosis society and friends at a private home, sharing the limelight with four other artists. The following January Beaton joined several other performers before the Fortnightly Club. In February she offered another Cleveland School of Music recital in which, with the assistance of a vocalist and second pianist, she presented a long program that included two of her own compositions. In June Beaton's newly-composed Romanza for violin and organ was premiered at a School of Music concert. Meanwhile, Beaton often found herself attending lengthy student recitals, playing the second piano.
To the delight of Beaton and her many admirers, the February 28, 1906 issue of Musical Courier featured Beaton on the cover. Within the magazine William G. Harding published several pages devoted to "Musical Cleveland and Its Artists." Beaton was one of a handful of musicians singled out for attention. Harding did not say how he had acquired all the biographical material, but the report on Beaton includes tidbits that had not been published, and must have come from Beaton herself. Despite that fact, the praise reproduced in print here appears surprisingly faint. If, for instance, Ferruccio Busoni, another pianist to whom Beaton compared herself, was "thrilling" audiences in Buffalo, St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, and New York, as Musical Courier regularly reported, then
Even more revealing is the tempered lexicon of her recommenders whose testimonials, probably supplied by Beaton, also appear in the Courier's overview. Moszkowski, who, newspaper reports claimed, had named Beaton "his greatest student," could produce no more glowing praise than to admire "her artistic earnestness and enduring industry [my emphases—DK]," predicting for her "a good [my emphasis—DK] career." Boise, who had taught Beaton composition, praised her "conscientious" work and her "capacity." Like Moszkowski, Boise restrained his enthusiasm, declaring Beaton "musically and intellectually thoroughly equipped." These spare compliments, all written before Beaton returned to America, could only have come from Beaton's own files, and therefore may be understood as the best she could summon, in this way underlining how desperate she was to gain traction in her career.
In the midst of this career intermezzo Beaton's father died in 1907, bringing Isabella back to Grinnell for the funeral. Her step-mother continued to reside in the family home at 1216 Main Street, and her failing health occasioned periodic visits from Isabella over the next decade, as the Grinnell newspapers regularly noted.
In a January 12, 1910 letter to cousin Abby Williams Hill, Beaton wrote that she had been "working tremendously hard this winter in an effort to put the family on a secure financial basis. [I] have been sending out between two hundred and three hundred business letters every day or so...." She also began placing advertisements in some of the country's main concert venues. The 1909-1910 Boston Symphony programs, for example, included a tasteful solicitation, encouraging those interested to contact Beaton at her Kinsman Road home. An advertisement in the New York Tribune (September 24, 1910), reporting that Beaton was among the artists whom the New York agent, Marc Lagen, represented, indicates that she had signed on with a promoter in hopes of expanding her audience.
At this point, by her own report, she was practicing "from six to ten hours a day in order to make my work superior to that of [Ignacy Jan] Paderewski, [Fannie] Zeisler, [Teresa] Carreño, [Ferruccio] Busoni, and the other artists with whom I must compete in order to secure any paying concert work."
On the flip side, however, the financial well-being of Beaton's family consumed increasing proportions of her time and energy, as she admitted in a 1910 letter to Hill:
Apparently no concert in Tacoma ever developed, but Beaton began a bruising concert schedule. According to an article in the Grinnell College Scarlet and Black (January 26, 1911), in late 1910, thanks to the efforts of her new agent, Marc Lagen, Beaton performed in Boston's Jordan Hall with the soprano Fay McCord. "Miss Beaton's playing and especially her compositions were most highly commended by critics," the college newspaper claimed. At about the same time she began to offer locally a series of twenty concerts each year during which she performed an enormous repertoire—some three hundred works, according to her obituarist (Grinnell Herald, January 22, 1929).
Tickets surviving from the 1914-1915 season confirm that Beaton hosted these concerts at the Kinsman Road house that she shared with her aunt Ruth.
Sanborn insurance maps from the late nineteenth century do not identify separate rooms in the two-story house on Kinsman Road, but do reveal the building's modest footprint; no concert in this house could have accommodated a large crowd.
Nevertheless, playing twenty concerts a year for several years, Beaton must have felt proud, and no doubt these concerts earned her much admiration. But a schedule like this must also have been exhausting.
Her obituary reports that in this same period Beaton was deeply involved in a variety of war-time activities. Her linguistic skills, for instance, recommended her for selling liberty bonds to the many immigrants in Cleveland. Beaton was also said to have been active in the "campaign against alcoholism," and evidently contemplated accepting a missionary assignment to teach music in Korea. She was a member of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, the American Association of University Women, the Music Teachers' National Association, and a life member of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae.
During this furious spell of volunteering and work, Beaton's Aunt Ruth Hubbard grew more and more frail, and Beaton found herself increasingly trapped at home. Ruth lingered in illness for some years, and only died in December, 1917. In a letter to Abby Hill a few months later, Beaton reported herself "completely worn out."
However, in 1918 Beaton also observed her 48th birthday; despite the manic performance schedule she had maintained over the previous several years, her career had definitely stalled, and she was approaching 50 years of age. She had behaved honorably to her family, including especially the attention she gave to Ruth Hubbard's last years, but the gleam of her years in Berlin and Paris barely penetrated everyday reality in 1918 Cleveland.
Before Ruth died and during that period during which Ruth's long decline accelerated, Beaton prepared her own will, dated August 26, 1916. The conditions Beaton attached to this bequest are revealing of the musician's own values and behavior. Except for her books and music, which she intended to bequeath to Grinnell College and Western Reserve University, respectively, Beaton's estate was to pass intact to her niece, Ada Cora Park if she fulfilled one condition: demanding that Ada "take care of and provide for [Ada's] father and mother, Mr. Oliver W. Park and Mrs. Caroline Ruth Park [Beaton's older sister], and also of my [Beaton's] nephew, Hubbard B. Park," Beaton yoked Ada Park to the same kind of heroic family care that she herself had exercised in behalf of her parents and her aunt. She could hardly have demonstrated more clearly her own priorities.
Although already in 1918 Beaton was talking about selling the house she had inherited from Ruth, she seems to have remained in Cleveland until May 1922 when, according to her Grinnell Register obituary, she returned to Iowa, taking up residence on the Grinnell-area farm of Caroline and Oliver Park, her sister and brother-in-law. Oliver's obituary maintains that he went blind in 1922, and that the household—including Isabella Beaton—then moved into town at the Beaton homestead at 1216 Main. Whether Isabella came back to Iowa because of Oliver's disability or whether his blindness (caused by influenza, apparently) came after her arrival is not clear.
What is certain, however, is that, after her return to Grinnell, Beaton was not part of any local performances. Even when in 1923 the Grinnell String quartet performed one of her compositions (Scherzo from Quartet for Strings) at a November concert on campus, the newspaper did not mention if the composer was present.
For the next several years, Beaton seems to have lived quietly; not once did her name appear on the pages of the local newspapers. Beaton gave no concerts at the Congregational Church or at the college, as she had done often in the past. Was she ill? Someone has said that she went blind, but that seems an unlikely explanation for her withdrawal; as critics noted ten years earlier, Beaton had memorized an enormous repertory and could easily have played numerous works without using her eyes. Loss of memory, on the other hand, would have made concert performances—even informal ones—impossible.
So far as I could learn, Isabella Beaton next appeared in print when on December 3, 1928 the Grinnell Register published the sad news that she had "entered the state hospital at Mt. Pleasant yesterday where she will remain for an extended treatment." What illness required treatment the newspaper did not say, but Mt. Pleasant, originally known as the Iowa Lunatic Asylum, devoted most of its attention to patients with mental illness.
January 19, 1929 Isabella Beaton, still at Mt. Pleasant, died unexpectedly. According to the death certificate, in mid-January she had contracted influenza which killed her within three days. The document pointed out that a contributory cause was "arteriosclerosis with chronic myocarditis," a condition that the physician noted had prevailed for "several yrs." Without more specifics, it is impossible to know what role arteriosclerosis—hardening of the arteries—played in Beaton's life. If her illness affected blood flow to the brain, however, Beaton might have suffered
Even without the details of her well-being, Beaton's last years contrast sharply with her youth and all its promise. Clearly Isabella Beaton was a very bright, very talented woman; a child prodigy, she went on to study with some of Europe's best-known teachers, so her star was certainly ascendant when she reached Cleveland in 1899. She then plunged into a career filled with teaching, composition and performance, a pace that she managed to increase a decade later when she founded her own music school and began a round of punishing recitals, each year performing some twenty concerts. Along the way she also completed a bachelor's and master's degree at Western Reserve; she vigorously volunteered in her community, assisting the war effort and the battle against alcohol. And she lovingly attended to the well-being of her family, including her Aunt Ruth whose long slide into the grave she monitored every night for two years. And then, as her own final act opened, Beaton returned to Iowa, no doubt intending to assist her sister and her husband. Instead, her own health deteriorated with the sad result of her death alone within the walls of the Mt. Pleasant State Hospital.
"Queen Among Musicians?" Perhaps not—at least not in the way that Beaton had dreamt and for which she had worked and practiced so long. Yet, as her family and friends—who had long taken pride in her musical accomplishments—could attest, Isabella Beaton, for all her commitment to composition, piano performance, and teaching, never let these occupations displace help to family members in need. Clearly Beaton had earned a coronation, if not among musicians, then surely among those who valued and practiced family loyalty and love.
Isabella was the fourth child born to William (1829-1907) and Loretta Hubbard Beaton (1829-1887), newlyweds who left Ohio for the newly-founded settlement of Grinnell in 1855. Both parents were musical, and Isabella herself early showed promise of exceptional musical ability. She began playing the piano at age four, began study at the Iowa (Grinnell) Conservatory at age nine, and gave her first public concert in Grinnell's Stewart Hall when only twelve years old. However, when she graduated from the Conservatory in 1890, her musical career seemed to stall: she left Grinnell, and spent the next several years in Harlan, Iowa where she played the organ and piano, directed and sang in the choir at the local Congregational Church. No longer a prodigy, the twenty-something pianist found herself far from the centers of musical greatness, engaged in the rather ordinary career of church musician.
Then, quite suddenly her ambition received an unexpected boost: a generous bequest from her maternal grandfather allowed Isabella to leave Iowa in 1894 for Berlin where she embarked on a five-year period of intensive study: two years of piano with Emma Koch (1860-1945) and three years of piano with Morits Moszkowski (1854-1925), who, along with O. B. Boise (1844-1912), also taught her composition. Few were the small-town church organists who sped directly to one of the world's great cities, home to a lively performance scene and site of great musical innovation. When in 1897 Moszkowski left Berlin for Paris, Beaton followed, continuing her studies there. No longer young, the tall (five feet, eight inches), blue-eyed and brown-haired pianist could nevertheless hope that her European training at the feet of one of the great piano and composition teachers of the day would help vault her higher in the musical pantheon back home.
When Beaton set sail for the United States in 1899, she decided that, rather than return to rural Iowa, she would settle in a city that could boast a vibrant musical culture. Her choice landed on Cleveland, where the 29-year-old took up residence with her mother's sister in the same house that her ancestors had built as pioneers. As she had hoped, press notices invariably remarked on Beaton's European sojourn. For example, an 1899 brief in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, reporting on Beaton's part in a New York concert by the Emil Pauer Orchestra, noted that "Mlle. Isabella Beaton comes from Paris by cablegram message to play...one of her own compositions with the orchestra." The newspaper went on to claim more dubiously that, "As a pianist she ranks as the greatest student Moszkowski has ever had" (Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 9, 1899).
That autumn Beaton's name appeared in the New York Times (November 20, 1899), reporting on an Emma Nevada concert at the Metropolitan Opera House. But if the newspaper published fulsome compliments to Nevada and the Nahan Franko Orchestra that performed with her, Beaton received only passing notice: "Others who assisted in the evening's program were Miss Isabella Beaton, a finished pianist, and Miss Clara Farrington...," the Times reported.
Back in Iowa, however, Beaton's New York performance generated excitement, no matter how small Beaton's part in the concert. The Marshalltown Evening-Times Republican of November 23, 1899, for instance, nearly burst with pride in announcing that a New York critic had called Beaton "a finished pianist," adding that the Grinnell woman had "finished her musical studies by years of instruction by the best artists of Europe and deserves the appellation of 'finished pianist.'"
No doubt the New York performance proved exhilarating to Beaton herself, even if she had played but a small part in the evening. After all, rather than playing in rural Iowa where her musical career had begun, she had played in New York City, one of the world's great musical capitals! Consequently, when Beaton returned to Cleveland from New York, she continued to nourish hopes of great achievement. The road forward was not easy, however, and it began with lightly-attended concerts convened in private homes. In late December 1899, for example, she was one of several artists featured at the Cleveland home of Dr. and Mrs. A. A. La Vigne, who had invited sixty or seventy guests to join them in celebrating their first wedding anniversary. Home concerts like this were not uncommon at the time, but surely Beaton aimed for a more public venue and a much larger audience. These goals she accomplished for the first time since leaving Europe when in April 1900 she gave her first public recital in Cleveland at the Recital Hall in the Arcade.
Located in the heart of downtown Cleveland and by 1900 already ten years old, the Arcade—America's first indoor shopping mall—included a recital hall whose location and size promised Beaton plenty of attention and an audience much larger than any in-home concert could accommodate.
Then, quite suddenly her ambition received an unexpected boost: a generous bequest from her maternal grandfather allowed Isabella to leave Iowa in 1894 for Berlin where she embarked on a five-year period of intensive study: two years of piano with Emma Koch (1860-1945) and three years of piano with Morits Moszkowski (1854-1925), who, along with O. B. Boise (1844-1912), also taught her composition. Few were the small-town church organists who sped directly to one of the world's great cities, home to a lively performance scene and site of great musical innovation. When in 1897 Moszkowski left Berlin for Paris, Beaton followed, continuing her studies there. No longer young, the tall (five feet, eight inches), blue-eyed and brown-haired pianist could nevertheless hope that her European training at the feet of one of the great piano and composition teachers of the day would help vault her higher in the musical pantheon back home.
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| Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925), ca. 1880 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritz_Moszkowski) |
That autumn Beaton's name appeared in the New York Times (November 20, 1899), reporting on an Emma Nevada concert at the Metropolitan Opera House. But if the newspaper published fulsome compliments to Nevada and the Nahan Franko Orchestra that performed with her, Beaton received only passing notice: "Others who assisted in the evening's program were Miss Isabella Beaton, a finished pianist, and Miss Clara Farrington...," the Times reported.
Back in Iowa, however, Beaton's New York performance generated excitement, no matter how small Beaton's part in the concert. The Marshalltown Evening-Times Republican of November 23, 1899, for instance, nearly burst with pride in announcing that a New York critic had called Beaton "a finished pianist," adding that the Grinnell woman had "finished her musical studies by years of instruction by the best artists of Europe and deserves the appellation of 'finished pianist.'"
No doubt the New York performance proved exhilarating to Beaton herself, even if she had played but a small part in the evening. After all, rather than playing in rural Iowa where her musical career had begun, she had played in New York City, one of the world's great musical capitals! Consequently, when Beaton returned to Cleveland from New York, she continued to nourish hopes of great achievement. The road forward was not easy, however, and it began with lightly-attended concerts convened in private homes. In late December 1899, for example, she was one of several artists featured at the Cleveland home of Dr. and Mrs. A. A. La Vigne, who had invited sixty or seventy guests to join them in celebrating their first wedding anniversary. Home concerts like this were not uncommon at the time, but surely Beaton aimed for a more public venue and a much larger audience. These goals she accomplished for the first time since leaving Europe when in April 1900 she gave her first public recital in Cleveland at the Recital Hall in the Arcade.
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| Cleveland Plain Dealer April 17, 1900 |
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| The Arcade, 415 Euclid, Cleveland, OH (https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/show/1477) |
How many people attended the Recital Hall concert is unknown, but the brief review in the next day's newspaper was certainly encouraging. Declaring that "the entire program was of a high order and successfully performed," the reviewer thought that "the compositions which [Beaton] played gave her unusual opportunities to display her talent and training." A Bach fugue was "clearly and firmly played," and a Schumann sonata performed in a "broad style, bringing out the beauties of the exacting composition in a very musical manner." Finally, the "Air Caprice" by Beaton's mentor, Moszkowski, was played "delightfully." Although the review was brief and occupied but one small paragraph in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (April 20, 1900), Beaton's first recital in Cleveland seems to have generated a warm, if not exactly boisterous, reception.
Within ten days news of Beaton's inaugural Cleveland recital made it to Marshalltown, Iowa, where the Evening Times-Republican (April 30, 1900), borrowing from a little-known Cleveland publication, declared the Arcade concert "very well attended" and "extremely pleasing." The program, the article continued,
placed the great technical skill of the lady in the brightest possible light. Her touch is sure and at the same time musical, and her excellent training and accuracy are among her most pleasing qualities.Nothing could have better appealed to the pianist than the conclusion, in which the reviewer confidently predicted for Beaton "a brilliant future...as concert virtuoso as well as teacher."
Within a month Beaton's name was back in the public eye, reprising in Cleveland the Emma Nevada concert of the previous fall in New York. But it was Nevada who attracted attention, as the newspaper advertisements showed; Beaton and cellist Louis Blumenberg both executed only secondary roles. But Beaton could hardly complain; Nevada's fame brought more people to the concert where the pianist had an opportunity to impress.
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| Cleveland Plain Dealer May 6, 1900 |
Isabella played May 17th three numbers in the concert where Madame Emma Nevada sung [sic]. The [Wächter und] Anzeiger praised her playing. The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer said, "Miss Beaton, a local player, gave her selections with great skill. Her work is careful and accurate in the extreme and her technique excellent."Whatever glory she may have garnered in this first year in Cleveland, Beaton understood that, in order to launch her performance career, she would need more than the occasional recital. Consequently, in 1900 she apparently arranged an "autumn tour" of concerts in Toledo, Bowling Green, and other Ohio cities where, according to one report, she met with "marked success" (Musical Record and Review, no. 449, February 1901). In addition, we learn that, beginning in 1899, Isabella Beaton was among the teaching staff of the Cleveland School of Music (Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 2, 1900). In late September Beaton gave her first recital to students of the school, presenting a varied program that included works by Saint Saens, Bach, Grieg, Weber, Chopin, Scarlatti, Schumann, and, as always, Moszkowski (Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 23, 1900).
With a position on the faculty at the School Beaton could count on a reliable income as well as an opportunity to offer regular piano recitals. Consequently, in January 1901 she performed again under the auspices of the school. As before, the Marshalltown newspaper (January 24, 1901) quoted a Cleveland article, claiming that a "fair-sized audience" had attended Beaton's "novel piano recital of improvisations." "Her compositions," the newspaper remarked, "were all played with a remarkable depth of feeling and expression, particularly the musical setting of Keats' 'Eve of St. Agnes' and the Berceuse."
Gratifying though these words must have been, Beaton had limited success in seeing her own compositions performed by other artists. In a 1905 letter that her father shared with the newspaper, Beaton excitedly announced that the Cincinnati orchestra had recently performed her Scherzo for orchestra, previously performed by the Emil Paur Orchestra and the Cleveland Symphony. According to the Cedar Falls Gazette (January 9, 1906),
with the exception of Mrs. Beach of Boston, Miss Beaton is the only woman in the United States whose work has been recognized and publically [sic] performed by the leading orchestras of the country.While performing, teaching, and composing Beaton enrolled at Western Reserve University's College for Women, from which she received a Ph.B. in 1902 and an M.A. in 1903. Whether because of these studies or for other reasons, in these years Beaton's name appears rarely in the "Music" column of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
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| Extract from Western Reserve University Commencement Program, June 19, 1903 (Courtesy Case Western Reserve University Archives) |
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| Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 21, 1904 |
In a March 17, 1905 letter to her cousin, Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943), Beaton emphasized how hard-put she was for time, especially when her Aunt Ruth, by this time in her mid-70s, fell ill. Concern for her parents' health added to the burden.
I have not had ten spare moments since Christmas day in which to write a letter. Aunt Ruth was very ill for five weeks...I don't know what I would have done if it had not been for Ione [Abby Hill's daughter]. She took entire care of Aunt Ruth afternoons while I am [sic] at the School...it was impossible for me to give up my position at the School just then because my mother [Beaton's birth mother had died in 1887; her father remarried twice, and the "mother" referred to here was her father's third wife, Margaretta Ella Assay Beaton (1834-1919)] has been very ill all the year and Papa was in bed threatened with pneumonia, so it was necessary for me to be the bread winner for the family [this and other letters quoted below come to me courtesy of the Abby Williams Hill Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University of Puget Sound].Ruth and Margaretta both rallied, but Beaton found herself still busy when she wrote another letter a month later. With a string of guests expected in Cleveland, Beaton was busy cleaning the lace curtains from all fourteen windows in the house, putting "two pairs of curtains [at a time] through sixteen waters apiece." After they were pinned and dried, they all had to be re-hung, making for a large and prolonged job, which was only one part of getting the house ready for visitors.
Against this background of domestic concern and further academic study, Beaton continued to perform. In March, 1905 she played Schumann and Liszt for the Sorosis society and friends at a private home, sharing the limelight with four other artists. The following January Beaton joined several other performers before the Fortnightly Club. In February she offered another Cleveland School of Music recital in which, with the assistance of a vocalist and second pianist, she presented a long program that included two of her own compositions. In June Beaton's newly-composed Romanza for violin and organ was premiered at a School of Music concert. Meanwhile, Beaton often found herself attending lengthy student recitals, playing the second piano.
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| Undated cover photograph of Isabella Beaton, Musical Courier, February 28, 1906 |
Miss Beaton was pianist with the Nevada Company at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and also in Cleveland, and has given many successful recitals in the Northern and Middle Western states.To drive the point home, the text identifies a Beaton concert not at Boston, Chicago or New York, but at...Cedar Falls, Iowa, at the close of which "she was forced to respond to a triple encore," the magazine text immodestly bragged. So happy was the committee that had arranged her concert, the article enthused, "they insisted...in doubling the fee agreed upon for the recital."
Even more revealing is the tempered lexicon of her recommenders whose testimonials, probably supplied by Beaton, also appear in the Courier's overview. Moszkowski, who, newspaper reports claimed, had named Beaton "his greatest student," could produce no more glowing praise than to admire "her artistic earnestness and enduring industry [my emphases—DK]," predicting for her "a good [my emphasis—DK] career." Boise, who had taught Beaton composition, praised her "conscientious" work and her "capacity." Like Moszkowski, Boise restrained his enthusiasm, declaring Beaton "musically and intellectually thoroughly equipped." These spare compliments, all written before Beaton returned to America, could only have come from Beaton's own files, and therefore may be understood as the best she could summon, in this way underlining how desperate she was to gain traction in her career.
In the midst of this career intermezzo Beaton's father died in 1907, bringing Isabella back to Grinnell for the funeral. Her step-mother continued to reside in the family home at 1216 Main Street, and her failing health occasioned periodic visits from Isabella over the next decade, as the Grinnell newspapers regularly noted.
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| Grinnell Herald, March 16, 1909 |
In these years Beaton also found time to enroll in additional courses at Western Reserve. But the clock was ticking, and with the arrival of 1910 Isabella Beaton, facing her 40th birthday, recognized that time was running out on her ambitions.
***
Rather than continue her association with the Cleveland School of Music, in 1910 she founded her own school, naming it in memory of her father.
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| Cleveland Plain Dealer December 22, 1910 |
Locating the new organization in the home she shared with her aunt Ruth, Beaton was perhaps trying to minimize costs and increase the convenience for herself, especially as Ruth's health went downhill. Situating the school at 7110 Kinsman—far from the center of town and the usual performance halls—Beaton might be suspected of having reined in her ambitions. The reality, however, was otherwise. Now, perhaps more than ever, Beaton worked furiously to advance her musical career.
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| Advertisement in 1909-1910 Boston Symphony Program (http://collections.bso.org/digital/collection/PROG/id/174362/rec/3) |
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|
Undated photograph of Ignacy Jan Paderewski
(1860-1941)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacy_Jan_Paderewski#/media/File:IgnacyJanPaderewski.jpg) |
I am doing teaching enough to support myself and the family at home. When there is any time left it goes into sweeping, dusting, ironing and the other duties of that sort that fall inevitably upon me.
She dreamt of a time when she might "hire a secretary and a manager and...put out my laundry work and things of that kind." In the meantime, she asked Hill whether any of a long list of names she appended to the letter might be suitable contacts for her to arrange a concert in Tacoma.
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| Program for Jordan Hall Concert, December 27, 1910 (Courtesy of the Archives, New England Conservatory) |
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| Music Magazine—Music Courier 71(July 7, 1915):32 |
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| Courtesy Grinnell Historical Museum |
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| 462 Kinsman Road, Cleveland, Ohio, 1896 Sanborn Insurance Maps (vol. 3, p. 354) (Cleveland renumbered its streets in 1906, changing this address to 7110 Kinsman) |
Her obituary reports that in this same period Beaton was deeply involved in a variety of war-time activities. Her linguistic skills, for instance, recommended her for selling liberty bonds to the many immigrants in Cleveland. Beaton was also said to have been active in the "campaign against alcoholism," and evidently contemplated accepting a missionary assignment to teach music in Korea. She was a member of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, the American Association of University Women, the Music Teachers' National Association, and a life member of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae.
During this furious spell of volunteering and work, Beaton's Aunt Ruth Hubbard grew more and more frail, and Beaton found herself increasingly trapped at home. Ruth lingered in illness for some years, and only died in December, 1917. In a letter to Abby Hill a few months later, Beaton reported herself "completely worn out."
I sat up with Aunt Ruth all night every night for two years and did not have time to sleep in the day time. [I] Have been down with tonsilitis [sic] for a couple of weeks and still have a bad cough.Ruth Hubbard's demise provided Beaton with financial security that, had she received it a decade or more earlier, might have permitted her great success on stage. Ruth, no doubt recognizing all that Beaton had done for her over the years, bequeathed Isabella all her personal property as well as the house on Kinsman Road and several adjacent lots; Beaton also inherited Ruth's shares in Cleveland's Woodland Avenue Savings and Trust Company. It's unlikely that Beaton had ever been so well provided for.
However, in 1918 Beaton also observed her 48th birthday; despite the manic performance schedule she had maintained over the previous several years, her career had definitely stalled, and she was approaching 50 years of age. She had behaved honorably to her family, including especially the attention she gave to Ruth Hubbard's last years, but the gleam of her years in Berlin and Paris barely penetrated everyday reality in 1918 Cleveland.
Before Ruth died and during that period during which Ruth's long decline accelerated, Beaton prepared her own will, dated August 26, 1916. The conditions Beaton attached to this bequest are revealing of the musician's own values and behavior. Except for her books and music, which she intended to bequeath to Grinnell College and Western Reserve University, respectively, Beaton's estate was to pass intact to her niece, Ada Cora Park if she fulfilled one condition: demanding that Ada "take care of and provide for [Ada's] father and mother, Mr. Oliver W. Park and Mrs. Caroline Ruth Park [Beaton's older sister], and also of my [Beaton's] nephew, Hubbard B. Park," Beaton yoked Ada Park to the same kind of heroic family care that she herself had exercised in behalf of her parents and her aunt. She could hardly have demonstrated more clearly her own priorities.
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| Extract from Last Will and Testament of Isabella Beaton, August 26, 1916 |
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After Ruth Hubbard's death in late 1917, Beaton's name appeared rarely in Cleveland newspapers. As she reported in her 1918 letter to Abby Hill, Beaton was exhausted, and may simply have recognized that at age 48 dreams of fame were no longer tenable. Despite what seems to have been an almost frenetic schedule of teaching, playing, and hospice-like care for Ruth, Beaton had not managed once to get her name in the same sentence with Paderewski, Zeisler, or Busoni. If this realization depressed her, it would be easy to understand.Although already in 1918 Beaton was talking about selling the house she had inherited from Ruth, she seems to have remained in Cleveland until May 1922 when, according to her Grinnell Register obituary, she returned to Iowa, taking up residence on the Grinnell-area farm of Caroline and Oliver Park, her sister and brother-in-law. Oliver's obituary maintains that he went blind in 1922, and that the household—including Isabella Beaton—then moved into town at the Beaton homestead at 1216 Main. Whether Isabella came back to Iowa because of Oliver's disability or whether his blindness (caused by influenza, apparently) came after her arrival is not clear.
What is certain, however, is that, after her return to Grinnell, Beaton was not part of any local performances. Even when in 1923 the Grinnell String quartet performed one of her compositions (Scherzo from Quartet for Strings) at a November concert on campus, the newspaper did not mention if the composer was present.
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| Scarlet and Black, November 7, 1923 |
So far as I could learn, Isabella Beaton next appeared in print when on December 3, 1928 the Grinnell Register published the sad news that she had "entered the state hospital at Mt. Pleasant yesterday where she will remain for an extended treatment." What illness required treatment the newspaper did not say, but Mt. Pleasant, originally known as the Iowa Lunatic Asylum, devoted most of its attention to patients with mental illness.
January 19, 1929 Isabella Beaton, still at Mt. Pleasant, died unexpectedly. According to the death certificate, in mid-January she had contracted influenza which killed her within three days. The document pointed out that a contributory cause was "arteriosclerosis with chronic myocarditis," a condition that the physician noted had prevailed for "several yrs." Without more specifics, it is impossible to know what role arteriosclerosis—hardening of the arteries—played in Beaton's life. If her illness affected blood flow to the brain, however, Beaton might have suffered
sudden numbness or weakness in arms or legs, difficulty speaking or slurred speech, temporary loss of vision in one eye, or drooping muscles to the face. These signal a transient ischemic attack (TIA), which, if left untreated, may progress to a stroke.Arteriosclerosis has also been associated with dementia and may contribute to Alzheimer's disease. There is no way to know whether Beaton's illness had this result, but it would make understandable how she ended up at Mt. Pleasant rather than at some other hospital or treatment facility.
Even without the details of her well-being, Beaton's last years contrast sharply with her youth and all its promise. Clearly Isabella Beaton was a very bright, very talented woman; a child prodigy, she went on to study with some of Europe's best-known teachers, so her star was certainly ascendant when she reached Cleveland in 1899. She then plunged into a career filled with teaching, composition and performance, a pace that she managed to increase a decade later when she founded her own music school and began a round of punishing recitals, each year performing some twenty concerts. Along the way she also completed a bachelor's and master's degree at Western Reserve; she vigorously volunteered in her community, assisting the war effort and the battle against alcohol. And she lovingly attended to the well-being of her family, including her Aunt Ruth whose long slide into the grave she monitored every night for two years. And then, as her own final act opened, Beaton returned to Iowa, no doubt intending to assist her sister and her husband. Instead, her own health deteriorated with the sad result of her death alone within the walls of the Mt. Pleasant State Hospital.
"Queen Among Musicians?" Perhaps not—at least not in the way that Beaton had dreamt and for which she had worked and practiced so long. Yet, as her family and friends—who had long taken pride in her musical accomplishments—could attest, Isabella Beaton, for all her commitment to composition, piano performance, and teaching, never let these occupations displace help to family members in need. Clearly Beaton had earned a coronation, if not among musicians, then surely among those who valued and practiced family loyalty and love.
