My Brilliant Career
Written to accompany a slide presentation.
I toyed with the idea of naming my presentation after the movie “My Brilliant Career”. It seems the woman in this movie played the same Schubert piano piece over and over during dust storms. I certainly knew about dust storms having grown up in Eastern Montana during the Depression. The brilliant might be a problem. You would be amazed at all you are not going to hear. But now we will go on with what did not get cut.
My first picture is on my Grandad Green’s farm near Lake Preston, South Dakota. The next on here I am at age 3 taken just before we moved to Montana. I made my fist solo appearance at 4 when I sang “Old Black Joe” for my Grandpa Stubkjaer a blacksmith. We had the Golden Song Book at our house and my mother the piano.
I think I was five when we moved to Froid, Mt a town of 200 people. When I started school we were living on the reservation 12 miles from Froid. This meant that I would have to leave home a week at a time and stay with someone in Froid. Luckily we had an extended family, the Christoffersens also from Lake Preston, South Dakota. Grandma Christoffersen would be my mother away from home for three years.
It’s interesting that dreams of the future begin at a very young age. First grade found me trying to compose. Upon request I would sing “this is Miss Winnifred Greene singing for you from, KOA Denver. I was aware of many appreciative smiles when I slid off the piano bench. (chord accomp).
My mother had given declamatory reading when she was in school. In the third grade under her tutelage I gave “Little Orphan Annie”. From then on I would leave my singing career every once and a while and do a reading. “My Last Duchess” Robert Browning, “Patterns” by Amy Lowell and last but not least “Camille” by Alexander Dumas. Camille proved to be interesting because the first aria I sang was from Verdi’s “La Traviata”. Verdi used “Camille” for his libretto.
When I was ready for High School, Pastor Henry Mathison and his lovely wife Rose entered our lives. They were from Sissiton, South Dakota. Because of that there was an immediate bond formed between the Mathisons and my parents. It also helped that they were warm and welcoming couple. We would bring them cream, butter, eggs and beautiful capon chickens. Once in awhile we would have Sunday dinner with them after church. They thought that I should go back to Lake Preston for my Freshman year because there I would get a better music education. My cousin Ginny lived with them. She was an extremely talented girl. Perfect pitch, played piano beautifully, played the oboe, often chosen to accompany large groups at contests plus she attracted boys like bees to honey. There I was, just off the farm, shy and my idea of conversations with boys was hello and soon after that goodbye. I returned again to South Dakota for my Senior year of High School. My repertoire grew in those two years but nothing could compare to my performance at the end of my Junior year in Froid. The woman in charge of music had a lovely contralto voice. She gave me the famous aria from Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saen “Oh come list to my fond wooing”. There I was with my small, high voice singing this seductive aria written for the likes of the famous contralto Glady Swathing. Needless to say, that aria gives your repertoire quite a kick. (Jr Prom)
Now, what should I do after my Senior year in Highs School? I know my parents thought I should go to college and once again the Mathisons entered my life. You should go to St Olaf they said. I had had relatives who attended St Olaf and all of them had been in the choir. They were children of my great uncle Rev Neils Stubkjaer therefore going to St Olaf was not a totally strange idea.
In 1941 my aunt made the arrangements for me to live with Ella Hjertaas and work for my room and board. Dr Agnes Larson lived with Ella and I was to cook for them and do some cleaning. Poor dears I learned to cook on the job with help from my aunt Mim, my Mom and the Better Homes and Garden cookbook. Agnes was my advisor. Here are the names of the teachers she chose for me. Dr. Nils Flaten, Dr. Marie Meyer, Dr. Karen Larson and Dr. Holmquist. Not too shabby. In our lives there are many people watching over us.
In the spring of my Freshman year Ella had a recital of Freshman students. I sang “The Swallows” by Villanelle. I think I remember hearing Lily Pons sing “The Swallows” on the Bell Telephone Hour, a well known Sunday Eve radio program.
It was time to go home for summer vacation. I had just gotten home when my dad announced we were all going to Williston, North Dakota for a large Farmers Union meeting. Farmers from all around the area would be there to hear the good news. They were to receive parity prices for the crops. In other words they could plant their crops and at least get enough to pay their expenses. It was a tentative step out of the depression. My father (my agent) summoned up his courage and went forth to meet the leader of this meeting. “Would you like a little music?”, was his question. He said fine and so those swallows flew again unaccompanied. There was a huge crowd, they were quiet when I sang that’s always a good sign.
My Dad was a bit like Alan. When he went off to town you were never too sure when he would return. This one day after being gone a few hours he returned with a question. How would you like to teach next year in the country school over by Froid? Going back to school would have to wait (because of the war). Off I went to summer school in Havre, Montana and nine weeks later I emerged a nine week wonder, certificate in hand.
My housing that year was with the Portras, a French-Native American family. Each morning their son Larry, also my eighth grade student would saddle up Brownie, my calm and collected horse and then his own pony a black high spirited mare. There were ten students.
After that year it was on to teaching 1st and 2nd grade in Bainville, Montana. After that it was time to go back to St Olaf College. That summer before going back proved to be an interesting summer. The traffic on our country road was practically nil so when someone called out “There’s a car driving in!” It was all hands on deck as we tried bring order to chaos. It had an effect similar to “the cows are out!”. On that day who should appear with his driver but Paul Christiansen, (Olaf Christiansen’s younger brother) was the conductor of Concordia College Choir. We hadn’t a clue why he was there but we rose to the occasion. As always, Mom made coffee and we had something good to eat. My sisters and I had a singing trio. We visited about our singing and sang our version of “Sentimental Journey”. After our singing he told me that if I came to Concordia he would put me in his choir. Soon after his visit we received this letter. It’s one of my treasures.
There was one problem. If I went to Concordia I would not have Ella for as my voice teacher. When you have a one on one relationship with a teacher you do develop a bond that is not easily broken. Back to St Olaf I went.
I tried out for the choir but did not make it. I didn’t even get a recall, Ella Ejertaas Boe was furious. But Oscar Overby put me in his Manitou Singers. I sang the solo in “Lullaby on Christmas Eve” in that years Christmas concert. Ella saw to it that I gave a Sophomore recital. During my two years in Bainville I had ordered music from Schirmer Music Co in New York. Two pieces I had worked on were Mozart’s “Alleluia” and the aria “Ah fors’è lui” from La Traviata by Verdi. You see, I have the beginnings of a recital.
Junior year I got into the choir and I sang my favorite of all the lullabies, “The Song of Mary”. Monday morning after the March concert at Northrup Auditorium I was informed by our Mohn Hall house mothers, Miss Jerdee and Miss Tracy that I would be having lunch with George Grimm, a well known columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. David Johnson, later Vice President of St Olaf College, would go with me, we would ride in his new bright blue teardrop Buick. We ate at one of the better restaurants of the time, it was under the bowling alley in Northfield, MN. Northfield has always had rather unique eating establishment. George Grimm proved to be a thoughtful and thoroughly pleasant interviewer. The next morning the interview appeared in his column on the front page of the Tribune. Not in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined I would be on the front page of the Minneapolis newspaper!
If you were in the St Olaf choir the highlight of the year was the choir tour. The 1947 tour was notable as it was the first one to take the choir once more to then East Coast. Choir hours during World War II had limited tours.
In May of 1947 I gave my Junior recital. George Grimm’s column had called attention to my singing . Ella prevailed upon John Birntson to set up the chairs in the gymnasium. My aunt made my dress, my Grandma Mette Stubkjaer came to hear me sing and I am sure Ella was just as relieved as I when the recital was over.
My Senior year F. Melius came to choir rehearsal with a new lullaby for the Christmas concert. It was called “The Christmas Symbol”. It has become a favorite lullaby for many Lutherans and the so called “handkerchief” song by the male singers. The 1948 tour was notable because we sang in Carnegie Hall. To look out at the full house assembled was a huge jump from the little churches in Froid and Bainville Montana. We stayed in hotels that I for one had only heard about on the radio. The Palmer House in Chicago was one such hotel.
1948 was an exciting year. My friend Roma Anfinson introduced me to a very classy looking fellow named Alan Alberg and made a lot of this, we met at a joint meeting of the Daughters of the Lutheran Reformation and the Lutheran Brotherhood. We’ve both been thankful for Roma Anfinson.
Also in the spring of 1948 St Olaf had been asked by WCCO radio to send a group of music students up to the station. We were to be on Cedric Adams “Stairway to Stardom” program. It was performed live with an audience and an applause meter. I received the highest number on the meter and was declared the winner. In July I received a call from WCCO asking me to come to Minneapolis and sing on the annual Aquatennial program. Arthur Godfrey was to be the Master of Ceremonies. This time a crooner won first on the applause meter. Evidently our scores had been very close and Godfrey spoke to me after the program and said I should come to New York and be on his amateur hour program. According to the newspaper they estimated that there had been 10,000 people there that night. Audiences were growing in leaps and bounds. Alan had given me a ride to the performance. He was seated in the last row of the top balcony in the Minneapolis auditorium and the last seat available.
After the summer …….it was on to Augustanan where I had a wonderful year teaching voice. I met so many interesting people. In the fall I gave a recital and Alan showed up with a ring. Pat Blegen said to my roommate Eileen Lorange, “I’ll bet he’s going to give her a ring tonite. Eileen said, “Oh, he wouldn’t do that after such a big evening”. Pat’s response, “If he doesn’t he’s not the man I think he is!”
(Wedding picture)
Off on another adventure.
September 3 arrived and the wedding bells rang ………. on my second career. Alan had to finish college and I joined the music department to teach voice at St Olaf.
After Alan graduated we were in St Paul, out to Montana back to Minneapolis and finally settled in Northfield. The second career had a husband, children, a farm, horses, cows, chickens and along with all of that a chance to sing many important works of music. I was so fortunate to work with Ken Jennings, Bob Scholz, Mighty Johnson, Carolyn Jennings and other musicians.