Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/807

 779 WORLD OF WOMEN Madame Clara Butt MADAME CLARA BUTT KTo marriage aroused greater interest in musical ^^ circles than that of Miss Clara Butt and Mr. Kcnnerley Rumford in 1900. Both had earned big reputations on the concert platform, and it i-; said that Mr. T^umfonl actually proposed to his wife when they were singing the weli- known duet, " The Keys of My Heart." It "was at the Albert Hall in 1892 that Madame Butt made her first actual appear- ance on the concert platform, although it was on the stage at the Lyceum Theatre that she made her debut, and attracted great attention by ^^" '"'" singing in Gluck's " Orfeo," as a Royal* College of Music student. The Albert Hall engagement was the outcome of her success on that occasion, the other soloists being Madame Albani, Mr. Edward Lloyd, and Sir Charles Santley. Madame Clara Butt was born at Southwick, Sussex, on February ist, 1873. Her three sisters, Ethel, Pauline, and Hazel, are also clever singers, while her brother, Mr. Fred Butt, has achieved distinction as an actor. The famous singer has three children — Joy Clara, born in 1901 ; Roy, born in 1904; and Victor, born in 1906. Both Madame Butt and her husband are greatly devoted to their children, and when they went for their Australian tour in 1907 were accompanied by the youngsters. They reside at Hampstead, and, when engage- ments permit, there is nothing the famous con- tralto likes more than to retire to the country and indulge in her favourite recreations — riding and ishing. MRS. RUSSELL SAGE jV/lRS. Russell Sage is one of the richest ^^'' women in the world. Her husband left her ^14,000,000 when he died in July, 1906, and she intends to devote her entire fortune to the benefit of humanity. She was born at Syracuse in 1828, in somewhat humble circumstances, and when she married Mr. Sage nearly thirty years later, the millionairess and her husband were quite poor. . " We were not poverty- stricken," says she, " but just able to keep the wolf from the door." In the first three years of her widowhood she^ is said to have disposed' of ;^ 5, 000, 000, and al- though she employs an army of secretaries to (leal with the hundreds of begging letters re- ceived every day, she lives in simple style at Fifth Avenue, New York, with three ser- vants, all nearly as old as their mistress. Her greatest pleasures are derived from her love of flowers and her pet birds, and her chief aversion is tobacco. Some time ago she resigned from the Society of Mayflower Descendants, because the men smoked at the annual banquet, in spite of her protests. Mrs. Russzll Sage Photo Fleet Agency Madame Tetrazzini // '. h- D. Doivney MADAME TETRAZZINI A LTHOUGH she hurst with rare succchs on ^^ London in 19^)7, and was hailed a.s "the new Patti," this famous prima-donna had already made a big name foi herself in other part.s of the world. In South America she had received formances, and pay- ment on an almost equally liberal scale in Italy. Her first salary, however, was /20 a month, which sne re- ceived at the Pagliano Theatre (now known as Verdi's Theatre), in Florence, Madame Tetrazzini's birthplace. Curioiisly enough, neither her father, who had a large army furnishing store in Florence, nor her mother were musical. But as a tiny girl her whole soul was wrapped up in music ; and so it came about that she was sent to study singing, and made her d6but at the theatre mentioned in 1896. Since then she has sung before the Tsar, the King and Queen ol Spain, and Queen Margharita of Italy, and one of her most treasured possessions is a beautiful diamond bracelet, the gift of Nicholas II. Un- conventional to a degree, Madame Tetrazzini confesses that she likes nothing better than to visit a music-hall, and thoroughly enjoys herself amongst the pots and pans of the kitchen, for cooking to her is a delightful occupation. MRS. DESPARD SISTER of that famous soldier. General French, Mrs. Despard, who has been to prison as the result of her vigorous manner of protesting against the unenfranchised state of the women of this country, frankly confesses that she was always of an independent character, and always a bit of a rebel. When she was ten she ran away from the beautiful home of her parents at Ripple, Kent, with the idea of be- coming a servant in London and helping the children of the slums, and although she was fetched back, she was always looking forward to the time when she might realise her dreams ot helping the masses. Migrating from Ripple to York, she visited the slums of that city, and when she came to London in 1870 — the year she married Mi. Despard — she lost no time in making herself ac- quainted with the conditions and needs of the less fortunate. And it was the con- trast of her own lot and surroundings — she then lived in a lovely house at Esher and took great pride in her garden — with that of the poor of London, which led her, after her husband's death, to live in a mean street in Nine Elms, where, amongst other things, she ran a club for poor boys. Ultimately she became a member of the Socialist antl Labour Parties and a Suffragist, and has proved herself a genuine, whole-hearted worker in the cause of those who cannot help themselves. A
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