Women’s History Month seems the perfect opportunity to pay homage to three women from Ottumwa, IA who left their marks, not only on Ottumwa, IA, but on the music world.
Rose McGrew Ivory Greene Winston Margaret White Stoltz
In the 1850’s and 1860’s Ottumwa was a fast growing frontier town fed by 8 railroad lines converging at this last stop on the frontier west of the Mississippi River. At the time the Morrell Family of Liverpool, England was investing substantial financial investments in a meat packing venture here, the John Morrell Meat Packing Plant, which eventually came to be centrally located in Ottumwa, IA. Consequently, Ottumwa was a boom town at the time, flowing with Morrell-Foster money.
Madame Rose McGrew was born April 5, 1874 in Ottumwa, IA during a time of emerging affluence for the community. Whether that had any impact on Rose’s budding vocal talent at the time is not known. It is known she chose to take a position as a church soloist when the family moved to Colorado. It was there her vocal talent was recognized. By 1894 her family was sending her to study voice in Germany. She performed for European royalty, including the Duke of Mecklensburg, and the King of Prussia.
World War I found Rose McGrew returning to the United States to care for an ailing mother. She eventually went on to serve on the voice faculty of the University of Oregon for many years.
Ivory Winston, called “Iowa’s First Lady of Song,” was born in Tulsa, OK on August 11, 1911, but Rev. E.P. Greene and his wife Effie ministered at the Second Baptist Church where Ivory grew up. “Ivory’s mother was a concert pianist, and that’s what she wanted to be too,” Her son, Byron explained, “But people liked her voice and started encouraging her to do something with it. She took two part-time jobs, one cleaning house and one ironing, to pay for two lessons a week. That’s how she got started.”
In the early 1920’s ife wasn’t easy for a young black woman looking for a career in music performance. Ivory grew up with the music of the church thrumming through her veins, but her musical experience was steeped in the black spirituals she grew up on. She knew what she wanted.
Byron Winston, Ivory’s son, still lives in Ottumwa, IA. He graciously invited me over to talk to him, and his wife, Geraldine. They brought out their collection of photos, poster, brochures and news clippings that chronicled Ivory’s life.
Ivory Winston married a Morrell meat-packing employee, John Winston, who worked in hog-kill at the plant. They had two children, Berta Lou, and Byron. For some women, getting married and having a family might have been the end of their professional aspiration, but this was not the case for Ivory. John Winston believed in her gift and her talent, and eventually went on to manage her vocal music career.
Ivory gave her children music lessons as well. Byron said, “Berta Lou went on to play first chair violin at Univeristy of Iowa. I played cello but I kind of let it go by the wayside after I got out into the world.”
Ivory continued to study vocal music at Ottumwa Heights College, studies that included foreign languages like French, Spanish, German and Italian. She performed her senior vocal recital there in 1946. “Margaret Stoltz used to play for my mother,” Byron said. “Yes, we knew Margaret well.”
A vocal music career wasn’t easy for a black woman in the first half of the twentieth century when many doors were closed to them, but Ivory was inspired by another black woman, Marian Anderson, to persevere. Anderson had a public performance arranged for her at the Lincoln Memorial by an outraged Eleanor Roosevelt when she was turned away from Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Ivory went on to perform for President Harry Truman, and to sing at the 1950 Republican Convention. She received many awards and accolades over the years, including the Meredith Wilson’s Iowa Greater Talent Search at the Made in Iowa Exposition.
Margaret White Stoltz was born in Fairfield, IA around the turn of the twentieth century. She married Paul Rutherford Stoltz who ran a food brokerage business in Ottumwa, IA. They had two children, Paul Stoltz, a son, and Pattie Stoltz Poling, a daughter, born June 29, 1924 in the old Ottumwa hospital across from the Ottumwa High School.
Linda Hucks had this to say about her. “Mrs Stoltz, how well I remember her. She helped to direct The Morrell Male chorus along with Jack Moses. I traveled by bus many miles with her when the chorus would go out of town for engagements. If she knew I was coming she always would bring me candy and we would play Fish (cards). She was the one to first inspire me to piano lessons, and to this day I thank her for that.”
Molly Myers Naumann remembers Mrs. Stoltz quite another way. “I had to sing “America the Beautiful” for a spring vocal concert, and I’m not sure what I was more afraid of, singing in public, or Mrs. Stoltz! My strongest memory of her (other than fear), was her taking me upstairs to show me her harpsichord, and then she sat down and played. Obviously, I was impressed or I wouldn’t be remembering today.”
Constance Gilchrist Lightly really summed her up! “Mrs. Stoltz was quite the “Lady” back in the day….loved going to her home. I was in awe of where she lived and also her talent. She played piano while I played a flute solo for some group in Ottumwa.”
Of these three gifted and talented female vocalists from Ottumwa, IA, Margaret White Stoltz was the one I was personally acquainted with. I don’t know how much I learned from her about singing, because I was an adult and I could already read music and sing when I began taking lessons from her, but nonetheless, I learned plenty from the Grand Dame of Ottumwa music at the time.
I enrolled in college at Ottumwa Heights College in 1975. It was a two year college run by Catholic nuns, the same college that Ivory Green Winston attended. I had a young son, Matthew Clay, who was about two years old. I was taking piano lessons for credit so I also signed up for private voice lessons with Mrs. Stoltz, the grand dame of music in Ottumwa, Iowa.
She wouldn’t let me bring Matthew to my voice lessons although I did take him to the first one. He meekly sat in a straight-backed chair in the foyer until I was done. I could barely afford vocal lessons and a babysitter both but I didn’t argue with her. As Molly Naumann would probably also testify, Mrs. Stoltz was haughty and arrogant and those of us who were privileged to take lessons from her, we simply didn’t cross her. She had come from the stage in New York, to bring culture to Ottumwa, Iowa, and she probably did.
I remember her telling me one time she came from very hearty stock. She gave birth to her first born child, got up from the birthing bed, and gave vocal music lessons the next day. She never mentioned what her newborn son thought about that and I didn’t ask her. She always had a housekeeper. There was plenty to dust in that house. She also impressed upon me with the fact she had summer drapes and winter drapes. A china hutch was full of gorgeous Bavarian china and Limoges crystal. Depending on the seasons, she always had plenty to keep her housekeeper busy.
Mrs. Stoltz was also a clothes horse. She may have saved every gorgeous gown she ever owned in a trunk in moth balls in the attic. I know, numerous times, she loaned Ottumwa Community Players some offerings from those bodacious trunks when OCP was looking for vintage clothes for a performance they were putting on.
She always kept a glass of water on the piano on a coaster. Every time I ever went for a vocal lesson she would offer me a drink out of it and I would say, ‘no thank you.’ Now, thinking back, I know she thought a sip of water would loosen me up a little vocally and keep my throat moist, but at the time, I would look at it and wonder who else had had a drink from it before I came, which was probably dumb but I was just being cautious.
Finally, one day, in exasperation, she said, “I went in and got that glass of water fresh for you before you walked in the door.” I blushed a thousand shades of red, and told her, “Thank you, but I don’t want any water.” By then I was too embarrassed to drink it.
The Stoltz family had a gorgeous garden behind the house at 137 East Court St. The gardens were son, Paul’s, domain, but Mrs. Stoltz showed them to me one summer afternoon when they were preparing for a garden party. I only saw the gardens once, but I still dream about them sometimes. I can only speculate that a Stoltz garden party was the ‘cucumber sandwiches’ type of soiree. Some of my American Pen Women gatherings, the brunches, luncheons, morning and afternoon teas might have compared to a Stoltz garden party so I’ve been to a few in my time.
The garden was laid out with flagstone paths winding through it, and the garden filled the back yard. There were strategic spots large enough to sit patio tables and chairs on. A few well-placed garden statues created a sort of organization to the garden, providing staging areas for viewing the beautiful flowers. There were lots of beautiful rose bushes, many perennials, cone flowers, bachelor buttons, and daisies.
One thing I did take away from spending so much time in that house. I love antiques, and I love beautiful old dishes. As my son, Lucas, would say, “It’s all about presentation, Mom!” and I love to serve food on beautiful dishes.
Joy Bolibaugh shared with me, “Yea, I got to polish some of that old China she passed onto Patti and she had excellent taste in china and antiques!!! Beautiful pieces thru out the house where Patti lived! Could almost feel the presence of Margaret in that old furniture and silver! I bet her dinner parties at Christmas were out of this world!”
“Patti’s kids always said the older generation loved to entertain and “dress” for dinner and special occasions! Margaret must have been the Grand Dame of her day!” Joy Bolibaugh concluded.
I can attest that she was.
In June of 2010 in a Letter to the Editor, Max Hulen said about Margaret, “We have class… Many of the best in the world played at the Opera House (at the corner of Jefferson St. and East Main).” The Ottumwa Opera House was a cultural happening in Ottumwa from approximately 1915 until 1940. Margaret Stoltz had some major influence in attracting the best in the world to Ottumwa, and yet, many people don’t even know there was an Opera House here. Isaac Stern, a virtuoso violinist, played seven encores of “The Flight of the Bumblebee” the night of his performance.
The twentieth century could easily have been designated the century women stepped out of the home and onto the world stage. It was a happening around the world. Three women from Ottumwa, IA, Rose McGrew, Ivory Winston, and Margaret Stoltz had a role in that moment in world history.