Effie Hinckley Ober Kline

Effie Hinckley Ober Kline (1843 – February 15, 1927) was an American opera manager and booking agent. She founded the Boston Ideal Opera Company (later known as "The Bostonians") in 1879.

Effie Hinckley Ober Kline
Face of an older white woman, from a 1927 newspaper.
Effie Hinckley Ober Kline, from a 1927 newspaper.
Born
Effie Hinckley Ober

1843
Sedgwick, Maine
DiedFebruary 15, 1927
Boston, Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican
Other namesE. H. Ober
Known forfounder of the Boston Ideal Opera Company

Early life

Effie Hinckley Ober was born in Sedgwick, Maine,[1] and brought up in Blue Hill, the daughter of Samuel Ober and Mary Peters Hinckley Ober. Through her mother she was descended from Joseph Wood, co-founder of Blue Hill, and was herself a co-founder of Blue Hill's summer colony.

Career

Ober was a secretary at a lecture bureau in Boston as a young woman.[2] In time, she owned a theatrical agency, the Roberts Lyceum Bureau.[3] She founded the Boston Ideal Opera Company (later known as "The Bostonians") in 1879, with Adelaide Phillipps and Myron W. Whitney among the cast members.[4] Her company presented American operettas, popular operas such as The Bohemian Girl and The Marriage of Figaro, and the Gilbert and Sullivan favorite H.M.S. Pinafore.[5][6]

Ober traveled with the company as its manager until she resigned in 1885.[7] "For five years I have given my undivided attention to the affairs of the company, and I can assure you that the work is of the most wearing character," she explained. "I will retire from the field entirely satisfied with the result."[8] Journalist Nellie Bly called Effie Ober "A Plucky Woman" in an 1885 profile.[9] The company continued after her tenure.[10] In 1887 she assisted her old company in resolving an internal dispute: "Miss Ober is here to give us her advice as to our course next season."[11][12]

Kline later served on the Board of Managers of Cleveland's Lakeside Hospital, and chaired the board's library committee.[13]

Personal life

Effie H. Ober married Cleveland-based lawyer Virgil P. Kline, the father of suffragist Minerva Kline Brooks,[14] in 1888. Her husband was personal attorney of John D. Rockefeller, and worked for Standard Oil Company for many years, before he died in 1917.[15] She died in 1927, in Boston; her grave is with her husband's, in Cleveland.[2]

Effie Ober Kline's scrapbooks are preserved at Parker House, a historical site in Blue Hill, Maine.[16] Another of her homes in Maine is now known as Barncastle, and houses a restaurant and inn.[17][18]

References
  1. Leonard, John W. (1914). Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. American commonwealth Company. pp. 462. Virgil P. Kline New York mother.
  2. "Funeral of Mrs Virgil Kline". The Boston Globe. February 17, 1927. p. 13. Retrieved August 25, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. Walsh, Derek. "Tom Karl". Dictionary of Irish Biography - Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2019-08-26.
  4. Barnabee, Henry Clay (August 19, 1906). "The Bostonians". Evening Star. p. 23. Retrieved August 25, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Preston, Katherine K. (2003). "Between the Cracks: The Performance of English-Language Opera in Late Nineteenth-Century America". American Music. 21 (3): 352–353. doi:10.2307/3250548. ISSN 0734-4392. JSTOR 3250548.
  6. Fisher, James (2015-04-16). Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Beginnings. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 74. ISBN 9780810878334.
  7. Preston, Katherine K. (2017). Opera for the People: English-language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-century America. Oxford University Press. pp. 239–310. ISBN 9780199371655.
  8. Smith, Dexter; Deland, Lorin Fuller; Hale, Philip; Tapper, Thomas (November 1884). "The Ideals' Final Season". The Musical Record: 2.
  9. "Nellie Bly Articles". Tom Streissguth. Retrieved 2019-08-26.
  10. "Money Makers". Star Tribune. May 15, 1893. p. 6. Retrieved August 26, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. "Some Discordant Notes". Pittsburgh Daily Post. April 19, 1887. p. 2. Retrieved August 26, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Inharmonious Ideals". The Times. March 6, 1887. p. 3. Retrieved August 26, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. Lakeside Hospital of Cleveland; Cleveland Lakeside hospital (1902). Annual report. Gerstein - University of Toronto. Cleveland. pp. 4.
  14. "BROOKS, MINERVA KLINE". Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University. 2018-05-11. Retrieved 2019-08-26.
  15. "Virgil P. Kline". The New York Times. January 19, 1917. p. 7 – via ProQuest.
  16. Patti Bender, "One Week in Blue Hill, Maine" The Emilie Loring Collection (September 16, 2018).
  17. "The Pinafore Sails Down East" The Down East Dilettante (November 30, 2010).
  18. "History". Barncastle Hotel + Restaurant - Blue Hill, Maine. Retrieved 2019-08-26.
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