Acknowledgements

The earliest years of the organization that eventually became Civic Morning Musicals proved to be the easiest to document. The ladies of The Morning Musicals presented their recitals for each other without printed programs, but every few years, through 1908, they published complete printed compilations of those programs, as well as resumes of all their other activities. Those program booklets, along with an early scrapbook and a wealth of other information found at the Onondaga Historical Association was invaluable, as was the knowledgeable and sympathetic assistance of the Historical Association's Edward Lyon and Judy Haven.

Information about later activities was less easy to verify. A mass of printed, typed, or handwritten documents found in the CMM office at the Civic Center was useful, but often both incomplete and contradictory. To date, no complete collection of printed concert programs or of the minutes of the organization's meetings has been found.

Interviews, proffered mementos, conversations, and proof-reading discussions with veteran members were of greater help. Mary Jones and Madelon Beyle were especially generous with both their time and their patience. Lorraine Smorol, Patti Thompson Buechner, Pat Jones, H. Winthrop Martin, Nevart Apikian, Bea Solomon, and Helen Boatwright provided many important details about particular periods of CMM history. So did my wife Miggie, who, I discovered, knew more about CMM than she had previously let on, and certainly much more than I did when I began this project.

Donald Seibert, associate librarian for the music collection at Syracuse University's Bird Library, uncovered the often distant location of still-extant copies of some of the music presented on Morning Musicals' first recital, given on November 12,1890.

E.G.

Syracuse,NewYork,1990

Jane Antoinette White Swift Sherman was born in 1843. Her father, Hamilton White, was a widely known and highly respected Syracuse investor and philanthropist, with financial interests that ranged from salt to railroads. One of her brothers was Hamilton S. White, who died an heroic death while serving as what the press of the time called "a citizen-fire chief'; his action at the Jefferson Street fire in which he perished is commemorated at Fireman's Park, near the old White residence in Fayette Park.

While growing up at that still-standing landmark, Jane Antoinette White became a proficient pianist. In 1864 she married Dr. John L. Swift, a Syracuse physician with broad intellectual and artistic interests. Their wedding, held at the American Embassy in Paris, was followed by a long period of travel throughout Europe, visiting art galleries and concert halls. After the young couple returned to Syracuse, they made frequent trips to both Europe and the mountains of the far west because of Dr .Swift's health; he had consumption. It was on one of these trips that he died, at the age of 30, in Menton, where the French Maritime Alps meet the Riviera.

Two years later Mrs. Swift married Thomas Parish Sherman, a New York City attorney. His mishandling of the Swift estate, and of his wife's considerable inheritance from her father and brother, led eventually to estrangement and Mrs. Sherman's return, in 1884, to her Fayette Park home. It also led to Sherman 's indictment for "misuse of collaterals." Sherman had indeed spent much of his wife's inheritance, and had even gone so far as to sell, without her permission, Mrs. Sherman 's Steinway piano ( to buy it back, she had to pay $50 more than he had received for it; in his defense argument, the ever-inventive Sherman had the gall to use that re-purchase price as evidence of his wife's fiscal irresponsibility).

Sherman was convicted, and, in 1885, entered the penitentiary, where, it was reported, he enjoyed catered food, and a cell furnished with an oriental rug, an easy chair, and a lamp, all purportedly paid for by "New York friends." He never forgave Antoinette Sherman for supplying evidence against him, and even attempted a suit against her attorney for alienation of affection. Because of its very speciousness, the unfounded and vindictive action was thrown out of court without ever going to trial. The unpleasant and much publicized turn of events took place at the very time when Mrs. Sherman was establishing the groundwork for Morning Musicals.

Antoinette Sherman had divorced her husband in 1886. Ten years later, her health failing, she gave up most of her activities, including Morning Musicals, and moved to 103 Robinson Street, where, in 1902, at the age of 57, she died.

Obituaries praised the "brilliant receptions" held amidst the statuary and paintings of the Fayette Park mansion during the period of her marriage to Dr. Swift, and noted her work as a member of Morning Musicals, the Browning Club, and St. Paul's Church, from which she was buried at Oakwood, a cemetery founded by her father.

A daughter from her marriage to Dr. Swift died early. Her son from the same marriage, Hamilton White Swift, described as "a brilliant newspaperman and music critic," committed suicide at a family lodge at Lost Lake, in the Adirondacks, near Ogdensburg, in 1904.

...to be continued as we get more scanned...

Civic Morning Musicals
Suite 60, 411 Montgomery Street
Syracuse, NY 13202