Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/565

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PATTERSON.
PATTI.

delight, and through it was developed that taste for higher literature which characterized her as a child. Language and rhetoric she acquired unconsciously from constant companionship with her father in his VIRGINIA SHARPE PATTERSON. office duties. After his death she was put in school, and for three years attended the Delaware Female Seminary, where she was recognized as a clever essayist. Her first published articles appeared when living in Bellefontaine, Ohio, about six years after her marriage, in the old Cincinnati "Gazette," and were widely copied. At the same time she wrote a series of satires entitled "The Girl of the Period" for the Bellefontaine "Examiner." A eulogistic notice from the late Dr. J. G. Holland decided Mrs. Patterson to publish them in book form. It appeared under the pen-name "Garry Gaines," in 1878. Under that pen-name she has contributed to various journals for many years. At that time she was invited to take the editorial chair of a Chicago weekly, but ill health compelled her to decline. For months she was an inmate of a Cincinnati hospital, stricken with a malady from which she has never fully recovered. Notwithstanding almost constant invalidism since 1881, against obstacles that would have crushed one who loved letters less, she has done much mental work. In 18S9 she was made vice-president of the Ohio Woman's Press Club. A year later she founded the Woman's Club of Bellefontaine, Ohio, Inaugurated the magazine exchange, and later organized the Monday Club of Kokomo, Ind., where she now resides. In 1888 she originated and copyrighted an entertainment called "Merchant's Carnival, or Business-Men's Jubilee" which has been popular, and has been given with great success in all parts of the United States and Canada.


PATTI, Mme. Adelina, prima donna, born in Madrid, Spain, 19th February, 1843. Her maiden name was Adelina Juana Maria Clorinda Patti. Her father was Salvatore Patti, a Sicilian operatic tenor, who came to the United States in 1848, and died in Paris, France, in 1859. Her mother, known by her stage-name, Signora Barilli, was a native of Rome, Italy, and a well-known singer. She sang the title role in "Norma" on the night before the birth of Adelina. The mother was twice married, and her first husband was Sig. Barilli. The Patti family removed to the United States in 1844 and settled in New York City. ADELINA PATTI. Adelina's great musical talent and her remarkably fine voice were early discovered by her family, and in infancy she was put under training. She learned the rudiments of music from her step-brother, Sig. Barilli, and her brother-in-law, Maurice Strakosch. She could sing before she could talk well, and at four years of age she sang many operatic airs correctly. When seven years old, she sang "Casta Diva" and "Una Voce" in a concert in New York City. In 1852 she made her debut as a concert-singer, in a tour in Canada with Ole Bull and Strakosch. In 1854 she sang again in New York City, and she then went with Gottschalk, the pianist, to the West Indies. She thus earned the money to complete her musical education, and she studied for five years. She made her debut in Italian opera in New York City, 24th November, 1859, in "Lucia." Her success was instantaneous and unparalleled. She sang in other standard rôles and at once went to the front as a star. She sang first in London, Eng., in "La Sonnambula," 14th May, 1861, and she carried the city by storm. She made her first appearance in Paris 16th November, 1862, and during the next two years she sang in Holland, Belgium, Austria and Prussia, winning everywhere a most unprecedented series of triumphs. After 1864 she sang in the Italiens in Paris, and went to London, Baden, Brussels and St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, in 1870, the Czar bestowed upon her the Order of Merit and