Woman of the Century/Annie Fillmore Sheardown

SHEARDOWN, Mrs. Annie Fillmore, singer and musical educator, born in Franklin, Conn., 8th June, 1859. She is descended from five New England Colonist families, the English Fillmores, Hydes, Pembers and Palmers, and the French Fargos. As those families settled early in America, she can call herself purely American. Her mother's family were all musical, and from her earliest childhood her desire was to sing. She began her studies when she was between eight and nine years of age. first with a pupil of Bassini. She afterward took lessons from the late C. K. Hayden, of Boston, and others. ANNIE FILLMORE SHEARDOWN. Her intention at first was to become an oratorio singer, but after she became a student under the late Emma Seiler, in Philadelphia, she decided to study the voice, with the intention of becoming a teacher. After three years with Mrs. Seiler, she took a position as soprano in Christ Church in Norwich, Conn. After filling her engagement, she became the wife of Dr. T. W. Sheardown, son of the late Hon S. B. Sheardown, of Winona. Minn After marriage she continued to sing and teach for the love of it. Five years later, owing to marital troubles she separated from Dr. Sheardown and took up teaching as a profession In 1882 she studied six months with George Sweet, of New York, taking lessons, listening to his lectures and studying his method of imparting. She studied with other teachers, and in 1891 she made a most valuable discovery relative to the voice, finding the voice to be an exact science, a principle to be demonstrated, with laws as unalterable as those of mathematics. She is the first person to note this great fact. She has always felt there was something wrong in all methods, and now, looking at the voice as a principle, she is able to demonstrate where the error lies. A lengthy article from her pen, entitled *' The Philosophy of the Voice in Singing," setting forth a few of her discoveries, appeared in "Werner's Voice Magazine" for April, 1892. She has lived in nine States of the Union, and now permanently located in Atlanta. Ga.