Woman of the Century/Sibylla Bailey Crane
CRANE, Mrs. Sibylla Bailey, composer. born in Boston, Mass.. 30th July, 1851. She has always lived in that city with her parents. On the maternal side she is a descendant of Rev. Dr. Joseph Bellamy, the eminent theologian, and on the paternal side her ancestry runs back to the Mayflower Pilgrims. She became the wife of Rev. Oliver Crane, D.D., LL. D., in September, 1891. Mrs. Crane is deeply interested in the work of the philanthropists of Boston. She is an active member of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and an officer of the Beneficent Society whose members aid talented and needy students to pass the course of study in the New England Conservatory of Music. She is a worker in the church and is a member of the committee of the General Theological Library. She has always been a student of music, language and literature. Among her works as a composer are music for some of the poems of Bryant, Whittier and Longfellow. Her musical compositions have been sung by her in the prisons and hospitals which she has visited in her philanthropic work. She has traveled extensively in America and in Europe, and her impressions of Europe are recorded in her hook. "Glimpses of the Old World." One of her most valuable papers is her history of music, which she prepared to read before the Home Club of Boston. That lecture covers the whole field of music, in its historical phases, from the early Egyptians down to the present. Mrs. Crane uses her noble voice and fine musical training with good effect in illustrating the music of the various nations, while delivering this lecture. She has given this and other lectures before many of the principal educational institutions of Massachusetts.