Kimsey, Lora Orth (piano)

This page presents a biography of the pianist Lora Orth Kimsey, least well known of the four artists who recorded for the Chicago Gramophone Society.

It is part of the site Classical 'Society' Records by Nick Morgan.

Kimsey's career was very different from those of the Society's other artists: after a brief, early foray into the classical concert and recital market, and private teaching, she devoted two decades to accompanying her first husband, an evangelical song-leader, at services, banquets and broadcasts, and on the Lyceum and Chautauqua circuits.

Almost nothing is known of Kimsey's career and life after the late 1930s.

For dates of creation and latest update, please see 'Page information' in left sidebar.

Life

Born Lora Jean Orth, 26 June 1893, Plattsmouth, Nebraska, USA

Married November 1917, to Howard Wade Kimsey, location unknown

Divorced October 1939, California

Married 31 July 1958, to George Stanley Hill, San Bernardino, California

Widowed 18 March 1985

Died Date unknown

Studies

Lora Jean Orth was one of two musical daughters of Edward M. Orth (1862-1931), a travelling salesman of jewellery and novelties, and Sally Frances, née Rarick (1872-1940). Her younger sister was the violinist Buda Beverly Orth (later Dorsey, then Carew) (1895-1980).

Lora Orth grew up in Spencer, Iowa, where the 1910 US Federal Census noted her occupation, at age 16, as 'Organist', 'In Church'; whether this implies she had left school is not clear.

She attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where she studied with Dutch-born Marie van Aaken (1881-1971), professor of piano at the Drake University Conservatory, and herself a pupil of Teresa Carreño.

Lora Orth's studies at Drake ended in early 1913; she had apparently graduated, though no official announcement has been located. In February, the University's campus newspaper reported,

'Miss Lora Orth who has been student in piano under Miss Marie van Aaken left Wednesday for her home at Spencer, Ia. Friday she goes to Chicago to resume her music in the Cosmopolitan School of Music.'

At present, nothing is known about Lora Orth's studies at the Cosmopolitan School of Music and Dramatic Art, which had opened on 10 September 1906 in Chicago's Auditorium Building. By 'resume her music', did the writer mean that Orth had previously started a course at the Cosmopolitan School, had interrupted it to study with Marie van Aaken at Drake, and was now returning? Or that by starting a new course in Chicago she would be complementing her studies at Drake? From March to May 1913, Orth was in South Dakota (see below); for the following two years, she appears in no press sources consulted for this page. The Cosmopolitan School published 'catalogs' or directories for the academic years 1913-14 and 1914-15; but these list no students, only the School's instructors. The Cosmopolitan School closed in the 1960s; the whereabouts of its archives, if any survive, are unknown. For the moment, the question of Orth's enrolment there cannot be answered.

Little more is known about Lora Orth's last documented academic course of study. The Annual Catalog 1917-18 of Nebraska Wesleyan University, in the state capital Lincoln, lists Lora Jean Orth among students enrolled in NWU's Conservatory of Music. Perhaps, feeling her studies had been adversely affected by her early professional activities and War work (see below), she needed a refresher - or a qualification, if she had not already obtained one. The Conservatory's Director, and Head of its Piano Department, was Carl Beutel (1881-1959), but whether she studied with him is not known.

In 1921, Lora Orth, now married and recently settled in New York City, was reported to be receiving musical instruction, possibly private lessons; no further details have been uncovered.

Career

If Lora Orth played the organ in church in her childhood home of Spencer, Iowa, it was perhaps for services, but no press reports have been located which confirm this or mention her in this capacity at this period.

Des Moines

By 1911, Lora Orth was playing the piano in public in Des Moines. At student recitals, she programmed well-known concert pieces (see below) which it seems she would have little opportunity to play later, in her thirties. She also performed as a freelance, for instance at a hospital, for a mothers' club, the Des Moines Literary Club, and at the city's YWCA. At a musicale held in December 1911 by the Abigail Adams chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Des Moines Women's Orchestra performed under Emily Ritchey; Lora Orth accompanied a singer and a violinist, and presumably joined the Orchestra for 'The Swan' from Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals. More than once, she accompanied school and amateur vocal ensembles directed by Frances Wright, the supervisor of music for Des Moines' public schools.

Rapid City

If Lora Orth did enrol in Chicago's Cosmopolitan School, it was after a brief sojourn in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she is first heard of performing at a meeting of a local women's club. She was reportedly visiting friends, but her visit seems to have been prolonged indefinitely: from March 1913 her activities were repeatedly reported in local papers. In notices of her second known appearance in Rapid City, at a benefit concert for the Methodist youth Epworth League, she was billed as 'Miss Lora Orth, of Drake University, Des Moines', playing works by Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Smetana, among other composers. She made a deep impression on a local reviewer, confounding preconceptions of pianists' abilities:

'she is a marvel. She plays with unusual power for a lady, and in addition has the delicacy of touch required to make the softest of tones. One distinguishes the rollicking waves and the gentlest breath of air, all coming at will from the tips of her fingers.'

Within a few days, she was playing for two Rapid City women's clubs, at whose meetings papers were read and music enjoyed. On Tuesday 18 March 1913,

'the Music department of the Fortnightly Club met with Mrs. Robert Burton. Papers were given by Mrs. W.M. Cox and Miss Ruth Brennan and vocal solos by Mrs. Stannard. Mrs. Vincent had [i.e. reported on?] the current events. Miss Lora Orth, of Drake University, Des Moines, Ia., was present and gave piano solos. She is a forceful player, and delighted her hearers with her beautiful music.'

On Friday 21 March,

'at the home of Mrs. W.M. Dodge was held a splendid meeting of the Current Events Club. China was the subject, and the papers read showed much thought, study and general knowledge upon the present situation over in that new republic. [...] "The Present Situation" was given in a very comprehensive paper by Miss Coffin. She was decidedly optimistic in her deductions. Miss Orth gave two beautiful selections on the piano.'

By the following week, the new arrival had been persuaded to stay:

'Miss Lora Orth has consented to remain in Rapid City and give piano lessons. She will have her studio over Pennington county bank.'

'Elsewhere is a notice stating that Miss Lora Orth will give piano lessons. Miss Orth is an artist, and Rapid City is fortunate in securing her.'

In April 1913, Orth played at a charity bazaar and Woman's Christian Temperance Union mothers' meeting; in May, she again played for the women's clubs; and in June, she entertained volunteer workers at a charitable sewing bee for a local hospital, and performed solos at a six-day 'teacher's institute' (a successor to the short-lived 'teachers' Lyceums' of the early nineteenth century). Unfortunately, press notices list no works performed at these events, except for a memorial meeting of local Rebekahs and Odd Fellows, at which Orth played a prelude by Rachmaninoff. Other appearances were covered in more detail, notably her only documented organ recital in Rapid City, given at the Presbyterian Church on 16 May 1913; the programme consisted of pieces by Ernest W. Barnard(?), Edouard Batiste, Charles Gounod, Heinrich Hoffmann(?) and Théodore Salomé, alongside songs and poems. The previous month, Nellie Chase, who read the poems at the organ recital, had staged Humperdinck's opera Hänsel und Gretel in neighbouring Deadwood, with Lora Orth and a Rapid City violinist accompanying the action on stage, as well as performing selections from the opera as a prelude and interludes.

After just two monhs, Lora Orth's plans must have changed again: mentions of her in the Rapid City papers suddenly cease, without explanation, and for almost two years she appears in no sources consulted for this page, resurfacing in April 1915 as the pianist of a touring concert party founded by the singer who would become her husband.

Circuit Chautauquas

Howard Wade Kimsey (1887-1975) was the son of a doctor and Methodist circuit rider; at 18, his bass voice won him a scholarship to Drake University. Two years later, Kimsey was already singing professionally on the Lyceum and Chautauqua circuits; but around 1911, in his mid-twenties, he briefly resumed singing studies at Drake, where he was a member of the Glee Club, Handel Choir and Howard Hall male vocal quartet, and sang as a soloist in the University Church. He and Lora Orth met at Drake; in February 1912, she performed at a university music club meeting, at which Howard Kimsey took part in a 'humorous discussion', speaking against the motion 'That Music Hath Charms to Soothe the Savage Beast [sic]'.

In late 1912, Kimsey left Drake to become a travelling evangelist, possibly under the influence of his brother Rolla Warren Kimsey (1888-1982). In 1914, he again changed direction, forming his own Howard Wade Kimsey Concert Party, and by the end of the year was touring the (roughly) mid-western concert, Lyceum and Chautauqua circuits. At some point, Kimsey engaged Lora Orth as the Party's pianist. The earliest known mention of her in this capacity is a quotation from an Illinois newspaper which was used to promote the party from March 1915 onwards:

'Miss Lora Orth is a pianiste of rare ability. Her rendition of the difficult "Hungarian Rhapsody", by Franz Liszt, demonstrated her talent and captivated her audience so that they demanded an encore. Her accompaniments for the other musical numbers were much appreciated.'

The date of her appearance in Brighton, Illinois, is not known; her first securely dated performance with the Party was on 22 April 1915, in Lancaster, Kentucky.

The Howard Wade Kimsey Concert Party varied in size from three to five; besides Kimsey and Lora Orth, other regulars were Leonora Shinn (1894-1942), reader, singer, and whistler, and Celoa Allen (1893-1977), reader, reciter, contralto, violinist, pianist and whistler. (In one report, Lora Orth was billed as the Party's whistler, probably in error.) Many press notices of the Party's appearances did not name its members; Lora Orth figures in relatively few of them, but this does not mean that she did not perform at most or all of the Party's engagements. Indeed, she is attested at least once in press reports from all the states in which the Party is known to have performed, namely Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee. From Louisiana, Leonora Shinn sent her parents an elated account of the party's reception in Clarks and Columbia, small rural communities, in 1917:

'Well, the minute we got over to the hotel Mr. Slagle and his wife came over to meet us, and after the concert, they gave us a reception at their magnificent southern home and there were just lovely people there. Honestly they nearly worked Lora Jean (the pianist) and I [sic] to death. We just sang and whistled and played everything we knew. There were some musical people there too, and we certainly had a lovely time. We were to go to Columbia, Tuesday morning on an early train but Mr. Slagle's brother [...] drove us over in the afternoon instead. Honestly we did have a lovely time. In the morning we went through the big lumber mill and saw the entire process of manufacturing from the rough, water-soaked logs to the refined lumber, all yellow pine. I shall never forget it. Then one of the young fellows came over to Columbia to hear us again Tuesday night. [...] We were entertained the other night in a beautiful southern home. The father and mother were so dear, and they had six grown up children, and they had their own electric light plant and a large open court in the center of the house and a big porch all around the house. This is a very interesting country and I surely am enoying [sic] this trip in the southland. Lora, Howard and I just feel fine down here. I guess its [sic] the southern cooking, we sure do get good things to eat. Our future booking dates up to April 28th takes us from the Gulf of Mexico along the coast and north through the States of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky and home about May 1st. With love to you all, Leonora Shinn.'

As with members, instrumental items too were rarely billed in notices of the party's appearances; when they were, Lora Orth was invariably reported to have played music by Liszt, probably the Hungarian Rhapsody which had a favourable reception in Illinois in 1915. As that report noted, Lora Orth also played accompaniments for the Party's vocalist(s). Again, press notices seldom mentioned this role; one which did also happened to document the Party's last known performance, in Clarksville, Tennessee, in April 1917, just over a week after the USA entered the War. By early June, Howard Wade Kimsey had signed up, but he was rejected for active service because of his eyesight. Undeterred, he found a non-combatant role in the Army, which would have a lasting influence not only on his career but also on Lora Orth's: they were married in November 1917.

Mrs. Kimsey did not immediately follow her husband to his first posting. By January 1918 she, her sister Buda, Leonora Shinn and at least one other unnamed artist had formed a concert party, the Orth-Shinn Company. Two appearances on a Lyceum circuit in southern Illinois are documented in early 1918; another, 'An Evening of Readings, Music and Song', was postponed, possibly indefinitely, as in March Lora Orth Kimsey travelled south west to place her musical skills at the service of the war effort.

US Army

In July 1917, Howard Wade Kimsey joined the US Army as its fifth Song Leader and was assigned to the 87th Division at Camp Pike, near Little Rock, Arkansas. He was also put in charge of recreational music for the 3rd Arkansas National Guard, and of community singing in Little Rock. By March 1918, Lora Orth Kimsey had joined her husband in Little Rock, where she participated in concerts given jointly by civilian and military performers before similarly mixed audiences. In May 1918, The Billboard reported:

'The War Camp Community Service of Little Rock recently presented Howard Wade Kimsey, community song leader, a fine Ford runabout as a mild token of its appreciation for his services during the past nine months at Camp Pike and the Arkansas capital. Mrs. Kimsey, who recently became definitely attached to the Kimsey household, and well known in chautauqua circles, is the accompanist for her talented husband in his work at the camp.'

In June 1918, Howard Kimsey transferred to San Antonio, Texas, as travelling song leader to Army units stationed along the border with Mexico. If Lora Kimsey joined him on his sometimes testing assignments, they would call on her early experience as an organist:

'Much of this work was done under primitive conditions, as some of the assignments were overland 50 to 100 miles from the railroad. On these trips a folding organ was carried (via packhorse many times), as there were no pianos in many border posts.'

A year later, Howard Kimsey moved again, to Seattle, Washington, where he worked with coastal artillery and infantry units. When the War ended, he remained in the Army. By January 1920 he was Music Director to the 4th Army Division, and stationed at Camp Dodge, near Des Moines, Iowa, where

'he organized a school of music, having an enrollment [sic] of 100, with instruction in piano, voice, violin, theory and band and orchestra.'

According to a local press report, Lora Kimsey also acted as music instructor at the Camp, as did her sister Buda, teaching the violin. In July 1920, Howard Kimsey was promoted further, to the rank of Army Music Director, and after some additional training was sent to the Panama Canal, his wife again joining him. Only in July 1921, when provision for army music directors ended, did Howard Kimsey return to civilian life. As an extended profile in The Billboard related,

'the average army song leader lasted about seven or eight months. Mr. Kimsey's 46 months, which will become 48 months July 31st next, is a noteworthy exception to this statement. Mrs. Kimsey, pianist-pipe organist, has acted as accompanist for practically the entire period, and has a certificate recognizing her services from the Secretary of War.'

Nowhere in the sources consulted for this page is there any mention of Lora Kimsey's official status during more than three years spent working alongside her husband. Was she employed by the US Army, or was she an auxiliary or even a volunteer? Was she paid? The couple was presumably housed by the Army; did she have expenses reimbursed, for instance on clothes or music? How unusual was her award of a certificate from the Secretary of War? These questions must await a search of military records.

New York City

In July 1921, the Kimseys moved to New York City and embarked on a new career; both took further instruction, possibly private. Over the following years, Howard Kimsey became a noted soloist and song leader, with a variety of regular engagements and positions, including:

• music director for the City of New York Army and Navy Y.M.C.A.
• song leader for the New York Federation of Churches
• song leader for the New York Kiwanis Club
• song leader for the Brooklyn Rotary Club
• bass soloist and leader of hymn singing at Manhattan's Calvary Baptist Church
• music director at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Manhattan
• director of recreational singing for employees of Western Electric
• leader of Christmas carol singing at the Tree of Light in Madison Square Park
• song leader for services held twice daily in summer months on the DeWitt Clinton, a leisure steamer of the Hudson River Day Line

In 1924, Kimsey reportedly wrote songs for supporters of William G. McAdoo, who was campaigning for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. That June, at the closely fought Democratic Convention in New York's Madison Square Garden, he acted as cheer leader for the candidate's forces (McAdoo was unsuccessful).

Kimsey was also available for hire as a song leader for dinners and banquets. As a 1924 newspaper profile of Kimsey explained, community singing had become a fixture at public and private dinners after Prohibition:

'Mr. Kimsey plays the same part at banquets where singing is used to entertain as Will Rogers does to the banquet where monologue is needed. They are step-children of Prohibition. They do the stunt of driving the skeleton from the feast which John Barleycorn, that restless deceased, used to perform. Also, like Prohibition, he is a left-over from the war.'

(Early in the century, Kimsey had toured with the Prohibitionist politician Colonel Sobieski, and with the 'dry' male-voice Menely Robley Quartet. Many years later, he still described himself as 'a Prohibition Fanatic'.)

Lora Kimsey surely partnered her husband in some of these activities, although press accounts rarely mention her. He was profiled more than once in newspapers and magazines; if she was named at all, it was usually as his accompanist, in listings and reports of religious services, broadcasts, banquets and other events, such as Brooklyn Rotary Club meetings. Equally rare are mentions of any music they performed; typical, probably, were the solos Howard Kimsey sang at a dinner of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor at a Brooklyn church: Sullivan's 'The Lost Chord' and an uncredited 'On the Shore', after a mass rendition of 'America'. He had led the communal singing at the parent Society's annual banquet the year before; as well as accompanying, Lora Orth Kimsey had 'render[ed] special numbers during the evening', but there is no indication as to what these were.

Broadcasting

If Lora Orth Kimsey was rarely mentioned without her husband after their move to New York, the first documented instance is of special interest. In March 1922, she was apparently the first of the couple to broadcast, when she accompanied soprano Marie Kimball in a transmission from WYCB / WVP, the US Army Signal Corps station located at Fort Wood on Bedloe's Island, site of the Statue of Liberty; the programme's contents were not billed.

The following month, Howard Kimsey's profile was further raised when he led a 'vast congregation' in New York's annual open-air Easter Day dawn service, in Manhattan's Central Park, and

'For the first time in history an Easter service was broadcasted by radio telephone.'

Broadcasting would now loom large in the Kimseys' lives. For some twenty years, the prominent British-born minister Samuel Parkes Cadman had been conducting Sunday meetings and preaching at the Bedford branch of the Y.M.C.A. in Brooklyn. These meetings had long included music, performed by a variety of artists, including the famed all-female Gloria Trumpeters (successor to the Edna White Trumpet Quartet). From late 1922, Howard Kimsey was song leader for these meetings, initially with another pianist; Lora Kimsey was first named in this role some months later (not all notices billed the pianist). From 7 January 1923, the meetings were broadcast over the American Telephone and Telegraph Company's WEAF station, although it seems some transmissions did not include the 'mass singing' which Howard Kimsey led before the meeting proper. In March 1923, WEAF also broadcast Lenten 'noonday theater meetings' held by the New York Federation of Churches in three well-known Broadway venues; six of these came from the Palace Theater, with Dr. Cadman as preacher and what would become almost his core musical corps: the Gloria Trumpeters, Howard Kimsey as bass soloist with Lora Kimsey at the piano, and the renowned operatic contralto Louise Homer. (The series was repeated the following year, with little change.) On Easter Day 1923, Howard Kimsey again led an early morning open-air 'song and praise service', this time from the grounds of Columbia University, apparently not broadcast. Cadman's musical team was soon famous enough to carry an event without him: at a 'monster entertainment' in South Amboy, New Jersey, to raise funds for the local Y.M.C.A., Lora Kimsey performed one of Liszt's Liebesträume and probably accompanied the Gloria Trumpeters. A contemporary report on Cadman's broadcast meetings, while journalistic and fictionalised, is clearly based on eye-witness testimony and gives a vivid impression of proceedings; typically, it mentions all the musicians except Lora Orth Kimsey. Nevertheless, by the start of Cadman's autumn campaign in 1927, her association with the Trumpeters in particular was deemed worthy of being publicized with a photograph captioned, 'Famous Quintette at Bedford', while in the accompanying article she received higher billing than her husband:

'Lora Orth Kimsey, equally well known to the musical public and radio fans for her artistic ability as a pianist of the front rank, has been re-engaged for the coming season. She will act as accompanist to the Gloria Trumpeters, in addition to rendering special piano numbers from time to time. G.E. Betts and H.W. Kimsey will also take part in the program.'

The Kimseys' work for the Y.M.C.A. left tangible traces. In 1927, they were reportedly captured on a de Forest Phonofilm of a Cadman meeting; it is not known if this survives. Around the same time, the Y.M.C.A.'s Association Press published a leaflet of 'Community Songs' compiled and edited by Howard Kimsey, apparently distributed gratis to participants at 'sing-ins' led by Kimsey. With the texts of 55 songs, all assigned a specific key and grouped into the categories 'Patriotic Songs', 'Hymns', 'Folk Songs', 'Popular Songs' (the largest group), and 'Play Songs', it gives a good idea of what might have been heard at one of these 'sing-ins'. The couple's association with Cadman continued until 1928. It brought Lora Kimsey before radio audiences numbering tens of thousands - at least, according to a newspaper which may have had an interest in boosting these events; some years later, another claimed 'millions of listeners over the radio.' As before, press listings and reports usually summarized her contributions, if at all, with variants of the term 'accompanist'. Besides her husband, she later 'accompanied' George E. Betts, a player of the tubular chimes, whose solos were given considerable prominence in notices promoting Cadman's broadcasts. Only very rarely did Lora Kimsey receive special billing in her own right: for one Cadman meeting in January 1924, she was billed as playing 'on an Especially Installed Duo-Art Steinway Concert Grand Piano', although why an expert performer was required to operate a reproducing piano was not explained. A January 1927 preview reveals a rarely attested side of her musicianship, and the character of some of her 'special numbers': at a special Cadman meeting to mark the annual 'Membership Campaign Week', she and Betts were billed to perform

'The most outstanding musical item on the program [...] This unique number will be in the form of a medley of American Folk Songs, and will include, "The Old Folks at Home": "Maryland", and "Juanita". Mr. Betts will play the melodies, while Mrs. Kimsey will contribute, in her own inimitable way, original improvisations on these old-time favorites.'

Another Cadman meeting later that year included 'Roll Call: Special Arrangement on Piano for Armistice Day', devised and played by Lora Orth Kimsey. One Christmas, at the Bedford branch, she was sandwiched between a film showing and a retelling of the Nativity for children; what she played for them was not reported.

In the meantime, Howard Kimsey had formed and led the Brooklyn Federation Radio Quartet, a vocal ensemble with his wife as pianist, to serve the broadcasting needs of the Brooklyn Federation of Churches. In October 1924, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper broadcast a 'Mystery Voice' from its studio at the A.H. Grebe station WAHG in Queens, offering a $15 prize to the listener who correctly guessed its owner; he was Howard Kimsey. A promised follow-up broadcast by Kimsey does not seem to have materialised; but on 28 November 1924, the Quartet took part in the first broadcast of a noonday religious musical programme from WAHG's Daily Eagle studio, organized by the Federation; a preview in the Daily Eagle was illustrated with a photograph of Lora Orth Kimsey. On New Year's Eve 1924, the Quartet was part of an extensive line-up of artists engaged to usher in the New Year on WAHG with a long, mixed programme of ensembles and solos, secular and sacred, including three piano solos to be played by Mrs. Kimsey. The Kimseys' involvement in the Quartet appears to have been very short-lived; by late March 1925, they were no longer part of its line-up.

During these years, Lora Orth Kimsey occasionally broadcast from other stations, such as the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's WBZ station in Springfield, Massachusetts. Newspaper listings gave few details, as ever, but it seems she did not broadcast as a soloist, only as accompanist to her husband and other singers.

Organist

As noted above, Lora Orth's earliest documented occupation was as a church organist; she was then aged 16, and whether she was still at school or already a professional musician is unclear. Nor is it known where, when or with whom she learned to play the organ. Her studies seemingly focused solely on the piano; could she have been trained on the organ outside academia, perhaps in church?

By 1913 Orth was able to give a well-received organ recital in Rapid City, and she was commended for her work during World War I as both an organist and pianist. But her later career as an organist is sparsely documented. Thanks only to a letter from Howard Kimsey published in the press is it known that, by mid-1922, his wife was organist and choir director at two establishments in New York, the Sinai Temple (synagogue) in the Bronx, and St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church in Brooklyn; no further information about these posts have been found, or how long she held them (nor is she known to have had a connection with any other Jewish religious establishment). In September 1923, passing through Lathrop, Missouri, her husband's former home, she gave a recital in support of a church building fund, performing both piano and organ solos and with local artists. In 1926, she took part in another organ fund benefit in Hackensack, New Jersey, alongside her husband, though this time she reportedly played 'The Lost Chord'. Most of her work for evangelical services in New York seems to have been at the piano, but occasionally she played her other instrument: in Holy Week 1927, during Dr. Cadman's services in the ornate E.F. Albee Theater on Brooklyn's DeKalb Avenue, she accompanied the Gloria Trumpeters, presumably on the Theater's Wurlitzer organ. By mid-1928, she was billed in the press as 'Sunday evening organist of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church of New York, the largest Presbyterian in America'. This notice was one of several publicizing a concert she was to give in her parents' home town, Monrovia, California, alongside her sister Buda, playing works by Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Schubert and Dvořák on the organ (none originally composed for the instrument). Some weeks later, Lora Orth Kimsey again played the organ in public while visiting her parents-in-law in Lathrop. It was perhaps understandable, if galling, when a New Jersey newspaper described her husband in 1929 as the 'noted organist', ahead of his arrival to prepare local choirs for a revivalist campaign. The following year, Mrs. Kimsey was still organist at New York's Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church, and soon she had another outlet for this avocation: she began to play the organ at meetings held by the evangelist Tom Noonan (see below). Not long after, she was reported to be planning to give up her work as organist in New York and travel to California to visit her recently widowed mother. Whether this was a reconnaissance trip, and how soon she put her plan into action, are not known, but she would ultimately quit New York for California, where she gave her last known performances as an organist. Whereas Lora Orth Kimsey's piano repertoire encompassed works old and new, serious and light, substantial and slight, her known organ repertoire was small and narrow in range and style, perhaps reflecting both the instrument's status and the opportunities available to a female organist.

Last Chautauquas

The Kimseys' work was highly seasonal and episodic; the Cadman meetings, for instance, were not held all year but in short series. Possibly to ensure a continuing income, during two summers the Kimseys returned to the Chautauqua circuit, now in the employ of the Redpath Chautauqua Bureau. In 1925, as far as is known from accessible press sources, they performed in New York State (at East Rochester, Howard Kimsey sang with a different pianist), Vermont and New Hampshire. In 1926, according to Howard Kimsey, they would perform in some 90 locales in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

1926 was seemingly the Kimseys' last Chautauqua season: circuit Chautauqua was by now in serious decline, although the East Coast Redpath circuit they worked in 1925 remained active until 1932. After these summer tours, they returned to New York and existing associations. These could in turn lead to new openings: in early 1927, apparently thanks to his work alongside Cadman at the Bedford 'Y' and other venues, Howard Kimsey began leading the singing at meetings held by the 'child evangelist' Uldine Utley, both in New York and possibly elsewhere. It seems Lora Orth Kimsey accompanied him at some of these; as usual, she was not always mentioned in notices. Probably because of Howard Kimsey's travels with Utley, in March 1927 Mrs. Kimsey was billed alongside a different song leader at a series of Lenten services in the Albee Theater; occasionally, too, she seems to have played at Cadman's meetings at the Bedford Y.M.C.A. without her husband. Another slightly later notice states that 'Mrs. Kimsey is also accompanist for [...] many well known concert singers. Clearly, she had an independent professional profile, despite being very much under her husband's shadow; paradoxically, this may have led to the preservation of her playing on disc, whereas the voice of her husband, then much better known, appears to have been recorded only on sound films.

Chicago Gramophone Society

In December 1927, at two sessions held a week apart in the studios of Columbia's 'Personal Record' Department in New York City, Lora Orth Kimsey performed songs by Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss alongside the mezzo-soprano Mina Hager. Kimsey's only known record is one of two discs which make up the second and final issue of the Chicago Gramophone Society (on the other, John Alden Carpenter accompanied Hager in a set of his own songs). This repertoire was different from Kimsey's usual fare: no notices have been found of other performances by her of these composers' songs. How did this engagement come about?

The Chicago Gramophone Society was short-lived and little reported: its activities are known mainly from notices in a Boston-based magazine, The Phonograph Monthly Review, which acted as its mouthpiece. To summarize the detailed account presented elsewhere on this site, the Society had started life, probably in late 1925, as a private circle for aficionados of recorded music, one of several North American groups formed around this time which were modelled on Britain's gramophone societies. The Society was formally and publicly constituted in late 1926, when it elected as its President a Chicago stockbroker and record-collector, Vories Fisher. At that stage, originating new recordings was not among its stated aims. Fisher himself did have ambitions in this direction, which he hoped to realise through a contest for readers of The Phonograph Monthly Review. But he seems to have abandoned this fairly quickly, and in early 1927 he proposed that the Society issue a recording which he was underwriting with a fellow-member, Robert Pollak. The proposal was accepted, and in May or June the Chicago Gramophone Society distributed its first issue, consisting of César Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue for solo piano, recorded complete on two 12-inch (30 cm) discs by Marion Roberts, an up-and-coming local pianist and composer. In October 1927, Fisher tentatively promised a second issue in time for Christmas, but could not reveal its contents. November brought news of 'an over-crowded schedule at the recording studios [which] has necessitated the postponement for a few weeks of the making of these records', again with no hint of the programme or artists. The recordings were made the following month, and the issue was announced in full in January 1928: consisting as before of two 12-inch (30 cm) discs, it was pressed in a limited edition of 200 sets, priced at $5 each, and distributed later that month or in early February.

Lora Orth Kimsey is not credited on the disc labels, was not mentioned in the Society's announcement, the sole known review, or any other published source relating to the Society; she is named as pianist only on Columbia's matrix cards. No evidence has been uncovered to link her with Hager; they both performed in circuit Chautauquas in 1915, but for different bureaux, and more than a decade before their sessions for the Society. Instead, the simplest and most likely reason for Lora Kimsey's engagement is her work, from the early 1920s, as a freelance accompanist in New York. She had clearly built up a reputation as a reliable, versatile pianist, accustomed to the microphone. She would surely have been known to agents, managers, fixers and bookers, and thus to the staff of the Columbia Personal Record department, which supplied pianists for clients lacking an accompanist or partner. Such an arrangement would appear to run contrary to Hager's high estimation of the pianist's role: three years later, she stated that, 'Without the accompanist, the singer would be nothing'. Perhaps none of her regular recital partners was available, especially if the Chicago Gramophone Society sessions were arranged somewhat hastily; in that case, Kimsey could have been supplied as a stop-gap. Until the output of Columbia's Personal Record department is fully documented, or other relevant information comes to light, this question will remain unanswered. If Kimsey was indeed supplied by Columbia, she would presumably have been paid by the company and would have had no dealings with the Society itself; there is no evidence that she auditioned test pressings or received a copy of the finished, pressed disc, and nothing to indicate her opinion of it.

Rotary Club to Rescue Society

In March 1928, just after the Chicago Gramophone Society had distributed her recording to subscribers, Lora Kimsey again played during noonday Lenten services from the E.F. Albee Theater, not with her husband but another song leader. At the end of the month, the Kimseys were invited to join the staff of a Young People's Leadership Institute run by the Baptist Young People's Union at the Baptist Temple in Brooklyn; no details of their respective roles are known. In May 1928, Dr. S. Parkes Cadman bid farewell to the Bedford Avenue branch of the YMCA in Brooklyn. It is unclear if he was to have returned for the customary series of meetings in the autumn of 1928; for whatever reason, this did not take place. For a time thereafter, the Kimseys are somewhat less visible in accessible press sources. A possible reason is that Howard Kimsey became involved in the 1928 US presidential election campaign, touring Southern states with the Baptist preacher Dr. John R. Straton, pastor of Manhattan's Calvary Baptist Church, at which Kimsey sang. Straton campaigned in support of the ultimately victorious Republican candidate Herbert Hoover against the Democratic Governor Al Smith of New York, because of the latter's 'wet' (anti-Prohibition) stance. Two decades later, Kimsey told a newspaper reporter that

'during the Smith election he was instructed to sit about six feet behind Dr. Straton on the rostrum while the latter was preaching. "Underneath my chair there were three large hymn books but I never led a song out of any of them! They were bound with strips of innertubes and I had instructions that if any fanatic in the congregation started toward Dr. Straton, I was to throw the books at him. A hymn book in a situation of this kind is as good as a brick," Dr. Kimsey mused.'

It seems unlikely Lora Kimsey joined her husband on the campaign trail. She spent July and August 1928 at her parents' home in California, and in September, on her way back to New York, she performed an organ solo at a Sunday service in her husband's home town. In December, she took part in concerts and services of Christmas music at an Episcopal church in Brooklyn: these included excerpts from Handel's Messiah and works by Schubert, Holst and others. A press preview mentioned that she had 'played at the Cadman services for many years', suggesting how useful and important this association had been for her. Ironically, her husband's name and face were used a few months later in an advertisement for Brambach pianos, which described Kimsey as the 'Nationally known song leader, renowned through his Sunday radio broadcasts with Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman', even though he presumably did not often play the instrument. At some point in 1929, as well as resuming his previous seasonal employment on board the Hudson River Day Line's summer services, Kimsey became song leader to the Brooklyn Rotary Club, entertaining members at weekly meetings and special events, with his wife at the piano, and occasionally engaging guest artists such as the Swiss-born 'singing comedienne' Thérèse Quadri (1886-1976). It was thanks to this connection that, in November 1929, the Kimseys toured for two weeks with a figure of national stature, Sergeant Alvin C. York, hero of the World War, visiting Rotary Clubs and other institutions in cities and towns in the east and mid-west. On 8 November, for instance, they were in Plainfield, New Jersey, as a local newspaper reported:

'Sgt. Alvin C. York, "the greatest civilian soldier of the World War," [...] will arrive in Plainfield on the 7:04 p.m. train from New York, accompanied by Howard Wade Kimsey, a nationally known radio song leader, and Mrs. Kimsey, a pianist of distinction. Mr. Kimsey will start the program at 8 with a short community "sing" illustrated with stereopticon slides. Greetings will be spoken by Mayor Alexander Milne and Chairman D.J. Spratt. Mr. and Mrs. Kimsey will give a musical specialty. [...] Mr. Kimsey will give sidelights concerning matters about which Sgt. York is too modest to talk.'

What the slides contained (this was not the sole instance of slides being shown during community singing), or what special music the Kimseys performed, is unfortunately not known.

Meanwhile, the couple had begun another association, which would once again bring them before a large radio audience. Thomas J. Noonan (1878-1935) was superintendent of the Rescue Society, whose Chinatown Mission was housed in the former Chinese Theater in lower Manhattan's Doyers Street. This formerly notorious dogleg lane opens off the Bowery, to whose down-and-outs the Mission ministered. Never ordained, Noonan was popularly known as the 'Bishop of Chinatown'. Like Cadman, from as early as October 1926 Noonan harnessed radio to win support for the Rescue Society. His broadcasts from the Mission over New York's WMCA, WAAM and WOKO stations became enormously popular and attracted a 'deluge of letters', telling '[h]undreds of touching stories.' Like Cadman, too, Noonan used music, and by 1929 assembled a group of artists who would be referred to as his 'famed radio family', 'gang' and 'troupe'. Its stalwarts were the instrumental Hackel-Bergé Trio, the Harmony Trumpeters,, George Hirose, a Japanese-American baritone (and, later, actor), and the Kimseys. Howard Wade Kimsey had sung at the Mission as early as 1913; now, he was engaged as bass soloist and congregational song leader. Lora Kimsey, at the piano, accompanied her husband in both his roles, as well as other soloists including Noonan himself, and perhaps played solo numbers. Also from 1929, Noonan visited towns and cities where his broadcasts ensured him a large following, to raise funds for the Mission. He often took the Kimseys with him - and, sometimes, only Mrs. Kimsey, as in March 1930 in Wilmington, Delaware, whose WDEL station regularly broadcast the Rescue Society's services. In a report of one of these visits, to New Brunswick, New Jersey, she was billed as 'his organist'; possibly some venues had a pipe-organ rather than a piano.

Of the many reports of Noonan's services, broadcasts and tours, a few bring Lora Orth Kimsey out of the shadows, and suggest how much Noonan valued her and her work. At Poughkeepsie, in April 1931, the Eagle-News reported,

'men and women of all walks in life laughed and cried with "Chinatown's bishop," sang his songs, listened to his story and sent him away with $265.16. [...] The ever-present good humor of the evangelist had a magical effect on his audience. Even Lora Orth Kimsey, his accompanist, who must listen to him every night, could not stifle a laugh at every joke. And she was no less amused than anyone else at Tom's wind-up before going into a song.'

In March 1933, at a large gathering in Philadelphia, Noonan apparently introduced Mrs. Kimsey to his audience as a 'poetess of the piano' (unless, even more noteworthily, this epithet was bestowed by the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter). The same month, she and her husband appeared in a Brooklyn church as members of what was billed as the 'Doyers St. Mission Band', suggesting how well known the ensemble had become: 'Come Early For A Good Seat', urged the notice, for a service of 'Converts' Testimonies, Songs, Solos and Congregational Singing'. Most touchingly, after Noonan died in July 1935, the vivid account in the New York Times of his funeral at the Doyers Street Mission noted the

'musical selections by the Harmony Trumpeters, the Three Guardsmen, the Hackel-Bergé Trio, George Hirose, and as Mr. Bennett [Noonan's executor] reminded, "I can almost hear Tom standin' here now sayin' 'Jack, don't forget to tell the crowd we have the charmin' Laura [sic] Orth Kimsey at the Steinway.'"'

By this time, mentions of Lora Kimsey in the press had dwindled to a trickle. Besides following Noonan on his forays round New England, she apparently worked with her husband only sporadically. In early 1933, she was reportedly planning to give up her post as organist in New York and travel to California to visit her recently widowed mother; it is not known if she did. Was she unwell (see below), or growing weary of performing at evangelical meets alongside a die-hard Prohibitionist, whose role in Noonan's entourage was, as one journalist put it, that of 'combination song-leader and stooge'? For the remainder of 1933 and thereafter, Howard Wade Kimsey apparently worked with his wife mainly in New York, if at all; only one excursion with Noonan is reported, to New Jersey in April 1934. She did not join him for evangelical revivals and associated appearances in Bluefield, West Virginia, or Anniston, Alabama, or at a summer camp for under-privileged boys at Calverton on Long Island, where he directed the 'vegetable farm', 'camp-fire sings' and story-telling. In September 1933, a Missouri newspaper claimed Kimsey 'has a conservatory of music in New York City'; it is entirely possible that he or his wife took pupils but the report seems exaggerated, and is unsubstantiated. From the spring of 1934, Kimsey rejoined the evangelist Uldine Utley on her revivalist campaigns in Iowa and Illinois; an advertisement in the Chicago Daily Tribune proclaimed Utley 'The American Joan of Arc' and Kimsey 'New York's Foremost Chorus Leader for Everybody'. Kimsey's association with Utley continued until March 1935. The last occasion at which he and his wife are documented as performing together on the East Coast was a 'sacred concert' to be given on 18 November 1935 at the Times Square Mission in Manhattan; this was apparently preceded by a broadcast the day before. Whether demand for Howard Wade Kimsey's services as soloist and song-leader in New York was on the wane, and what implications this might have had for the couple's relationship, cannot be ascertained from currently accessible sources. Curiously, almost ironically, at this moment Kimsey embarked on a new career as writer for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, starting a series of columns on couples who reached their golden wedding anniversaries; this ran from November 1935 until February 1936. In May 1936, Kimsey was stated to have been in Washington, reporting from Congress for the paper. Later that year, he left New York for Kansas City in his native Missouri, where he found new employment in his old capacities as congregational song-leader and broadcaster; he also took charge of a children's church choir.

California

Lora Orth Kimsey did not join her husband in Missouri. Instead, at an unknown date she moved to California (see below), where her sister Buda was living with their mother. In 1936 and 1937, they played together at Sunday School worship services. Possibly in an attempt to revive their relationship, by early 1937 her husband had also moved to the state, and in October he and his wife gave a 'Song and Story Evening' at a church in Plymouth, California, for which a local paper billed them as 'artists, nationally known by platform and radio appearance, [who] have contributed to the happiness of millions by their specialization in the type of religious music that reaches the heart of the masses of American people.' Meanwhile, Howard Wade Kimsey had developed a new sideline as song-leader at public picnics for denizens of other states living in California; it was at one such event that a new musical group was first attested in January 1938, the Orth-Kimsey Concertists. Howard Wade Kimsey is known to have sung with the group only once, at a church in Hollywood; this was the final occasion on which he and his wife are known to have performed together. In Plymouth, two weeks later, the Concertists' vocal soloist was another former member of Tom Noonan's 'radio family', the baritone George Hirose. The group was short-lived: its last reported appearance was at another picnic for out-of-staters in April, also the last known musical performance by Lora Orth Kimsey. In July 1938, her husband revealed that his wife was 'in a sanitarium [sic] in California to remain a month or two'; the nature of her condition and treatment remain unknown. The following March, she filed a suit for divorce; it was granted in October 1939. They are not known to have had children.

Howard Kimsey left California some time in 1938, and returned to Kansas City. As well as broadcasting and editing the newsletter of the local Elks chapter, he was director of music at a city cemetery. In 1940, he was registered as a 'Salesman Dealer' of 'Parlor Games', living in a hotel in Jackson, Missouri. In late 1941, he was back in New York, serving as Field Secretary of the Rescue Society. Within months, he became superintendent of its famous Chinatown Mission, following in the footsteps of Thomas Noonan. In 1944, he was ordained, and was apparently still in post twenty years later. He died in Kansas City in 1975.

Later life

In 1923, a Petition for Citizenship of the USA was made by George Stanley Hill, born on 30 May 1893 in Halifax, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, married and a recent immigrant from Canada. Living in Los Angeles, California, Hill was employed as a 'Displayman'.

In 1940, the U.S. Federal Census registered Lora Hill, formerly of New York City but now living in Los Angeles, and with no occupation, as the wife of George Hill, an English-born 'artist' employed by a 'picture corporation'. The couple was not, in fact, married: only in July 1958 did Lora Jean Orth, of Monrovia (the home of her parents for many years) marry George Stanley Hill, in San Bernardino. Mr. Hill died in 1985. The Hills are not known to have had children.

No other reliable reports or sources document Lora Hill's later life. No evidence of any musical activity after 1938 has been found. An indication that she married again at a very advanced age has not been verified.

The date of her death is not currently known.

Repertoire

Composers and works (not including accompaniments to songs, hymns, bell chime solos etc.) Lora Orth Kimsey is known to have played:

Piano

Beethoven 'Andante in F' (almost certainly Andante favori WoO 57)

Beethoven Piano Sonata in c# minor Op.27 No.2

• I. Adagio sostenuto

Chopin Etudes

• 'No.9' (Op.10 No.9 in f minor or Op.25 No.9 in Gb major)

Chopin Nocturne (unidentified)

Chopin Polonaise (unidentified)

Debussy(?) Estampes(?)

• II. La soirée dans Grenade ('Evening in Granada') (? - billed, without composer, as 'A Night in Grenada')

Drumheller, Louis A. (1854-1936) Listen to the Mocking Bird, with Variations Op.48

Dvořák Humoresques Op.101

• excerpt (not specified)

Humperdinck Hänsel und Gretel

• arranged anon. for violin and piano, for performance of opera, apparently complete but possibly abridged; unspecified 'selections' also played as prelude and entr'actes

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 in c# minor

Liszt Liebestraum (unspecified)

Liszt Unknown work(s)

Moszkowski Waltz in E major (probably 3 Pieces Op.34 I. Waltz in E major)

Rachmaninoff Prelude(s) (unidentified)

Riley, (?) Old Oaken Bucket, variations

Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No.4 in c minor Op.44

• I. Allegro moderato - Andante (almost certainly performed without orchestra)

Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals

• XIII. The Swan

Schumann, Robert Fantasiestücke Op.12

• II. Aufschwung

Schumann, Robert Papillons Op.2

• excerpt(s)(?) (not specified)

Schütt, Eduard Concert Paraphrases on Motifs from Johann Strauss's Waltzes

• VII. Künstlerleben (Artists' Life)

Scott, Cyril Lento (possibly Two Pierrot Pieces Op.35 I. Pierrot triste. Lento)

Smetana On the Sea Shore, Reminiscence (concert etude)

Tchaikovsky Nocturne (unidentified)

Trad. Turkey in the Straw

• Concert transcription for piano by David W. Guion

Organ

Note: Lora Orth Kimsey performed several well-known pieces in versions for organ whose arrangers are not credited; it is also possible that she made her own arrangements. No attempt is made below to identify these versions.

Barnard, Ernest W.(?) March (unidentified; possibly Nuptial March Op.8?)

Batiste, Edouard(?) Postlude in D minor (unidentified)

Bizet, Georges Intermezzo (unidentified), arranged anon.; either

• Carmen Suite No.1, II. Intermezzo (Entr'acte before Act III)
• Incidental music for Alphonse Daudet's play L'Arlésienne, Act II, sc.ii, XVII. Intermezzo (Minuetto) or
• L'Arlésienne, Suite No.2, II. Intermezzo (derived from above)

Braga, Gaetano La serenata, Wallachian legend for voice, cello (or violin ad libitum) and piano, arranged anon.

Dethier, Gaston-Marie Andante (unidentified; possibly Andante Cantabile (Modern) or Andante Grazioso (Ancient)?)

Dvořák, Antonín Symphony No.9 in e minor Op.95 'From the New World'

• II. Largo, arranged anon.

Gounod, Charles Romanza (unidentified; possibly

• Faust, Act IV, sc.i, No.12, romanza 'Si le bonheur à sourire t'invite', arranged anon.; or
• La Melodia, romanza for organ with pedal obligato)

Harding, Alfred Harry(?) (1855-1930) Pastorale (unidentified; possibly (Christmas) Pastorale, offertory)

Hofmann, Heinrich(?) (1842-1902) Scherzo (unidentified; possibly 6 Charakterstücke Op.70, III. Scherzo in F)

Mendelssohn, Felix Incidental music for Jean Racine's play Athalie Op.74

• Kriegsmarsch der Priester (War March of the Priests), arranged anon.

Saint-Saëns, Camille Le Carnaval des Animaux (The Carnival of the Animals)

• XIII. Le Cygne (The Swan), arranged anon.

Salome, Théodore Offertory (unidentified; possibly Op.8?)

Schubert, Franz Symphony No.8 in b minor D.759

• I. Allegro moderato (unspecified excerpt), arranged anon.

Sullivan, Arthur The Lost Chord, arranged anon.

Recordings

Lora Orth Kimsey is known to have made only one published record:

Selection	Artists	Format	Matrix	Recorded	Location	Label cat. no.	Country
Wolf Auch kleine Dinge (E'en Little Things) Nimmersatte Liebe (Insatiable Love)	Mina Hager (mezzo-soprano), Lora Orth Kimsey (piano)	12" / 30 cm lateral disc	Ⓦ91735-4	12 December 1927	Columbia studio, New York City(?)	Chicago Gramophone Society 50020-P	USA
Strauss Blindenklage Op.56 No.2 (Lament of the Blind)	Mina Hager (mezzo-soprano), Lora Orth Kimsey (piano)	12" / 30 cm lateral disc	Ⓦ91736-4	12 December 1927	Columbia studio, New York City(?)	Chicago Gramophone Society 50020-P	USA

Lora Orth Kimsey is credited only on the original Columbia matrix cards, not on the labels of the above disc, in the Society's announcement, or in the sole known review. For more details of this issue, which also included a disc of songs by John Alden Carpenter, likewise sung by Mina Hager but with the composer at the piano, see the discographical page.

Kimsey may have made other records on which she is similarly not credited. It is also possible - if unlikely - that one of her many broadcast performances was recorded off air and has been preserved.

Images

Three images of Lora Orth Kimsey have been located to date. One was published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle in December 1924, to publicize broadcasts by the Brooklyn Radio Federation Quartet, of which she was the pianist. The second was published in a programme brochure for the Redpath Chautauqua held in Lima, Ohio, in July 1926; a scan can be viewed online at the University of Iowa's Iowa Digital Library, in the collection 'Traveling Culture - Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century'. The third was published several times, for instance in the Brooklyn Daily Times in April 1927, to publicize appearances by the Gloria Trumpeters and Lora Orth Kimsey. The pianist's face is superimposed on a small, full-length photograph of the trumpet quartet; perhaps the latter's agent, manager or publicity service created this image, as Kimsey is not known to have employed such services.