[3][2][4][5][6][7][8][9] More than a decade before Ruth was born, her father John/Jack was an athlete giving jumping and wrestling exhibitions, held records,[10][11] and was a pugilist of some success,[10] who praised black boxer Peter Jackson and not John L. Sullivan,[12] whom he had once boxed and lost to, it was later said.
In May she participated in a fundraiser for St. Mary's School of Lewistown giving the recitation, performed in a pantomime skit, and singing, at the graduation ceremony[23] and was at that year's town July 4 celebrations.
She had to pass subjects in piano, harmony, counterpoint, history and rudiments of music, senior sight singing, learn and perform a variety of songs in six languages and styles.
At her last recital in Toronto she presented Tschaikovsky's Jeanne d'Arc and Air Des Adieux, Berlioz's L'Absence, Wagner's Traume, Henry Purcell's Nymphs and Shepherds, Mozart's "L’Amero” from Il re pastore and Voi Che Sapete to positive reviews.
And back in Lewiston before her trip to the Orient she gave a recital including traditional songs "Love will find the way", "Meeting of the Waters", Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds", Dashing White Sergeant set to music by Henry Rowley Bishop, O That 'Twere Possible by Arthur Somervell, and Herbert Brewer's Fairy Pipers that were well received at the Judith Theater with publicity in various towns.
[51] In September 1916 Waite applied for a passport with destinations listed in the Orient of Hong Kong, Japan, Java, and Siam, leaving first on the SS Shinyō Maru from San Francisco.
[66] In May 1921 Waite applied for a passport naming her residence as New York, and expected to travel for study in France, Italy, and the British Isles, leaving on the SS Paris June 23, 1921.
...the coldest winter I ever spent was in that home in Florence, with its stone floors and stucco walls and wee small china stoves into which I daily stuffed thirty good cents worth of wood to get a faint flicker of heat.
[105] It recalled the same background and added some of the roles she had played: debuted as Mimi, then Violetta in Genoa, then San Carlo company in Naples and lauded in Corriere about her performance as Gilda as a coloratura soprano, then Rome as Micaela where she won an ovation.
[98] In early November she was in Casper, Wyoming, where she sang Deh, Vieni non Tarbot by Mozart, In the Silent Night by Rachmaninoff, Lass with the Delicate Air Michael Arne, Il Bacio by Luigi Arditi, and the Ave Maria by Bach,[107] adding Christ went up into the Hills by Richard Hageman, a folk song from Kentucky, a negro spiritual Lil David, Play on Your Harp, when she performed in Billings,[108] then in Lewistown,[109] Great Falls November 9,[110] Dillon on the 10th,[111] and on to Santa Rosa, California, on the 16th for a concert at which she switched in Crying of Water by Louis Campbell-Tipton for Lil David, Play on Your Harp,[112] and a fundraiser November 18 at which she added When I was Seventeen,[113] possibly the translation of a Swedish folksong or in the native tongue.
[116] In January, 1927, she performed in Altoona, Pennsylvania, at which she swapped in some other songs: O sleep why does thou leave me by Handel, Thomas Linley's The Lark Sings High in the Cornfield and Invitation au Voyage by Henri Duparc, renditions of Chanson du Papillon, Sur l'Eau, Modest Mussorgsky's "Little Star so Bright", Ungeduld by Schubert, and Ständchen by Richard Strauss - and was billed as a coloratura soprano.
[122] She was scheduled back in Orlando on March 18,[123] then quickly she was in a performance in New York at Town Hall where she sang German, Italian, French, and English songs and the aria from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.
[125] In May she attended and performed in the Central Kentucky Choral Society symphony which was broadcast on radio WHAS in which she sung "Siccome un di Caduto" from The Pearl Fishers.
Purity of tone, that the most accurate instrument could register, poetry of expression and a power that conjures thoughts of great operatic climaxes.…"[127] In June Waite won an audition as soprano for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for an August concert managed by the National Music League,[128] with an aria from Louis by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and in a vocal quartet performance on Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto.
[139] Then she joined with the 100plus voice Alamance Festival Chorus, half from Elon College, at the North Carolina Federation of Music conference held in Sanford, North Carolina, and at another concert at the college itself, where she joined in "Inflammatus" from Stabat Mater by Rossini and Italian Street Song by Victor Herbert,[140] In July news was released she was on her way to visit her uncle Judge & Mrs. Edward F. Waite in Minnesota on her travels from New York to California for a performance at the Redlands Bowl,[141] and stopping in Lewistown too.
[143] She was soon in Billings where she sang some new songs: Qui la Voce Sua Soave by Vincenzo Bellini, local favorite No, No, John, Francis Hopkinson's My Day have been so wondrous Free, Believe me if all those Endearing Young Charms, Un bel dì vedremo from Madama Butterfly by Puccini, Wir Wandelten by Brahms, Stornellata Marinara by Pietro Cimara, and negro spirituals Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen and Oh, Didn't it Rain,[144] and was at the summer Lyceum at Cheney near Spokane.
[130] In October she performed at the Ebell of Los Angeles and a school, again being called a lyric and coloratura soprano,[153] including many of the songs previously mentioned but adding The Last Rose of Summer, The Gospel Train, and Annie Laurie.
[159] A couple days later she was back on the National Concert Orchestra broadcasts to be echoed on the NBC radio network singing some of her known songs: Crying for Waters, Sandman, and The Lass with the Delicate Air.
Songs old and new, classical, emotional and modern, and negro spirituals made up her regular program..... please an audience of considerable patrons who relished what they heard, applauded as friends and relatives are want to do...."[163] Late in February she performed at the Mecca Temple in New York substituting for a sick soprano for the American Orchestra Society.
[182] There is a gap in mentions so far the earlier of the summer of 1929 - her next known performance was in mid-October in Zanesville, Ohio,[183] still listed with the National Music League[184] and coming to Arizona later in October where she was called a lyric coloratura soprano.
[193] Early December she was up the west coast up to Vancouver[194] There she performed 13 songs: "Aria Qui la voce" from Puritana by Bellini, "O No, John", Gods All Powerful by Handel, In the Silence of Night by Rachmaninoff, Little Star by Mussorgsky, Beautiful Art Thou by Herbert E. Hyde, Stornellata Marinara by Cimara, the aria of Ophelia from Hamlet by Faccio, Wings of Night by Wintter Watts, Boyhood by Garnett, Daffodills by Wohlfarth-Grille, The Peace Flower by Bantock, Midsummer by Amy Worth.
"[196] The Great Depression in the United States was deepening but there was an announcement of a number of performances across the west coast: Phoenix and Albuquerque, Arizona, Boulder, Colorado, Los Angeles, California, and Seattle, Vancouver, Bellingham, and Cheney, Washington.
Prolonged applause greeted her performance sections: “… an artist endowed with dramatic grace, magnificently rich voice, and the skill of perfect interpretation.” Flowers were presented and a reception held with her and Mrs. Fred A. Kellogg recently elected to state office.
[284] She had arrived in mid-July and gave the concert; a critic said: “Alive and responsive from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, her voice soured thrillingly over the sonorous, full-bodied orchestral accompaniment, bespeaking her love and appreciation for this great music.
[304] “Clarity and sweetness of tone and a delightful sense of humor were much enjoyed in the program… The concert was sponsored by the Teresan Alumnae Association…The true placing of her voice and its clear, silvery quality… A group of songs in German and Italian… excellent diction adding much to the audience's enjoyment….
[321] Around the same time Jeynne Marie Stapleton pioneered to further the goals of the First Seven Year Plan, of raising a Baháʼí community in every state,[322]: p38 from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which succeeded.
Between those events in June another Baháʼí came through who had gone to Colorado,[349] then the community hosted a North Dakota visitor in October,[350] and Montana and Mrs. Kenneth Klein were noted in the newspapers going to a regional Bahá´í conference to be held in Sioux Falls.
[358] This convention announced the beginning of a new plan, the Second Seven Year Plan, by Shoghi Effendi, then head of the religion, with four goals: the wider spread awareness of the Faith in Latin America, the completion of the interior ornamentation of the House of Worship, raising the various some communities to the state of national organizations - for Canada to form its own, along with regional ones for Central and South America, and initiating a campaign of Baháʼís to reach Europe in the post-war period.
The members of the national assembly elected that year were, in order of the number of votes received, Elsie Austin, Philip Sprague, Horace Holley, Dorothy Baker, Amelia Collins, George Latimer, Edna True, Paul Haney, and William Kenneth Christian.
[448] In January 1958 the Baháʼís held World Religion Day,[449] Montana's brother Edward died in Seattle in February,[450] and the community joined in an Urban-League meeting on race a couple weeks later.