Effie Hinckley Ober Kline – Wikipedia

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Effie Hinckley Ober Kline
Face of an older white woman, from a 1927 newspaper.

Effie Hinckley Ober Kline, from a 1927 newspaper.
Born

Effie Hinckley Ober

1843

Sedgwick, Maine

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Died February 15, 1927

Boston, Massachusetts
Nationality American
Other names E. H. Ober
Known for founder of the Boston Ideal Opera Company

Effie Hinckley Ober Kline (1843 – February 15, 1927) was an American opera manager and booking agent. She founded the Boston Ideal Opera Company (later known as “The Bostonians”) in 1879.

Early life[edit]

Effie Hinckley Ober was born in Sedgwick, Maine,[1] and brought up in Blue Hill, the daughter of Samuel Ober and Mary Peters Hinckley Ober. Through her mother she was descended from Joseph Wood, co-founder of Blue Hill, and was herself a co-founder of Blue Hill’s summer colony.

Ober was a secretary at a lecture bureau in Boston as a young woman.[2] In time, she owned a theatrical agency, the Roberts Lyceum Bureau.[3] She founded the Boston Ideal Opera Company (later known as “The Bostonians”) in 1879, with Adelaide Phillipps and Myron W. Whitney among the cast members.[4] Her company presented American operettas, popular operas such as The Bohemian Girl and The Marriage of Figaro, and the Gilbert and Sullivan favorite H.M.S. Pinafore.[5][6]

Ober traveled with the company as its manager until she resigned in 1885.[7] “For five years I have given my undivided attention to the affairs of the company, and I can assure you that the work is of the most wearing character,” she explained. “I will retire from the field entirely satisfied with the result.”[8] Journalist Nellie Bly called Effie Ober “A Plucky Woman” in an 1885 profile.[9] The company continued after her tenure.[10] In 1887 she assisted her old company in resolving an internal dispute: “Miss Ober is here to give us her advice as to our course next season.”[11][12]

Kline later served on the Board of Managers of Cleveland’s Lakeside Hospital, and chaired the board’s library committee.[13]

Personal life[edit]

Effie H. Ober married Cleveland-based lawyer Virgil P. Kline, the father of suffragist Minerva Kline Brooks,[14] in 1888. Her husband was personal attorney of John D. Rockefeller, and worked for Standard Oil Company for many years, before he died in 1917.[15] She died in 1927, in Boston; her grave is with her husband’s, in Cleveland.[2]

Effie Ober Kline’s scrapbooks are preserved at Parker House, a historical site in Blue Hill, Maine.[16] Another of her homes in Maine is now known as Barncastle, and houses a restaurant and inn.[17][18]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Leonard, John W. (1914). Woman’s Who’s who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. American commonwealth Company. pp. 462. Virgil P. Kline New York mother.
  2. ^ a b “Funeral of Mrs Virgil Kline”. The Boston Globe. February 17, 1927. p. 13. Retrieved August 25, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Walsh, Derek. “Tom Karl”. Dictionary of Irish Biography – Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2019-08-26.
  4. ^ Barnabee, Henry Clay (August 19, 1906). “The Bostonians”. Evening Star. p. 23. Retrieved August 25, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Preston, Katherine K. (2003). “Between the Cracks: The Performance of English-Language Opera in Late Nineteenth-Century America”. American Music. 21 (3): 352–353. doi:10.2307/3250548. ISSN 0734-4392. JSTOR 3250548.
  6. ^ Fisher, James (2015-04-16). Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Beginnings. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 74. ISBN 9780810878334.
  7. ^ Preston, Katherine K. (2017). Opera for the People: English-language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-century America. Oxford University Press. pp. 239–310. ISBN 9780199371655.
  8. ^ Smith, Dexter; Deland, Lorin Fuller; Hale, Philip; Tapper, Thomas (November 1884). “The Ideals’ Final Season”. The Musical Record: 2.
  9. ^ “Nellie Bly Articles”. Tom Streissguth. Retrieved 2019-08-26.
  10. ^ “Money Makers”. Star Tribune. May 15, 1893. p. 6. Retrieved August 26, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ “Some Discordant Notes”. Pittsburgh Daily Post. April 19, 1887. p. 2. Retrieved August 26, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ “Inharmonious Ideals”. The Times. March 6, 1887. p. 3. Retrieved August 26, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ Lakeside Hospital of Cleveland; Cleveland Lakeside hospital (1902). Annual report. Gerstein – University of Toronto. Cleveland. pp. 4.
  14. ^ “BROOKS, MINERVA KLINE”. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University. 2018-05-11. Retrieved 2019-08-26.
  15. ^ “Virgil P. Kline”. The New York Times. January 19, 1917. p. 7 – via ProQuest.
  16. ^ Patti Bender, “One Week in Blue Hill, Maine” The Emilie Loring Collection (September 16, 2018).
  17. ^ “The Pinafore Sails Down East” The Down East Dilettante (November 30, 2010).
  18. ^ “History”. Barncastle Hotel + Restaurant – Blue Hill, Maine. Retrieved 2019-08-26.

External links[edit]


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