The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-11-26
PATHS
She Played Mt Opera Singing In the
Village of South Mount Vernon.

tftiuEc OF sOuIn mOEht tcEHoh.
New York Sun.
Thirty years before Adelina Patti began
TO live in a Welsh castle her home was an
ugly, though substantial, rectangular red
brick house in a village Of Westche5ter
county. The village has since changed its
official name from W-ashingtonville 20 South
Mount Vernon, though its sole railway sta
ton, On the Harlem division Of the New
The confusion arising from this double sys-
tenn of nomenclature is increased oy the
fact that the village is known TO the Post
office Department as Wakefield.
When Patti was q little girl OF ten years
or thereabouts there was no such confusion
as to the identity of the village. 1t had
just been laid out and called Washington
vile in opder to be patriotically even with
the ~neighboring village OF Mount Vernon
The vlIlag then, as even yet, although the
New York city line is within half a mile of
its limits. was thoroughly rural in temper
and habits. Farms and old farm home
steads lay all about IL, and when the wan
derfng PATHS built their big ugly house
they set 1t upon a slope overlooking the
Bronx valley, with it's back to the White
Plains road, now the principal street OF
South Mount Vernon. PATHS father brought
to his country home his second wife and
three sets of children; those to whom the
wife was stepmother. those to whom Patti,
the husband. was stepfather, and those to
whom the pair were both father and moth
er. The variously related parents were al
children had begun their life work. Car
lotta was inging in her earlier songs, and
Nicola was already well known on the
stage. The PATHS found themselves amid
an oddly unsympathetic community. But
they came and went with small thought of
their neighbors. now going upon long pro-
house. Nine. Patti, the wife, seems to have
left an even more vivid impression upon
her former ~neighbors that Adelina, the
daughter. The wife was 2 somewhat stern,
dark-eyed woman, who impressed the VII
iagers aS a Psr to tho 5o i 6f tre a9e1in witn she cons IS
as a plump, gOod-natured lit
tie girl with foreign hair, eves and com
Plexion: The younger villagers OF to;
house. "Adelina Patti, the great singer. was
born there" but the older folk who were
ter. Adelina, while living in Washington
vile. went to school in New York, but one
lage children into the red brick house and
set up a singing school. Another charac-
teristic amusement of Adelina was TO play
opera, and the widow Brown, a neighbor of
the PATHS. still cherishes the toy theater
made OF cork which Adelina owned. This,
a few chairs belonging to the widow and a
Patti left in and about her former home.
According to local tradition Patti, while
living in notwithstanding, sang in public at
BeckS Hotel in Mount Vernon, and her
former n~eighborS will have 1t that this was
her first public appearance, though the
biographerS of the diva tell a different story.
The Patti house was sold last year by the
man who bought it from the PATHS, and it
is now occupied in the summertime by a
GeTUldu ldnClcI VI plthlS dtQ NtSclGOleS.
He has painted the red bricks a light lead
color, and has transformed the terraced
grass plot into q blooming flower garden.
The house now faces an unimportant street.
and stands many feet above the sidewalk.
Its front door is reached by a high flight OF
steps leading to a large veranda- Within
are a dozen rooms, most of them large, but
plain. The present owner declares that
Father Patti built well, and that the house
is as sound as a house can be. The surviv-
ing members of the Patti family still take
an interest in the house, and Nicola has WIS.,
tied it within eighteen months. The village
is stirred periodically when Patti is singing
in New York by the rumor that she will
revisit the old place.