Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1896-09-24
SHE SAID SHE WOULD
AND HER lNDOMITABLE PERSEVER-
ANCE CONQUERED.
How Cynthia Westover Became a Great
Singer, Though She Had No Voice at
the Start - Lecturer. Linguist, Street
Cleaner and Author.

Singer, Though She Had No Voice at
the Start - Lecturer. Linguist. Street
Cleaner and Author.
In strong contradistinction to the lives
OF ordinary professional women = 1
maintain that an ordinary woman will
be ordinary wherever you put hers
that Of Cynthia Westover Alden, whose
wonderful achievements in New York
city in the last 15 years have been little
short Of marvellous, and whose remark
able attainments in any given line have
always oddly enough acted only as
prelude to greater accomplishments i'll
other paths so widely divergent that it
seems almost inc1 edible one woman
should have attained eminence in so
many occupations. and stranger still
that, contrary to all hitherto accepted
precedents, each eccentric change has
been marked with richer degree of
success.
Now, the secret Of all this is not that
the subject Of this sketch is versatile or
talented - those who know her best
maintain that she is neither-but be-
cause she is so indomitably persistent
that nothing is impossible to her, al
though every occupation she has learned
has been difficult for her to acquire.
She came to New Y York from the mining
camps of Colorado poor, friendless, un-
known, determined to become a great
singer, and nothing daunted because she
had SO little sense Of melody that she
could scarcely distinguish the strains Of
Yankee Doodle from those of the
'Marseillaise. Already a successful
teacher, she resolved to put that occupa-
tion behind her because it had become
easy and trite. II knew, " she says, ''that
singing would be the most difficult
thing l could possibly undertake, so l
resolved to study singing. Her voice
was tried by all the great vocal masters
Of New York and Boston, every one Of
whom pronounced it worthless, but she
kept right on trying until finally there
came a new master from Italy, one
Frencelli, who delivered himself of the
opinion that the girl might learn to
sing if she would study eight hours
day.
Long before this her money had given
out. and she had conceived the idea Of
insuring her life and selling the policy.
She accomplished this feat, but more
than half the money she received was
wasted on a bogus master before the
time Of Frencelli's arrival She trans
fixed the latter with surprise by study
ing 10 hours day and by learning to
sing and read music with tuning fork
because she could not afford a piano.
Miss Westover-I am sure she will al
ways be known professionally by her
maiden name-maintained herself at
that time by giving lectures on geology
at the Musouna Of Natural History, and
in few months by teaching the rudi-
ments of singing. She liveu IL, the loft
of F1siii's Frenceiiii 8 house, and from him and
his family learned the ItaiIad fi.I ffia.I1g1age-
Marvellous it is to relate, but neverthe-
less true, that within two years frem
the time she began to study Cynthia
Westo7er began to be known as great
singer. The first time she sang for
money was at Stamford, Conn, where
she was selected from a great company
of famous singers, Clara Louise Kellogg
among the rest, to sing the e.. ter an
them. From Frencelli she passed into
the hands of the old singing master who
taught Patti and was trained by him to
fill the place Of Nilsson's second lead
ing soprano, who had just resigned from
the company. She learned six roles of
as many grand operas in two or three
weeks, and the rare old instructor of
the diva looked eagerly forward to the
night when his protegee should be pre-
Eented to the public, but Miss Westover
was not at all blinded by the glare of
the footlights and decided finally that
she would not try the life of an operatic
singer, a determination she stoutly ad-
he1ed to the next season when Mr.. Au-
gustin DAILY made every effort in his
power to get her to sing Lady Jane in
his production Of Patience. II
Shs went instead to st. Thomas
church on Fifth avenue, where she be-
came one of the leading sopranos. Miss
Westoyer had great register. She sang
three octaves and began to be considered
a marvel among the singing masters
who had laughed her to scorn. From
ST. Thomas she went to ST. Michael's
at Hoboken, and there, under Mgr.
Concilio, became one of the famous
church singers of the day. Her singing
life extended over period of about five
years, and in that time she familiarized
herself with the French, German and
Italian languages.
It then occurred to her to apply for
the position of inspector of customs,
which she secured and filed with great
honor, being the first woman appointed
to government service under Tammany.
Later she became interpreter and still
later secretary to Street Cleaning Com
missioner Beattie. Her career while i'll
the employ of the government was most
remarkable for woman. While fulfill
ing the duties of secretary to the street
cleaning commissioner Miss Westover
often managed as many as 2, 600 labor
ers per day and performed numerous
kindred duties the counterpart of which
had never fallen to the lot Of woman
before Once the captain Of tugs and
scows was i'll fo1 a fortnight, and Miss
Westover performed the duties of his
position in addition to those Of hers,
sleeping at her desk and working early
and late. She sent out 28 tugs and scows
daily, and at various times actually per-
formed all the duties of the street clean
ing commissioner of New York.
When she had exhausted the difficult
ties of her government positions, Miss
Westover took to literature, writing ed
itorials on the silver question and on
city politics for Harper's Weekly and
following them with series of scien-
tific articles in the same publication
She also wrote and published success
full book known as Manhattan, His
toric and Artistic. After that she act
ed as assistant to Professor Whitfield at
the Museum of Natural History, from
which point she gradually drifted into
journalism, where she has become d
power, her keen perceptions and broad
experience standing her in good stead as
editor and reporter. She has been editor
of the woman's department. of the New
York Recorder for several years, and
her work in that line as well as in all
others she has undertaken has been
highly successful. From the beginning
Of her journalistic career she has had
large salary and enioved all the benefits