Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-06
Farewell to Japanese Peace Envol.
AUTOGRAPH TABLE COVER
Woman of Eighty Has Worked on It
Forty Years.
From the New York Tribune

From the New York Tribune.
Forty years ago in the year of the great
peace jubilee in Boston, Mrs Anne Hath
away conceived the idea of embroidering
an autograph table cover. The task be-
gun then has only just been completed,
ana Mrs hathaway has spent much of
the intervening time in working over 1t,
Franz Abt, Dan Godfrey. Emma Juch and
many others well known have written
their names in pencil on the plain. white,
unbleached cloth. In some cases. where
it was impossible to have the names act
ually written on the cloth. they were
written on paper with lead pencil and
then transferred The list now includes
Patrick S. Gilmore. Adelaide Phillips,
Amalie Materna, Nine. Rudersdorf. the
mother of Richard Mansfield, and Richard
Mansfield himself. who wrote his name
long after his mothers was inscribed and
embroidered; Scalchi, Melba Emma
Eames Story. Marcella Sembrich. John P.
Soust, Victor Herbert, Fol Plancan, both
De Resezekes, De Lussan. William II.
Crane. Joseph Jefferson. Mr.. and Mrs.
Kendall, James A. Herne Eleanor Robson
Otis Skinner, Virginia Harmed. Wilson
Barrett, Sir Thomas Upton, Mark Twain.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Julia Ward
Howe. Robert Ingersoll. Mr.. and Mrs.
Grover Cleveland, whose names were
signed during the formers term of office:
James G.. Blaine and Mrs. Roosevelt. The
President has not yet signed, but Mrs.
Hathaway hopes eventually to secure his
autograph. Some friend gave her a copy
of his autograph, but she uses no name
unless signed for her. especial use. by Its
proper owner. &c.. 49, Gee 49,
The table cover is: five or six feet square
and is embroidered in wash silks of diff
ferent colors. 1t is probably the first
popular autograph collection started in
this country, antedating the fad for au-
tograph pillows. The idea was suggested
by a desire to get something more per-
manent and easier to keep clean than an
ordinary autograph album. The first per-
son to sign was Franz Abt- Mrs. -Hatha-
way generally met with the utmost cOur-
tesy in her solicitation of autographs.
Mrs. Hathaway shows with pride many
charming notes, including one from ex-
Secretary John d. Long. asking her to
leave the cover with a clerk in his Office
for himself to sign later
Mrs. Hathaway is nearly eighty years
old and is one Of the oldest public singess
now living. Her husband w. III. Hath
away was for many years a church or
ganist in New York and Boston, and her
daughter Florence Reid, was a popular
singer in light opera for twenty-three
years Mrs Hathaway was born Anne
Bothemly in Conway, n. H, and received
her first musical training in the class of
an itinerant singing teacher, who visited
the place from time to time. She made
her last professional appearance eighteen
years ago in Florida. where she gave two
concerts, one for white people and one
for the negroes.
The death of her husband and daughter
left her without near relatives. and final
Nv musical friends gave benefit which
raised funds sufficient to pay her admls-
sion fee to the Revere street Home 1or
Aged Women in Boston
Mrs Hathaway believes that the voices
of today are inferior to those when she
was young and that the genuine con-
tralto and basso are both rarer now thah
then. 90,
Il know the end is near" she says. but
T do not worry about that. l have had
such a beautiful life and so much TO be
happy about. l haven't much left but my
voice and though that Is not what 1t was
once / still sing a little every day.