The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-23
M0thilde BiDrO

l lA . | A\ books and music the lovely
 z S things that she has written for
 children, is the personality of Mathiide
 B1lbro, the talented Alabama author
 composer, whose fame as a story writer
 extends throughout the musical world. Miss Bilbro, who is the only daughter
 ot Judge J. A. Bilbro of Gadsden. has been visitor to Birmingham for the past
 week, and during the time that she was here l had the pleasure of meeting her and for an hour chatting with her about
 her work.
 For the past year Miss Bilbro has lived in New York, the demand for her time and writings being so great that she found it necessary to make her resi- dence there and through her "contract''
 with the publishing house of G. Schirmer,
 with four branches-New York, Phiiadel-
 phia, Boston and Cincinnati-the entire
 output of her brain, time and labor is
 tkeirs.
 Miss Bilbro talks very delightfully."-
 about her home in New York, the many charming. talented people she knows and
 the musical environment which she likes
 so much
 It has always been sort of an accept ec idea that talented people, authors and
 musicians. are unattractive personally,
 but find them the most attractive people know anywhere. And as for the pub
 fishers, who are usually regarded as cold and business like, I can say that that also is fallacy, for no more charm ing man ever lived to talk to than Mir. c. Schirmer or MT. Theodore Presser. Hu- man, kind and appreciative, they are charming people, and I have enjoyed Knowing them very much"
 T belong to the Authors League of America, of which Rex Beach is pres 1dent. following Winston Churchill, who returned to England at the outbreak of the war" Miss Bilbro continued "and there also met many talented people,"
 q enjoy Greenwich Village especially !, Grace Godwins Garrett" said Miss Bill | bro. T think Grace Goodwin is a very i wonderful. honest, true, high-splrited | woman. She has made name for her 1 self and a home for her and her chill | dren, where celebrities assemble, out of little old Dago stand, and she deserves a great deal of credit for her work. | can't say this of all the villagers because to my way of thinking, Greenwich vil- lage is combination of Bohemianism and affection. It is now much like commercial proposition. There are some places in the village where one meets celebrities, The Pi- rates Den and Three Steps Down. but my favorite pleasure resort in New York, in the summer time. is the Astor roof the only real roof in the city,
 Down at the Greenwich Village the atre I was greatly interested in my cal- hi Wh n in Loose and I considered that she did un- usually we'll. The Provincetown Players, in MacDougal Alley, I go to hear once in a great while, not often. That is quite sufficient. I get tired of those pleasures very quickly, and the only thing that don't get tired of is my own work"
 Like Kitty Cheatham, Jessie L. Dana and George Spalding. Mathilde Bilbro loves children, else she couldn't write the wonderful things that she does for them, and when I mentioned this she said:
 "Of course I love children or couldn't do it. An old musician friend of mine in New York, who has tried for so long to write chldrens stories to music said to me one day:
 How do you do it? answered, Be cause I know children and dearly love them, that's the way
 This old musician IS Deautl1ully edu- cated" said Miss Bilbro, land has prob ably forgotten more music than I'll ever know, but he lacks just that requisite love in his heart for children, and he simply can't make his writing go."
 My books include text books, Encore Songs and Progressive Studies for chill dren,'" Miss Bilbro said, ''and it all comes to me very naturally because I've been scribbling since I was a little child myself And by the way, my first ef- fusion was published in Birmingham. Vixen I was 15-that romantic love-sick age-I wrote wonderful song called Treasures of the Heart and dedicated