Do you remember anything?
Are there old letters in the attic?
A grandparent’s diary or scrap book?
Or do you know someone who might know something?

Walter worked in London up to 1911, editing The University Review, The Reader’s Review, and Comradeship. Then he served as his sisters’ impresario, organizing their singing tours. In 1915 he became a peace activist and in this context met and married Crystal Eastman in 1916; later he worked as the editorial secretary of Norman Thomas’s World Tomorrow and then edited The Freeman (1921–22). Returning to England he ran the Atlantic Literary Agency in London with Stanley Nott and became the managing editor of the Weekly Westminster, after Ramsay Muir took it over. From there he was recruited by the BBC; after briefly directing the London station he became the first editor of the Radio Times under full BBC management. He died just as it was taking off.

Oriska (Riss) studied the harp, singing, and the piano at the Royal College of Music. In 1910 she holidayed on the continent with the composer Vaughan Williams. Does anyone have any information about this friendship? She married Dr Basil Ward in 1912. She sang folksongs and ballads, accompanying herself on the harp, in a few BBC broadcasts in the mid-to-late 1930s.
Rosalind (professional name Rosalinde) did not marry but partnered the American photographer Francis Bruguière during the last 25 years of his life. She had a career on Broadway, acting Ophelia to John Barrymore’s Hamlet in the most famous interpretation of that play (1922), and from 1928 onwards made a fresh reputation in England on both stage and screen. In the 1950s she designed and wrote her own monodramas which she took around the world until the late 70s. In 1966 she was awarded the MBE for ‘services to the theatre’.
Dorothy married John Odell, and continued to sing and draw and paint.
Cynthia married Curt Dehn, and became a painter and occasional poet.

Mr Percy Lee Atherton, who was superintendant of the Music Department at Harvard and a composer of song music. Also his brother Frederick Atherton, whose wife Ellen often entertained in Washington
Robert and Katherine Barrett (aka Gypsy Davy and Lady Ba)
Adrian Berrington (who father was an architect; his sister Dorothea had a coming out party in October 1909); he moved to Canada after WWI but died on a visit to England only shortly after
a Miss Mollie (i.e. Mary Agnes) Best of Caldwell (a teller of stories)
Constance Binney, who started her career on the stage and then in films when she danced with them in Chicago
Mr & Mrs Bird, Walpole
Adam Brown in New York
Elizabeth Burchenal (New York) and her daughters
Mary Breck, New York
Miss Brooks, Boston
Mr Adams Brown
Mr & Mrs Chouteau Brown, Boston
a Mrs Burgess of Dedham (a friend of Ellen Terry?)
Mr & Mrs Percy Chubb, St Louis
Mrs Champ Clark, Washington
a Mr Cross who found that Rosalind resembled his mother and photographed her seated at his mother’s old spinning wheel.
Mr & Mrs Cushing, Boston
a Mr Darling with a beautiful house in Orange (NY)
Mr & Mrs de Forest, New York
a Professor Farnsworth in the music department at Columbia
a Mrs Forbes who gave enormous ‘at homes’ in Milton
Charlotte Foss and her sister Elzabeth, Chicago. They attended Cecil Sharp's pre-war summer school in Stratford-upon-Avon
Durr Freedley (aka Friedley), who made his drawing of them into a poster to advertise their singing
Mr Garratt, an artist in Boston
Luther Halsey Gulick, M.D. (1865 – August 13, 1918)
Hilda Hankinson and her brother William (who died in 1927)
a Miss Hildreth who invited them to stay at her country house
Miss Hitch, Fish Hill, Con.
Jessie Holliday who married Edmund (‘Ned’) Trowbridge Dana (grandson of the American poet Longfellow) and died by drowning 15 June 1912
Mr & Mrs Houghton (of Houghton Mifflin)
Mrs Izenberg, Chicago
Prof. Manley O. Hudson
Rosamond Impey who married Harold Netterville Briggs (born 25 Aug 1875, died 4 May 1953) aged 40 in Friends Meeting House, Longbridge. They had two children.
(1) Margaret Isabel Briggs born 26th July 1916, who married W. Alastair Matheson in 1946 at Changchow, China. They lived at Battlesdon, Bedfordshire and had issue: do they have a photograph of Rosamond?
(2) Robert Lionel Briggs born 19 June 1918. He married Winifred Thom – any children?
Dr John Henry Jowett (1864 – 1923)
Henry Marcus Leipziger (1854 – December 1, 1917)
Percy Mackaye (1875 – 1956) dramatic poet
Mrs Maxwell in Cincinnatti
Mrs Merrick of the Women's Suffrage Society, Cleveland
Dr Murray, a surgeon at the New York Hospital who liked their singing so much that he declined to be paid for professional services
John Nightingale, who was in the 1st Coast Artillery in 1917 and then in Paris 1919
a Mrs Macaulay Parker who had twin daughters
Mrs Metcalf in Providence (RI)
Stanley Nott
Maxfield Parrish (who used them as models)
Mr & Mrs Charles Peabody in Cambridge (Ma)
Mr Peter, a musician and composer in Northport
a Mr Pitman with a large house in Providence (RI) where they stayed overnight
Miss Pope, Farmington, Con.
John (aka Jack) Rae, book illustrator, who made several pictures of them; his wife Helen and son Walter (named after Walter Fuller)
Cecil Sharp (1859 – 23 June 1924) whose folk songs they sang
a Mrs Storrow with an enormous country house in Lincoln
Colonel [Robert Means] Thompson
Douglas Volk (1856 – 1935) who painted their portraits: where are they?
Mr & Mrs Welch of Hartford, Conn.
Kathleen Wheeler (Crump) 1884 – 1977, who sculpted a small group portrait of them, which was given to a Mr & Mrs Ely in 1914 – where is it?

Do you remember anything?
Are there old letters in the attic?
A grandparent’s diary or scrap book?
Or do you know someone who might remember?

All assistance will be acknowledged in print.

Please contact me by email or by post:
G. Peter Winnington, Au Village, 1453 MAUBORGET, Switzerland.

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This page last updated in March 2014