{"id":3338,"date":"2014-10-29T16:29:55","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T16:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/?p=867"},"modified":"2014-10-29T16:29:55","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T16:29:55","slug":"ivory-winston-iowas-own-first-lady-of-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/2014\/10\/29\/ivory-winston-iowas-own-first-lady-of-song\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivory Winston, Iowa\u2019s Own First Lady of Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ivory<\/a><\/p>\n

This post was written by Christina Jensen, Student Assistant in the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives and graduate student in the UI School of Library and Information Science.<\/em><\/p>\n

Known as \u2018Iowa\u2019s own first lady of song\u2019, Ivory Winston<\/a> was born in 1911 in Ottumwa, Iowa. The daughter of a Baptist pastor, she grew up in a strict religious household and remembered church as the place that awoke her interest in music and fostered her developing talent. As a teenager, she dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, though she confessed to The Ottumwa Courier<\/em> that she had little interest in vocal work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Ivory<\/a><\/p>\n

Winston made her professional debut in 1946 to great acclaim, having waited until her mid-thirties to begin her musical career, a decade into her marriage and well after the birth of her two children, Berta Lou and Byron. A 1947 article in The Ottumwa Courier<\/em> addressed this balance of family and career, describing Winston as a \u2018busy singer\u2019 and \u2018a busy housewife and mother\u2019, and asking, \u201cCan marriage and a career mix?\u201d Winston raised musical children who often joined her on stage during performances close to home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Ivory<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1950 she performed for President Truman on his birthday during a stop in Iowa and led the crowd of 20,000 in a rendition of \u2018Happy Birthday\u2019. Despite her professional success, the Winston family faced racial prejudice in Ottumwa, including a neighbor\u2019s unsuccessful petition to bar the Winston family from moving into a new neighborhood. Winston\u2019s son Byron later recalled the petition going unsigned, and the family moving into the neighborhood without incident.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Ivory<\/a><\/p>\n

Winston\u2019s voice was widely praised throughout her life, yet no known recordings of her singing survived.\u00a0 The Des Moines Sunday Register<\/em> put out a call in 2006 to its readers to keep an eye out for these missing performance recordings. If you have a recording of Ivory Winston, please notify the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives!<\/p>\n

Want more?<\/strong> Visit the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives!\u00a0 We\u2019re open weekly Tuesday-Friday, 10:00am to noon and 1:00pm to 5:00pm.<\/p>\n

A list of collections related to African American women in Iowa can be found here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Christina Jensen, Student Assistant in the Iowa Women’s Archives and graduate student in the UI School of Library and Information Science. Known as ‘Iowa’s own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-blocks","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3338"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4749,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338\/revisions\/4749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}