{"id":867,"date":"2014-10-29T11:29:55","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T16:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/?p=867"},"modified":"2021-01-18T12:38:50","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T18:38:50","slug":"ivory-winston-iowas-own-first-lady-of-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/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.  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!  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\u2019s Archives and graduate student in the UI School of Library and Information Science. Known as \u2018Iowa\u2019s own first lady of song\u2019, Ivory Winston was born in 1911 in Ottumwa, Iowa. The daughter of a Baptist pastor, she grew up in a strictContinue reading “Ivory Winston, Iowa\u2019s Own First Lady of Song”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[188,300,301],"syndication":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2023,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions\/2023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}