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Vol. 12
Fall 2006 / Spring 2007
In this Issue
Jongleur
Newsletter of the
Mills Music Library.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Edited by Ron Wiecki
with generous assistance from John Solon, Rebecca Redmann, and Matt Appleby.
Published twice yearly in the
Fall and Spring Semesters
Mills Music Library
728 State Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1494
(608) 263-1884
music.library.wisc.edu
Email Mills Music Library
© 2007 Mills Music Library and the University of Wisconsin-Madison
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A new addition to the
Wisconsin Music Archives:
The Alice B. Keachie Collection
Rebecca Redmann
One recent addition to the ever-growing special collections owned by Mills Library is the archive of scores, books and manuscripts once belonging to Alice Blanche Keachie, a Madison piano and dance teacher. This collection provides valuable insight into the life of a female musician, teacher, and composer in the early decades of the 20th century. The collection has been cataloged and is searchable in MadCat by collection name, volume, individual sheet or edition.
Born 12 January 1857 in St. Mary’s, Ontario, Alice was the eldest daughter of Amelia Smith Keachie, a Canadian of English origin, and William Robertson Keachie, a New Yorker of Scottish descent. Alice lived with her parents, two brothers, and one sister, in Brantford, Ontario. Alice studied music in Brantford and Hamilton, Ontario, possibly attending Brantford Young Ladies’ College and Conservatory.
Alice began her long career as a music teacher by 1881. In 1886 the family relocated to Dubuque, Iowa. While in Dubuque Alice likely continued teaching music privately, but her business expanded beyond music lessons in the fall of 1896. In October of that year, Carrie and Alice leased a space in the Bank and Insurance Building in Dubuque, and opened a dance school.
The Keachies moved to Cedar Rapids in the early years of the 20th century, and in October of 1901, Alice (or Carrie) took part as a violinist on a recital for the Tourist Club in that city. During the years in Cedar Rapids, Alice not only taught music, but she performed as well. Alice and the entire family moved to 211 S. Mills Street in Madison sometime in 1902 or 1903.
In Madison, Alice taught piano and other instrumental lessons, and she continued to use her musical talent and the talents of her students for charitable causes. According to the Capital Times on June 13, 1918, “A Red Cross benefit will be given by the two orchestras composed of the pupils of Miss Alice B. Keachie, at Guild hall, Monday evening.” In another act of generosity, Alice provided a piano for the Madison YWCA shortly after it opened its doors in 1909. Sometime around 1921 and continuing until 1927 or so, she opened a dance studio, located at 2144 Atwood Avenue (currently Wilson’s Bar). Here Alice hosted dancing parties and other social events.
Alice taught out of the Mills Street home or her studio on Atwood until she retired in approximately 1938, after which her name ceased to appear in the Madison newspapers. According to her death certificate she passed away on August 4, 1946. All of the Keachies are buried in a family plot in Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison.
The collection
“Boost Madison in Song and Story”
If you’re in a hurry There’s Burdick and Murray
They always have what you need
You’ll not lose a minute of time when you’re in it
And also save cash with speed
Why worry and flurry o’er cares which prevail
In days of “Depression” when “all must curtail”
Our merchants are trying to do their part
Which helps the good housewife and strengthens her heart
[Keachie Box 4, mss 7]
The Alice B. Keachie Collection at Mills Music Library consists of approximately 35 scores, three books on music, two incomplete sets of music for band or orchestra, and several dozen manuscripts of compositions and arrangements. The bulk of the collection is music for solo piano, either for instruction, dance or performance. There is also a significant grouping of vocal music and music for violin. Alice’s compositions overwhelmingly reveal her passion for Wisconsin, specifically Madison and its surroundings. The poetry in her songs deals with specific Madison landmarks (Fuller’s Woods, Shorewood Hills, Lake Mendota) or particular Madison businesses (Burdick and Merrill, Leo T. Kehl’s Dance Academy, Sanders Shoe Store, Huegel and Hyland, Brown’s Boots, Ground Grippers). Neither the music nor the poetry qualifies as “high art,” and yet the selections paint a lovely picture of Madison in the late ’20s and early ’30s.
Even during the Depression, Alice found reasons to celebrate Madison’s shops, and in the midst of unprecedented growth, she appreciated the preservation of its natural beauty. In the Depression-era ditty “Boost Madison in song and story” Alice sings the praises of a local Madison department store with text that reads decidedly like an advertisement (see box above).
.png "“Buster Brown” party. Wisconsin Historical Society, Image ID: 16360.")
“Buster Brown” party. Group portrait of more than 40 children with Buster Brown at “Buster Brown” party at Burdick and Murray Department Store in Madison, Wis. Wisconsin Historical Society, Image ID: 16360.
“Where Monona’s Waters Play”
Music, Alice B. Keachie; Poetry, H[arriet] Elizabeth Mott
Take me back to old Wisconsin with the silver lakes a-gleam
For a lazy hazy summer by a crystal winding stream
In sweet days of golden glory under skies of tender blue
On Monona’s smiling waters we will drift the long day through
Far away, far away where Monona’s waters play
And the lass I love is waiting where Monona’s waters play
[Keachie Box 4, mss 15]
Alice’s charming setting of the poem “Where Monona’s Waters Play” features a lovely, lyrical vocal line (see box at right). The accompaniment follows the voice, with the melody presented in the right hand and the left hand outlining the triad in a regular pattern. This piece, like most of Alice’s works, hardly strays from its home key. During the refrain, however, it modulates to the relative minor, lending a bittersweet flavor to the reminiscing line, “In sweet days of golden glory[,] under skies of tender blue.” The text setting reflects the natural stress of the poetry despite the possibility that Alice composed this work with a different text in mind.
“A Song of the Black Hills” survives in three copies for voice and piano (one fragmentary) as well as in a handful of individual instrumental parts, suggesting its performance by a larger ensemble at one point. As might be guessed, this song has nothing to do with Madison (or Wisconsin, for that matter). One of the copies has a dedication that reads:
“A Song of the Black Hills”
I long for God’s free places
The Hills with their sweet balsam air
Roaming again the spaces
Where freedom reigns everywhere
I picture the Pines adorning
The canyons and flashing rills
Oh for a Hill west morning
And a Life in our dear Black Hills
[Keachie Box 4, mss 20]
Respectfully dedicated to President Coolidge In commemoration of unveiling the National Memorial Mount Rushmore—Keystone South Dakota, July 4th, 1930.
Despite the obvious indications that Alice intended this work for publication of some sort, no printed copy survives among her materials, and there is no record of such a song in any source.
The song contains a lovely, singable melody in B-flat major, and despite an awkward and interruptive
grace note in the middle of the opening phrase, the tune flows nicely in a lilting 6/8. As with her other works, Alice doubles the vocal line in the right hand of the piano, while the left hand traces the outlines of broken triads. She uses non-diatonic pitches sparingly, although this melody features quite a bit of passing chromaticism, making it a bit richer than some of the others.
This brief study hardly scratches the surface of the materials in the Alice B. Keachie Collection. Her original compositions and arrangements leave little room to doubt her love of and devotion to nature and her distrust of the encroachment
of unrelenting, mechanized progress. The care with which she added poetry, pictures, news clippings and other ephemera to so many of the scores in her collection proves that they were more to her than just a repository of works: they represent her life.
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