At Home on Court Street ~ Almira Holman & Chloe Willson

In 1867, the imposing brick Waller Hall, facing State Street, joined the 1844 Oregon Institute as representing the Willamette University campus ~ the cultural beginning of Salem. To the north, between State and Court streets, the imposing classic Oregon State House was the center of the city's political life. Willson Park adjoined the capitol building on the west, as it does today. On the north side of Court, there arose the fine homes of Salem's earliest social leaders. Two of these matrons were women who come on the Lausanne as teachers in the mission community.

Local legend recalls that as 26 year-old Almira Phelps came down the gangplank, Joseph Holman, just arrived overland, commented, "That's the girl I'm going to marry!" And so he did a year later. Their first home was a cabin on the shores of Mill Creek (the Clements house at Chemeketa and 14th is there now) where he built the first bridge across that creek. She remained in missionary work for a few years after their marriage while he worked for the Methodist enterprises. Paid in stock, he was able to purchase enough land to become a flax grower and breeder of sheep. By 1857, his Holman Building at the corner of Ferry and Commercial, was a political and commercial center. He moved Almira to a Court Street residence (above) on his many-acres property. Their son George and daughter, Mary Holman Albert, had adjoining homes on the block between Cottage and Winter streets. Two other daughters died in young adulthood. 

Almira's 1871 obituary is typical of the time and place:

"She was married to her now bereaved husband, Mr. Joseph Holman, May 6th, 1841. Sister H., having the advantage of a liberal education, received at the Wilbarham Academy, in her native State, was not only qualified to teach the heathen, but also to take her place in the front ranks of Christian civilization, and in the growth and development of the country, may be seen on all sides monuments of Christian enterprise in which her hands have been busied in founding and supporting. 

The M. E. Church in Salem, the Willamette University and the Orphans’ Home have all shared in her liberality. In her religious views, she was a thorough Methodist, endorsing fully the doctrine of a higher life - the power of Christ to save now from all sin. She not only believed this doctrine, but professed to experience its power to save her. 

Her death was occasioned by congestion of the brain, which so affected her mind that she could not converse intelligently much of the time. On one occasion, when consciousness had returned, in answer to the inquiry of her son if she did not think she would get better, she replied, 'Not until I get up to heaven.' To a friend who entered her room, she said, 'I am almost over.' At 9½ o’clock, on the evening of October 16th, she fell asleep in Jesus. Peace to her memory."

Her home was demolished for the Max Buren residence that, in turn, was demolished for the present buildings of the Presbyterian Church.

When the Lausanne missionary teachers arrived in Oregon, Chloe Clark was sent to a new mission station at Nisqually on Puget Sound where she learned enough of her students’ language to communicate.  Chloe and William Willson became acquainted and were married a month later.   In the next spring, they were moved to another station at Willamette Falls (Oregon City).  These were discouraging times:  her failure to change the way of life she found among native children; William's health, which did not seem sturdy enough for the heavy carpentry work; the serious differences that arose among the missionaries and laymen.  By late spring of 1844, Chloe and William had been asked to move to the settlement at Chemeketa Plains where Chloe had been chosen to open the Oregon Institute in the former Indian Manual Labor School, becoming their first teacher and housemother.  The next three years brought many changes beginning with the school's decision to lay out a city on the school's land and sell lots.  By 1846 the town was being called Salem.  Adjacent claims included those of William, who would serve on the school board. William built for them on the riverfront - at the present Front, Ferry-Trade Streets.  In 1848, as Oregon was transformed into a Territory, Chloe became the mother of a daughter, Frances.  Chloe wrote: "My heavenly father has increased my responsibilities by committing to my charge a lovely daughter".  Somewhat later she added this prayer, "My dear Frances is beginning to require correction and wholesome discipline... I look to Thee for help, O my Father ".  Two other daughters, Laurabelle and Kate Augusta Lee, were born in 1851 and 1855.  Before the last daughter was born, William was building an Elizabethan-style cottage on the northeast corner of Court and Capitol streets (above), not far from the new Territorial Capitol building, itself built on land donated by the Willsons.  In 1856, William died of a heart attack.  Chloe was a widow after only 16 years of marriage.  

Chloe returned to the east after his death and for some years opened her home to students.  She returned to Salem in 1863, serving in a position similar to dean of Women.  In a lecture given at Willamette University (former Oregon Institute) in the next year, she defined a "Sphere of Women" as "...not the Halls of Legislature, the Bar or the Pulpit - but the sweet Paradise of home - the refined social circle... to mold character"  She reminded the young women that "the training which you here receive is not to elevate you above your sphere, or to remove you from it, but to qualify you to move in it with ease, grace and dignity".

            By 1871 Chloe moved to the Portland home of her daughter and son-in-law, Frances and Joseph Gill, where she died three years later in the year of 1874. She was 56. Her home was sold to Willamette University where it became Lausanne Hall, a women's dormitory. It was demolished in 1921 for the present building of the same name. A auto service station now occupies the site of Chloe's home.

The Breyman Sisters-in-Law

 

       The Breyman brothers, Eugene and Werner, were prominent merchants in early Salem and several handsome buildings in the downtown historic district still carry their names. Judge Reuben Boise is remembered as a outstanding jurist in the years when Oregon was formulating its first laws. These families united in the second generation with the marriage of Minnie (GaGa) Breyman and Reuben Boise, Jr.  The lifelines of the three Breyman sisters-in-law and the two wives of Judge Boise give us a portraits of five women whose husbands were the most successful and prosperous of early Salem and who were, themselves, models of social behavior in the young city. Born a generation after the pioneers of the mission, they introduce us to a Salem that that is familiar today.

The Lifeline of Louisa Breyman Waite (1823-1907)

       Louisa, sister of Werner and Eugene Breyman, was ten years the senior of her sister-in-law, Isabel, and fifteen years older than Margaret. She may have had less in common with her brothers' wives than they had with each other. However, their three homes were within a few blocks of each other, reflecting their close relationship.

The home of E. M. and Louisa Breyman Waite

This is the present site of the former Carnegie Library at State and Winter Streets

Our records of Louisa come from contemporary published articles.
         In 1865, The Pacific Christian Advocate's annual report on education offered by Willamette University, included this paragraph:
"The musical department of the institution, for several years past, has been under the faithful and skillful management of Miss Luisa Breyman - and every succeeding examination has given evidence of great improvement. The music, during the commencement exercises, has not only been completely successful, but a decided triumph. Miss B. is entitled to great credit for her efficiency and perseverance in this ornamental department." During this same year, she also taught German, "her native language". Also on faculty were two women whose lifelines are included in this series: The daughter of Jason and Lucy Thompson Lee, Lucy Lee, now Mrs. Francis Grubbs, was teaching English Literature and French; Chloe Clarke Willson, who had been a teacher, would become Governess of the Ladies Department in the next term.
     Over thirty years later,  in 1897, her husband, Mr. Waite, while participating in a parade of local baseball teams, suffered a heart attack and died. The Capitol Journal newspaper reported: "Kinsmen of the deceased gentleman arranged for breaking the shocking news to his enfeebled wife, who, happy in her pretty house, was engaged in pleasant preparations for a summer outing at Newport, whither she and her husband were to go in a few days with Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Adams. The speedy appearance of her brother Werner Breyman and the ladies of his family, so softened the blow to Mrs. Waite as to leave her quite composed and she was reported as resting peacefully and bravely under the awful burden trust upon her in her declining years." [She was 69]

       In 1907, this tribute marked her own death:  "Mrs. Louisa Waite, who passed away peacefully at her home yesterday was one of Salem’s earliest pioneers, being a member of the Breyman family so prominently identified with the development of Oregon. She was 84 years of age and always enjoyed very good health until a gradual failing of her strength took place as she advanced in years. She was the widow of E. M. Waite who died in 1897, and who was well known in business circles in Salem…She was a remarkable woman. She had the chair of music in Willamette University in days gone by. She taught many German classes. She was a woman of culture and remarkable energy. Up to two weeks ago, she did her own cooking and housework, and steadily declined the many attempts of her near relatives to provide her with help. She loved life and her fellow creatures, but did not wish to be a burden. About two weeks ago, she realized she would not be strong again, and so she wanted to go. She was ready.  She went peacefully, as if drawing the mantle of her couch about her and lying down to pleasant dreams. Her husband, E. M. Waite, went some years ago, almost without warning. They were for years probably the most joyful old couple in Salem. They were the life of any company. They were always young in spirit, although well along in years. There is no old Salem resident who will not have tender and pleasant memories when reminded of this good woman. If Mrs. Waite ever had an enemy, she did not know it. She held all people as her friends."
      The Waite fountain in Willson Park was created by Louisa as a memorial to her husband after his death. The colorful lights that played upon the waters at night were a community delight until 1962. The wind storm of that year destroyed the machinery producing the effect and where it was reconstructed that feature was not included.

Lifeline of Isabel Watt Breyman (1833-1907)

The home of Werner and Isabel Watt Breyman, c. 1903

This is now the site of the the Micah Building at State and Cottage Streets

We have more information about Louisa's sister-in-law, Isabel, wife of Werner and daughter of John Watt and his wife Mary Scott . Born in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, December 1, 1833, her childhood was spent in Missouri. In 1848 her family crossed the plains and settled in Amity, Yamhill County. Her brothers were Joseph and Ahio, noted Oregon pioneers. (Joseph’s son James built the house at the southwest corner of 14^th and Chemeketa streets.) In 1853 she married Werner Breyman, and twelve years later, in 1865, moved to Salem.

In reference to her as a young woman, her 1909 obituary recalls she was a “Cheerful, capable and energetic young girl married to young merchant of pioneer village of Lafayette … at a time when everybody knew every body and when true neighborliness resulted from a society characterized by a an almost perfect equality in worldly possessions.” The obituary described her role in Salem as a “woman of great refinement, kind temperament and essentially a woman of the home. To her family she was ever the kind, loving wife and mother and her home life was of a singularly pure, sweet character.“

Werner Breyman’s merchant enterprise, and his successful business partnership with his brother Eugene, allowed the couple to build, before 1871, a substantial home on the southwest corner of State and Cottage streets, then a residential neighborhood. The first floor of the house, elevated above a daylight ground floor, had a generous front porch facing State Street. Two bay windows decorated the second floor and a tower rose in a third floor the east side of the structure. In 1923, when the house was moved around to Cottage Street for the construction of the Elks Club (now the Micah Building), it housed 20 apartments. It was later demolished.

The Breyman families enjoyed travel: they “camped” on the grounds during the annual State Fairs, took tents and equipment (including a Chinese cook) when they made the over-night journey to Seal Rock for summer vacations. In what must have been an unusual adventure for Salem residents in 1896, Isabel and Werner also enjoyed what was known as the Grand Tour, traveling in Europe for 6 months.

Isabel was mother to seven children, only four of whom survived infancy: Elva, Mrs. Clifford Brown, 1856-1934; Ada, Mrs. William Eldridge, 1857-1934; and Anna, Mrs. Rudolph Prael, 1865-1968. Carl, the only son, died of typhoid fever in 1878 at the age of 10. His obituary recalled how Carl “had so much to live for…in his destiny that promised so much from his manhood” and deeply sympathized “with the parents and sisters who thus see the darling of the house taken from them.”

Tragedy struck the family again in 1927 when her 42-year-old grandson, Clifford, the son of Ada and William Brown, drowned in Alaskan waters while on a eight member hunting and fishing expedition. Four days of searching the remote Gardner Canal did not recover his body. Alice, his widow, returned to Salem and their two young sons, Chandler and Werner Brown. In 1935 she named their home “Deepwood” from a favorite book of these sons.

Lifeline of Margaret Skaife Breyman (1839-1918)

This home of Eugene and Margaret Skaife Breyman was moved from Church and Court Streets (present site of Statesman Journal Building) to Summer Street, just south of Mill Creek, the location of this photograph. It was demolished for the State Lands Building.

Margaret Skaife Breyman was the wife of Eugene Breyman. Despite a romantic story that she learned to walk as one-year old toddler crossing the plains on foot with a wagon train, the truth is that as an infant in 1840 she came from England with her parents on a sailing vessel. The family settled on a farm near Dubuque, Iowa, but her parents died in 1861 and she journeyed west by ship through the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco and on to Salem by stagecoach. She made her home with her sister Mrs. Henry Rickey when they moved to Walla Walla. Eugene Breyman, who had met her at the Gilbert home in Salem, married Margaret at her aunt’s home in 1864.  Their first home was replaced within a few years by a Victorian mansion, in which they resided for the rest of their married life.  During those years, social life, political ceremonies and Salem festivities like the Cherry Festival parade revolved around Court Street and this imposing residence. Seven family funerals were conducted here.

Three daughters survived their parents:

Lena, (1865-1952) married Frank Snedecor of Birmingham, Alabama in 1902. After his death in 1918, she returned to Salem. Her funeral was the seventh conducted in the family home, by that time moved to Summer Street.

Minnie Louise, (1868-1965) married Reuben Boise, Jr. in 1891. She was affectionately called “GaGa” by her family and her many lifetime Salem friends.  Her husband died in 1934 of an accidental gunshot while on a hunting expedition at his Polk County property, Ellendale. Mrs. Boise died at her Kingwood home in West Salem in her 97^th year.

Jessie (1877-1918) married Charles McNary in 1901. The couple lived next door to his parents’ Court Street home until his election the United States Senate in 1917. In the next year, while she was in Salem for the funeral of her mother, Jessie died in an automobile accident in which her sisters Lena Snedecor and Minnie Boise (with their husbands) and her nephew Breyman Boise, the driver of rhe car, were slightly injured. The trio of sisters was very close, and shared many friends in Salem, making this reunion especially tragic.

Reuben Boise, Jr. (the husband of "GaGa") was the son of Judge Reuben Boise, one of early Oregon's most respected jurists.  The judge married twice:

In 1850 Ellen Frances Lyon of Boston was a young schoolteacher in Chicopee Falls, engaged to Reuben Boise of Oregon.  With her sister Susan and brother Whitney, she sailed around the horn on the clipper Flying Cloud for a San Francisco wedding. Her father, taking a shorter route through Panama, would be there for the wedding.  [He would become consul to Japan in the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant and died in Yokohoma in 1871.]  Susan fell in love with Laban Coffin, a member of the ship’s crew, and there was a double wedding. [The Coffins traveled on to China.] In Ellen’s first letter home, she is “enjoying housekeeping in her nice little house in Polk County [Ellendale], but lonely as Reuben rides the circuit as a prosecuting attorney for the Territory.” Many of her early letters express her desire for letters from her family, wondering if they have forgotten her, so far away.  Even when describing the joy of her first son, Fisher, born in 1852, she writes, “I am obliged to stay alone a great part of the time which makes it exceedingly unpleasant in this ne country for society of the right kind is extremely scarce.”  In 1854, Reuben’s sister Elizabeth came to Oregon, reporting her first horseback riding lesson,” Ellen went with me [riding] four miles to a store [where] she got herself and me gingham for morning dresses…such a beautiful valley we rode though… I was a little disappointed when I first got here as Reuben’s house is not finished & things appear different from what I expected, but they rejoiced to see me and Ellen has a faculty of making herself agreeable to everyone and is a universal favorite in the whole Territory.” She hopes Mr. Bush (returning to Oregon) will bring family daguerrotypes and promises to have some made here. The family (including sister Levina Watt) had at least one reunion in California where her father and brother Whitney had settled. Ellen had two more children at Ellendale, Eugene and Elizabeth, both of whom died as infants.  After a short residence in Portland, Judge Boise purchased a 6-acre Salem property [where Sacred Heart was later established] and planted it in fruit tress. Both Reuben Breyman Boise (1959-1934) and Whitney Boise (1862-1930) were born there.  The letters written by Ellen in 1862 and 1865 are happily filled with news of her children, the Methodist Cherry Festival, her relief in having “an Indian woman “to wash for me every week or so” and family news typical of any young wife in her 30s.

        Ellen died in 1865  “after an illness of about ten days.” As Reuben wrote,” She was attacked by inflammation of the brain…the disease went to her heart and lungs…shortness of breath finally took her life. She was a large, healthy looking women apparently destined for a long life…she was a member of the Congregational Church in Salem and an honest a good woman who had many friends… and influence in the circle which she moved. Elizabeth [her sister-in-law] was present when she died...” 
         In 1867 the judge married Emily Pratt of Worchester Massachusetts, the daughter of Ephram Pratt, a Massachusetts manufacturer and sister of Captain Pratt who started the first woolen mill here. Her life was recorded in these excerpts from her 1919 obituary:

          "Miss Pratt taught in the Salem public schools until she was married on December 27, 1866, to the late Judge R. P. Boise, for many years honorable and ably connected with the Judicial history and life of Oregon, as circuit judge and justice of the supreme court. Judge Boise passed into the great beyond in Salem on April 10, 1907. After their marriage, they made their home for many years in the historic Jason Lee house, on North Liberty street, the first house built in Salem. The mills of which Jason Lee himself helped to hew. The children from this marriage were Ellen S. Boise, drowned at Sea View, Wash. In August 1891, and Maria “May”, wife of John H. Lauterman, with whom the deceased had lived for a long time, and whose home at 475 North Summer street she passed quietly and peacefully to rest, as stated, yesterday morning at two, after a very short illness brought on by a severe cold. The good woman was prominent in all things uplifting in this vicinity for a long term of years. She was a member of the First Congregational church. She was a good wife, mother, neighbor, and a true friend. She lived a life of usefulness and faithfulness long beyond the scripturally allotted time, being active even up to a day before her passing."

Lucy Anna Lee ~ An Orphan Daughter

 Willamette University began in this Oregon Institute building. This was where Lucyanna attended college and became a teacher.

When she was three-weeks-old, Lucy Anna's mother, Lucy Thompson Lee, died.

Lucy, a native of Vermont, was born on March 10, 1809 at Barre Lower Village. She began her religious studies at the Newbury Seminary in 1836 and was valedictorian of her graduating class in November 1838. Her professor, a classmate of Jason Lee, told his friend about Lucy and showed Lee a copy of her address. Their meeting led to a brief courtship with Lucy marrying Lee just four months later in July 1839. In autumn of that same year, they were part of the group sailing together on the “Lausanne,” bound for Oregon. The ladies of the mission community who had come to Oregon two years before had expected to conduct a memorial for Jason Lee's first wife,Anna Maria Pittman, and were surprised by the new wife. After a month, the missionaries left the settlement now known as the Willamette Mission site (near the present Wheatland Ferry) to found what became Salem. Lucy and Jason lived, with the Parrish, Raymond and Judson families, in the first house built in the new community on Mill Creek. Now relocated, it is known as the Jason Lee House at Willamette heritage Center. Lucy's life at the pioneer mission was short.  She died of pleurisy on March 20, 1842, less than two years after her arrival. 

Lydia Hines, a faithful friend, who had recently lost an infant daughter, took the infant from her mother's arms. She pledged to child's father, Jason Lee, that she would take care of his only child. Two years later, 1844 the Lees and Hines left Oregon for Hawaii. The Methodist sponsors of the Oregon mission were not satisfied with Lee's leadership and this was to be the first segment of a return to the United States for negotiations. Because passage for all three was not available from Honolulu, Lee returned to the east alone.  Lucy Anna returned to Oregon with Rev. and Mrs. Hines. Two years later, the Hines and Lucy sailed to New York, taking a circular voyage around the globe, intending to return her to the father.  The first news they received upon arrival in that city was that Jason Lee had passed away on March 12, 1845 and his will had given his only child to their loving care.

            Lucy Anna did not return to Oregon until Rev. Hines returned, overland this time, to Salem in 1853, when she was 11 years old.  She graduated from Willamette University with the class of 1863 and became a teacher there, being one of a staff of five in 1865.  When Chloe Willson retired from the position of Governess, or Dean of Women, at the end of that school year, Lucy Anna succeeded her.  She became the wife of Francis H. Grubbs, a classmate and fellow instructor. Their only child was a daughter, Ethel.

            Her students later described Mrs. Grubbs as being tall, with a slender, and stately appearance, her hair braided and wound around her head. A woman of superior knowledge, she was reserved and dignified, and a most devout Christian.  A gifted teacher in many disciplines, girls later remembered how they used to sit around a fire on winter days, eating their lunch while she read aloud her favorite poem, Evangeline. Exacting in her instruction and her expectations of her students, they also recalled she could be amused, even slightly sarcastic at times: calling a student’s attention back to the lesson when he attempted to distract her attention from his lack of preparation.

            As Ethel, the third generation of the Lee family entered the 1870s, Salem was no longer a pioneer mission settlement.  Several hundred homes on tree-lined streets housed the population of over a thousand citizens.  There were numerous commercial enterprises, a railway line to Portland, steamboats on the Willamette, eight churches, five schools, three drug stores - and thirteen saloons.

            Professor Grubbs taught at Willamette for six years then in 1869 "was called to organize an academy at Baker City," that being the reason for their departure from Salem. He was associated several other schools of the Northwest until poor health forced him out of his profession. He took part in various enterprises, finally going into a printing business in Portland.  Lucy Anna died in 1881 at the age of 39. Her childhood friend and stepsister, Julia Bryant Terry, was with an "invalid" Lucy Anna the day she died.  The widower father has been recalled as giving much time, care and travel to his daughter Ethel.  She must have been in her thirties when he died in Portland in 1911. Since Ethel did not marry, the Jason Lee family did not survive into another generation.

Both Lydia Hines (A Life of Adventure) and Chloe Willson (Women of Property) are profiled in this series.

The Doctor is a Lady ~ Mary Purvine

            More than a half century later, Mary Purvine remembered the moment in 1898 when she decided to be a doctor:  “A woman physician was called when a fall on a slippery board caused a fracture of mother’s right arm.  Since at that time I had never seen or scarcely heard of a woman doctor, I can still feel the thrill of watching her deft manipulation reduce the dislocated bones and put in a splint.  After watching this process and the dressing, I announced to the surprised family that I was going to be a doctor.  No one seemed shocked; Mother suggested that I would have to take Latin if I were to take up medicine - and so the die was cast.”

            Mary was the youngest daughter of Daniel and Lydia (Battey) Bowerman, a farm family in Hesper, Iowa.  Mary was born there in 1881 and, at the age of 17, accompanied her parents and three older siblings on their move to Oregon.  Settling on 26 acres near Rickey, Mr. Bowerman engaged in farming, despite a chronic heart condition; his condition was “a shadow that never lifted”, according to Mary.

            By the time Mary had enrolled at Willamette, her eldest brother had been killed “driving in front of a passenger train”, the next brother was on the way toward a legal career, her sister becoming a teacher.  Mary said that at that time, she was a “tow-headed girl with non-descript features, thin and straight, who knew nothing of the world except that one worked for a living, that it was a sin to tell a lie, and the worst thing in the world was to be a drunkard.” 

            This young lady was sent off with a further admonition from her mother: “As I was supposed to go to medical college later, the idea was supposed to be firmly in my mind that I was never to marry, consequently never to have a boyfriend.”

            Romance was not part of Mary’s Willamette experience. Being the lone female in a class of five was a terrible experience as she was the butt of their “rather vulgar jokes”.  One of the stories she recalled for the collection of anecdotes her daughter published in 1958 concerned the dissecting shed down near the millrace at the rear of the university grounds. As it was a “short cut” path through the campus to town and featured many a knothole in its walls, there was often an audience to observe the gloveless, collidion-dosed, black muslin-gowned students, surgical instruments in hand, making tentative incisions on the cadavers.

            In 1903, with medical license in hand, Mary moved to Condon as her brother Jay had his legal practice there. After four years in eastern Oregon dealing with primitive conditions and a prevailing prejudice against female doctors, she returned to Salem as Mrs. Ellis Purvine and began a medical practice specializing in obstetrics.  She also began a family: two daughters and a son who became a doctor himself.

            Through the years she was active in the First Congregational Church, the Salvation Army, Salem Business and Professional Women’s Club, and served on the staffs of both Salem General and Memorial Hospitals.  In 1954, to commemorate her half-century in the medical profession, she was recognized by the University of Oregon Medical School Alumni Association for her 50 years “of service and sacrifice to the alleviation of human suffering.”

            She retired in 1962 still endowed with a lively sense of humor as her stories of her early experiences as a doctor, published by her daughter, clearly show.  Her long life of service ended in 1965 when, on June 10th, she passed away peacefully at her home on University Street.  She was buried at City View next to her husband.

This information from:

"How I Became A Woman Doctor," by Mary Purvine.  From her book Pioneer Doctor, excerpted in Marion County History, Volume V, June 1959, and her obituary, Oregon Statesman, June 11, 1965, Section II, Page 31.

Our "Wonder Pianist" ~ Winifred Byrd

         A New York Times reviewer said, "She is the Little Devil of the keyboard.  She possesses a polished technique".  Winifred Byrd also received high praise as a concert pianist from Walter Damrosch, New York Symphony conductor, who called her "the feature of the concert and one that will not easily be forgotten  She seemed a fairy figure, clothed in a unique shade of blue, with an air and profile delightfully childlike, but an intensity and remarkable fire and passion in her playing". He also noted her "Buster Brown" coiffure.

            Salem-born Winifred was a small young lady, but when her fingers flew over the 88 keys to energize the music of Chopin, Beetoven, Schumann or Liszt, it seemed as though sparks came from them. After her 1918 debut in New York, she traveled to other cities earning praise wherever she played: In Chicago a reporter wrote that her "fleet and accurate fingers [showed a] mixture of fire, delicacy, , impetuosity of youth, excellent left hand and singing tone." In San Francisco she was named "one of the most brilliant to come out to the coast, displaying a piano technique that fairly carried her audience to their feet". In Boston, Winifred was said to have displayed " a high order of musicianship, excellent tone, nice phrasing and nuancing".

            Salem was a small town of 17,000 when Winifred was growing up, not a city where young musicians might expect to find superior training.  However, she had her mother's memory to inspire her: Teresa Holderness Byrd received a music degree from Willamette University and taught piano until her death in 1886 when Winifred was two years old. Winifred attended Salem schools and Willamette for a year.  However, at an early age she left Salem to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she won the Spaulding Scholarship, and then traveled in Europe for graduate study. She studied in Boston with "Madame Hopekirk", Carl Baermann and Theresa Carreno. She eventually taught music at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan.

            Winifred performed in her hometown.  One recorded event was on December 19, 1933 when she was soloist in the Capitol Theatre with the Portland Symphony, conducted by William van Hoogstrattan.  Tickets were 50 cents, $1, and $1.50.  It was noted that a Steinway piano was used for the concert. She also performed for Elizabeth Lord, pianist Dorothy Pierce, and Alice Crary Brown in Salem.

            In the 1930s, Winifred moved to Los Angeles where she died in 1970 at the ago 86.  Her niece, Martha Byrd Blau of Salem, recalled that her gifted relative would play for her and her husband, Sandy Blau, when they visited in California.

            The Portland Journal summed up Winifred Byrd's Oregon appearances with a review saying her audience was "composed of many of the music lovers and leading families of the metropolis. By her own genius and power she is entitled to approval in her own home state among her home people."

This quotation and the biographical information from ”Winifred Byrd: America’s Wonder Pianist”, Historic Marion, Al Jones (date unknown) and “Your Salem Family Album”, Statesman Journal, Salem, OR, October 26, 1990.