Collection: Directories and Documents > Historical Clippings

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Title: Historical Clippings Book (HC-01) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Historical Clippings Catalog #: HC-01 Author: Lyle White Related Items: Daily Transcript, The > March 9, 1889 # of Pages: 352 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Printed or handwritten: All printed text Date Scanned: 2024-09-24 16:04:12 Scanned By: Erik Caruso, Jim Moore Scanning Equipment: CZUR Book Scanner OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: JPGs First Created: 2024-11-07 17:11:01 Last Updated: 2025-04-22 07:39:05

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 352  

___.__ by Bob Paine . The Emma Nevada Story In 1958 we of the Nevada County Historical Society gathered 14 miles east of NC on Highway 20, and led by Ed Fellersen, dedicated a plaque to the greatest singing personality ever born in Nevada County---Emma Nevada---the great soprano prima donna. The monument overlooks the long gone Alpha -Omega hydraulic diggings where Emma was born. Present at the dedication were two who were also born there--George Legg andFanny Holland. One hundred years after her birth to this singer of songs -a song by White Fox Skyhawk-Clampoet, E Clampus Vitus, was sung. These are two of the verses: : Pr ¢ 3, 6s Bigs ee Coun, Mug 944 . . weve Scum Pretty queen of Alpha Diggin's; From old Alpha to OmegaHandsome bell of Nevada town, Where the crystal stars are hung, From an anvil's ring you learned to sing, There float on breeze, and through the trees And the gold streams washing down. _ Sweet notes that you have sung, Warbling song bird of the Yuba; But the chipmunks only hear them Comstock's comely nightingale; And the timid bushy squirrel O'er desert strand, and mountain land Your alpine home the bobcats roam There echoes hill, and dale. Whose eyes, at night, burn beryl. This is the story of "The Mocking Bird of Mills” -the one and only Emma Nevada.. ——— EE ae Night had come to the small hydraulic Alpha Diggin's in historic Nevada County, California, It was February 7, 1869. Heavy snow covered the crudely constructed clap-board house among the pines. A young and beautiful auburn-haired woman, on a cot near a flickering fire place, was suffering the labor pains of her first born child, She was a gambling hall card dealer in the saloons of Omega and Washing, ton on the Yuba. Comforting her was her physician husband Dr. William Wallace ee #: Wixom, Soonhe was to deliver their child who was to become the toast of the great opera houses of the world, They decided that very cold and snowy night to call the girl Emma---and years later Emma herself chose her stage name of Emma Nevada, Emmawasto make her singing debut in Nevada City at the Baptist Church. _ A Emma Nevada The Warbling Song Bird of the YubaPhoto from the Jean Worth National Hotel Collection Lumber from this Baptist Church, built in 1850, can be found today inthe E.T.R. (Editor's Note: The National Hotel where Emma Nevada stayed as a child and Powell home at the corner of Spring & Pine. Later in this story, quoting from a letter world famous opera singer will be commerated with a plaque on Sunday Me that Emma wrote toBelle Douglas, I will let her tell you in her own words of the first 1963 by the William Bull Meek William Morris Stewart Chapter of E Clampus V time she heard the sweet sound of audience applause. On March 31, 1902, Emma The National Hotel is perhaps the most famous continuously operated hotel in all Nevada triumphantly returned to Nevada City, was honored at a banquet at the Nawest dating back to the Gold Rush Days.) tional Hotel and sang her heart out at the Nevada Theater (now the Cedar). But these paragraphs will also have to follow... Near the Wixom home at Alpha was the village blacks mith shop where little Emma went most every afternoon. Big Bill Alexander was the blacksmith, shoeing horses and repairing the five inch monitors.that ripped the hills away each day. Alexander was very fond of little Emma, having lost a daughter of his own Emma's age. Often Emma would sing as Alexander pounded on his anvil. Years later as he would drink his whiskey neat in the bars at Washington on the Yuba he related how "Little Emma" would sing to the rings of his hammer, to the dashing Yuba torrents, tothe birds and eventothe wind whistling through the trees. I loved the little queen, Bill would say, but one day Dr. Wixom moved mother and daughter far away to Austin, Nevada, after living in Nevada City for a spell. The rugged blacksmith who kept tune on his anvil to little Emma was not to see her again until she returned in all her glory to the National Hotel in NC in 1902. When Emma became famous, the State of Nevada, as they had previously stolen their state's name from Nevada City, tried also to claim Nevada as Emma's birthplace, But in 1938 Emma wrote to BelleDouglasto dispute that claim. . . Wrote Emma.. "My first appearance was made in Nevada City, California, when I was three years old. We were staying at the National Hotel. The entertainment was a charity affair at the Baptist Church. I wasso small a table had to be provided so that the audience might see me. They wrapped me in an American flag and I sang the Star Spangled Banner, "Yes I was born in the hydraulic diggings of Alpha, Nevada County, California, and I am very proud of that, Later we moved to Nevada City and then to Austin, Nevada, Iwas to graduate from Mills College, and then on to Europe. In taking the name of Nevada I wanted to do honor to the wonderful town of Nevada City and to the state of Nevada, Signed Emma Nevada Palmer Paris France 2 3 November 5, 1933,".