Countdown to 75 years
1950-1959: FINDING OUR WAY “Sweet Adelines have had many adventurous years, and it is important we chronicle some of them.” — Corrine King, SA Historian (The Pitch Pipe, Dec. 1956) E S T. 1 9 4 5
Charitable Work: Sweet Adelines are known today for their generous hearts, and that tradition was alive and well in the 1950s. Soon after The Great Flood of 1951 destroyed much of Kansas and Missouri, the Jayhawk Chapter of Topeka organized and sang at a benefit called “Harvest of Harmony” along with Oil Capital Chapter’s Coquettes and Gay Notes of Tulsa, the Mel-O-Chords of Kansas City, Vocalaires of Lyons, an unnamed quartet from Great Bend and Treble Makers of Topeka. Many chapters sang at tuberculosis and polio wards. One quartet from Bartlesville, OK carried banks in the shape of iron lungs (a medical device used to treat polio at the time) as they strolled downtown, singing. Passersby dropped dimes into the banks to benefit the March of Dimes.*
quartet was singing in the ladies room when a woman who worked at RKO Studio heard them and invited them to come to the studio the next day to watch movies being filmed. The Atomic Age: Sweet Adelines of the 1950s lived with the tension of the Cold War. Many public buildings and private homes had bomb shelters, and nuclear testing was big, if secretive, news. The first chapter, Atomaton, was named by founder Edna Mae Anderson because, “We have an atom of energy to start work with on the organization and we will do it to the tune of ‘Sweet Adeline.’”
The Nota-Belles during their 1956 USO tour. Left to right are Jarmela Speta, Ruth Geile, Jan Kastens and Phyllis Haeger.
Vi Stern of the Decaturettes donates blood while the television camera rolls in 1955.
Celebrities/Television Appearances: More and more homes had a television set, and many Sweet Adelines quartets appeared on the small screen, often with big names of the era. The 1953 International Champion Quartet, Big Four (“800-pounds of fun”) of Chillicothe, IL performed with celebrities such as Herb Shriner, Jack Paar, Steve Allen, Arthur Godfrey and Liberace! In the January 1952 issue of The Pitch Pipe, Marian Moore of The Polka Dots reported on a very eventful trip the quartet made to Los Angeles, where they met vaudeville orchestra leader Eddie Oliver. He escorted the quartet, along with President Lois Zoerb and her husband, to the famous Sunset Strip nightclub Ciro’s. Later, the
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Korean War: The Korean War is sometimes called “The Forgotten War,” but the Sweet Adelines of the day (several of whom served in the military or were military spouses or widows) never forgot those who served. The Nota-Belles (1955 Champion Quartet) made a 50,000-mile U.S. State Department tour of Korean War zones, and many, many quartets made visits to veterans’ homes and military hospitals in both Canada and the United States. The North West Chapter of Chicago recorded a performance for Armed Forces Radio that was broadcast to troops in Korea in 1952. Marybelle Slattery (baritone) recounted this story about singing in a train heading from St. Louis to San Francisco in a 1952 report to The Pitch Pipe: “A memorable experience on this leg of the trip was a Spanish soldier, Korea bound, who’d been on the bus all day Sunday and missed church. He asked Agnes [Volger] to sing ‘Ave Maria,’ no small task even with the best of accompaniment. All Ag had was a uke but she sang it. He sat there holding his rosary, the tears streaming on his
