Katherine Neal Simmons

Katherine Neal was born in 1884 (some sources give 1887) in Sherman, Texas, the daughter of James Thomas Neal[1] and Mary Elizabeth Fuller Neal. Her mother was listed as "Choctaw by Blood" on the Dawes Rolls.[2] She attended Mary Nash College. She pursued further musical studies at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and in Paris and Chicago.[3][4]

Simmons, a soprano,[5][6] sang professionally, as a church soloist and as a touring concert singer.[7][8][9] Her concerts often featured arias but also "tribal Indian songs", and she wore a costume[10] of beads, a fringed shawl, braids, and a headband.[11][12] She also sang Indian-themed compositions by Charles Wakefield Cadman, Thurlow Lieurance and others.[13] She was active in the MacDowell Club of Portland, Oregon.[3] She made a concert tour of cities in the eastern United States and Canada for the 1921–1922 season,[14] and met with President Harding and his wife in the White House.[15][16] She had a garden of 250 rose bushes, and was secretary of the Portland Rose Society.[17][18]

By 1926 she had relocated from Portland to New York City,[19][20] and was regional director of the National Delphian Society, a network of women's music clubs.[21] She also taught voice lessons.[22]

Neal married twice. Her first husband was lawyer John Curtis Simmons; they married in 1905 and he died by 1920.[3][17] Her second husband was Joseph Kirk Love; he survived her when she died in 1940.[23]