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Alverson, Margaret Blake, 1836-1923

"Sixty Years of California Song"

The _Call_, _Tribune_, _Chronicle_,
_Enquirer_, _Saturday Night_, _Berkeley Gazette_, _Santa Cruz Surf_,
_Examiner_, _Benicia Era_, the Stockton and Sacramento papers all ran
full articles and pictures in my honor. At this late day I tender my
sincere thanks for favors and kindly criticisms, from time
immemorial.
[Illustration: Pen sketch of Mrs. Blake-Alverson by Richard
Partington, made on the occasion of the semi-centenary of her career
as a public singer, June 12, 1896. Mrs. Alverson at this time was
sixty years of age.]


CHAPTER TWELVE
CAMILLA URSO'S FESTIVAL, 1873. MADAME ANNA BISHOP. THE LORING CLUB.
ALFRED WILKIE, FRANK GILDER, D.P. HUGHES

One of the most difficult tasks in writing my memoirs is the choice of
the most important happenings in a busy life. There are so many things
to speak of it is hard to know where to begin. I cannot begin with a
more appropriate event than the Fourth of July celebration which took
place in 1869, with William Seward, Secretary of State, in one of the
boxes of the California theater.
Alex Austin, Esq., was president of the day and called the assemblage
to order.
The programme was as follows:
Prayer by Rev. H.D. Lathrop.
Music by the orchestra.
Reading of the Declaration of Independence by Lawrence
Barrett, Esq.
God Bless our Glorious Land (written for the Fourth of July,
1869, by our friend Sam Booth). Full chorus, George T.


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