[56317] Clement's obituary: "Clement King, Sr., Presque Isle, 85. Beloved husband of Helen (Higgins) King, died 9-6-1988 at a local hospital. He was born in Cyr Plantation 11-22-1902 the son of David and Victoria (Madore) King. He was a long time farmer in the Presque Isle area. Besides his wife of Presque Isle, he is survived by 2 sons, Clement Jr. and Richard, both of Presque Isle, 5 daughters, Dorothy Quass, Arlene Dicker, Barbara Hews and Jackie Haines all of Presque Isle and Geraldine Wheeler of Madison, a brother, David King of Union, 2 sisters, Carolyn Thibodeau of Caribou and Anna Burby of Fort Fairfield, 24 grandchildren, 26 great grandchildren. Burial Fairmount cemetery."
From the New York Times archives:
MAINE RECALLS A YANKEE DIVA By TIM PAGE; TIM PAGE WRITES ABOUT MUSIC FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. Published: June 9, 1985
No novelist would dare invent the circumstances of Lillian Nordica's life. Nordica, born Lillian Norton of Farmington, Me., where her home has been turned into a museum, was America's first diva - a dazzling figure who blazed through Bayreuth, St. Petersburg, Covent Garden and New York at the turn of the century, sharing, and often commanding, the stage with such luminaries as Caruso, Melba, Patti and the De Reszke brothers.
But hers was more than an uncomplicated rags-to-riches story. Nordica's life was marred by tragic circumstances, some of them quite odd. She developed her voice only after her older sister, Wilhemina, a promising student in the nascent New England Conservatory of Music, died of typhoid fever; Nordica, named for a sister who did not survive infancy, then carried on the operatic ambitions of another fallen sibling.
She made three unhappy marriages over 30 years; the first, to Frederick Allen Gower, one of the founders of Bell Telephone, ended when he flew off in a balloon and was never heard from again (for many years it was possible to panic Nordica before a concert by suggesting that Gower had been seen outside the auditorium). In 1914, during a world tour, Nordica was shipwrecked off the coast of Java. Although eventually rescued, she took ill, lingered for a few months and died. It is a poignant image - half a world away from home and public, the great Nordica, having fought off mosquitoes and humidity in the jungle, slowly dying in the heat.
Some artists have been haughty about their roots. Maggie Teyte, for one, when told that she had been engaged to sing in the factory town where she was born, cried, ''Good God, why Wolverhampton?'' and canceled the tour. Not Nordica. She took pride in Farmington and sang there several times during the peak of her career. Today, Farmington reciprocates. Adorning the post office is a large wood carving of the young Nordica, lying on the grass and listening to the birds. An auditorium is named for her.
But the most notable memorial is the Nordica Homestead Museum. It is half a mile off State Route 4, slightly north of Farmington, in a sturdy old white farmhouse. Nordica was born in the house in 1857, in a heavy wood-frame bed that is now on view. There is little to distinguish the singer's home from other farmhouses. It is shuttered, two stories tall and wears its age well, having withstood more than a century of Maine winters. A large barn stands off to the side, completing this classic postcard view. (Indeed, postcards are on sale there.) I n many ways the Nortons were like many other Northeastern families of the last century; quilts, Bibles, daguerrotypes and tools are preserved in the homestead. But in another room, there is a helmet worn by Nordica when she sang Brunhilde on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. There are photographs of the leading composers and musicians of the day, many autographed.
The elaborate teakwood console was a gift of the Emperor of China, while a heavily carved Italianate chair came from Diamond Jim Brady. Two gowns, sewn with golden thread, are mounted on a mannequin; they cost well over $1,000 in the 1890's.
There are many other souvenirs of Nordica's career, including letters sent home by her mother, Amanda Norton, who sometimes accompanied her daughter. In one letter from Paris, dated May 25, 1883, Mrs. Norton wrote: ''We were at a large party given by Minister Morton and Mrs. Morton. There were 1,600 invitations. We met all the Embassies: Baron and Baroness Rothschild, Monsieur de Lesseps, Prince Ronald Bonapart, and hundreds of other notable persons, among whom were all the officials of the French Government, etc. Lilly wore white silk and Lyons velvet trimmed with lace and a fan of beautiful flowers. Many thought her the handsomest woman there.''
Such sentiments contrast with the chaste New England walls and bring Nordica to life. And there she is, dominating one wall, in a larger-than-life portrait, showing her youthful beauty and confidence. One half expects her to walk out of the picture and break into song.
The story of Nordica is told in ''Yankee Diva'' (1963), an exciting biography by Ira Glackens that has gone out of print but is available at the Homestead. She was taught singing at the New England Conservatory by John O'Neill, who had previously worked with her sister. She then sang with a vocal quartet and toured the United States.
In 1878 she went to England and sang at the Crystal Palace with a group called Gilmore's American Band, much to O'Neill's consternation. She then studied in Milan and made her debut there as Elvira in ''Don Giovanni.'' She sang for Czar Alexander II in St. Peterburg a week before he was assasinated, then sang in Paris and throughout Europe.
In 1885 she returned home, singing to great acclaim in Boston before leaving on an extensive tour. She sang at the Metropolitan from 1890 to 1909 and then made extended concert tours, speaking out ardently and often in favor of women's rights. The world tour that ended in her death in 1914 was started the previous year.
Nordica made nearly 50 recordings, most of which were never released. The ones that were (on Columbia Records) are mostly disappointing. Some say Nordica had too large a voice for the recording apparatus of the day. But it is more than the technical failures that disturb a listener; the recordings also suffer from a politeness that sometimes seems chilly.
For what is probably her finest recording she chose some rather unusual material: ''Ah, rebeges'' from Erkel's ''Hunyadi Laszlo.'' The rendition offers some pure, thrilling and powerful high notes. Her surviving disks (excluding some private cylinders recorded on the catwalk of the old Metropolitan Opera) have been issued on the Acoustographic label and are available from the Homestead. Unfortunately, the engineer has tampered with the sound, leaving it badly distorted.
The Nordica Memorial Association, founded in the late 1920's, was, for more than 50 years, the pet project of Ben Stinchfield, who died in 1983 at the age of 92. He lived in New York but spent summers in Farmington, where he grew up and where he heard Nordica sing in 1913.
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Ancestry.com offers: "Norton Name Meaning - English: habitational name from any of the many places so called, from Old English norð 'north' + tun 'enclosure', 'settlement'. In some cases, it is a variant of Norrington. Irish: altered form of Naughton, assimilated to the English name."
[55907] Philomelia is daughter of Newell P. Roberts (184-1919) & Jane Elisabeth Turner (1847-1897; m. 26 November 1865 in Penobscot, Hancock Co., ME).
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