Bertha Cushing Child

Bertha May Cushing was born in Stamford, Connecticut, the daughter of a Methodist minister, John Russell Cushing, and his wife, Mary Hebard Cushing. Her great-uncle was diplomat Caleb Cushing. She attended Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and studied voice with Clara Munger in Boston, with further vocal training in Paris.[1][2]

Bertha May Cushing was noted as a "true contralto"[2] concert singer in Boston.[3] Child's voice was described as "luscious" by a New York critic.[4] She gave recitals, sang with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and was a soloist in the King's Chapel Choir. She also sang at Synagogue Ardath Israel in Boston, and with the city's Handel and Haydn Society, Cecilia Society, and Browning Society.[5] She was a soloist at the White House in a 1917 concert for President Woodrow Wilson.[6] She also taught singing, and gave musical performances with her children, billed as "Mrs. Child and the Children".[7]

She performed at a benefit concert for the Eudowood Consumption Hospital Fund in Baltimore in 1908,[8] and at a Boston concert raising funds for war relief causes in 1916.[9] Child was a charter member of the Professional Woman's Club,[10] and was a member of the Equal Suffrage Association, the Woman's City Club, and the Copley Society.[1]

In 1899 Bertha Cushing married Charles Tripler Child, an electrical engineer who worked for the Smithsonian Institution. She was widowed with three very young children when Charles died suddenly in 1902.[11] Son Paul Cushing Child (1902-1994) became a diplomat, and in 1946 the husband of chef Julia Child.[12][13]

Bertha Cushing Child followed the teachings of Theosophy and was a vegetarian.[14] She died from meningitis or a heart attack in 1933, aged 61 years, in Paris.[15][1] She is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery.