Belle Yeaton Renfrew | |
Other Names: | Belle Renfrew Mahn |
Birth Name: | Augusta Belle Yeaton |
Birth Date: | December 11, 1872 |
Birth Place: | Chelsea, Massachusetts |
Death Date: | November 22, 1963 |
Death Place: | Brookline, Massachusetts |
Occupation: | Musician, conductor |
Years Active: | 1900-1930 |
Belle Yeaton Renfrew (born December 11, 1872 – November 22, 1963) was an American musician, and conductor of the all-woman Bostonia Orchestra.
Augusta Belle Yeaton was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the daughter of Charles B. Yeaton and Mary Augusta Yeaton. Her father was a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War.[1]
Belle Yeaton Renfrew was conductor of the all-woman Bostonia Orchestra,[2] [3] which played in Boston and toured in the United States and Canada between 1904[4] and 1924.[5] [6] [7] She also played trombone[8] [9] in the Bostonia Brass Quartet, with sisters Grace Mae Morse and Alice Florence Morse on first and second horns, and various women on cornet, including a third Morse sister, Ella.[10] A reviewer in New Jersey in 1911 commented that "the conducting of Belle Yeaton Renfrew was a revelation to many who attended. She was graceful in attitude but at the same time brought out charming effects with the greatest of precision."[11]
Belle Yeaton married jeweler William Renfrew in 1892. They lived in Watertown, Massachusetts, and had a son, Howard William Renfrew (1893-1982). By 1929 she was remarried to a fellow musician, violinist Frederick Louis Mahn.[12] She died in 1963, aged 90 years, in Brookline, Massachusetts.[13]