ERNESTINE COBERN BEYER
Born in Meadville, Pennsylvania on August 4th, 1893, Ernestine was the daughter of Ernestine Craft Cobern, and Camden McCormack Cobern, a Methodist minister, archaeologist, and author of many articles and books on his explorations in Palestine. Gifted with a sweet soprano voice, Ernestine progressed, with her mother as teacher and accompanist, from simple songs in English to operatic arias in French, Italian, German, and Spanish gypsy ballads. At age 16, she had an audition with one of the successful opera singers of the day, who encouraged her to develop her talent. She began studying with the best teachers available, and five years later an audition earned her a contract at the Metropolitan Opera Company. At the time of her debut on January 15, 1918, America was at war with Germany. Because the name Beyer had a Germanic sound, she was advised to adopt a stage name. This she did, choosing the simplest one she could find from a list of flowery names. As Maria Conde, she sang the role of Gilda in the opera Rigoletto, opposite Enrico Caruso, the Italian tenor, who played the Duke. The reviewers were lavish in their praise. "Maria Conde," declared the New York American, "took the public by surprise when she soared into tonal altitudes beyond the normal range of coloratura sopranos." The Evening Sun was likewise impressed. "If she can support it with physical stamina, hers will develop into the voice of a generation." (Decades later, Child Life editor Ernest Frawley would make a similar comment about her poetry.) Managed by impresario Aaron Richmond, Ernestine's career might have thrived for years if she hadn't been hampered by a tendency to contract a cold just before an important engagement. Married in 1912 at age 18 to David Beyer, Ernestine found that the combination of the demands of family life and frequent colds made pursuit of her operatic career untenable. Discovering that her subconscious mind was helpful in composing verses, she dubbed it “Jeeves,” after the problem-solving butler in P. G. Wodehouse’s novels. For 25 years, she submitted poems and stories to children’a magazines, and often had the pleasure of seeing them in print. Widowed in 1937 in the middle of the Depression, Ernestine struggled to support her three children on too slim a budget. Her published poems were not income inflating at two dollars a line. A major breakthrough in her writing career came on a sunny afternoon. She was sitting on the beach, watching three small children as they ran about or knelt on the sands to watch a crab. They all wore sunbonnets. The two older children were dressed in suitable beach frocks—but the youngest and tiniest, whose bonnet hung by its ribbons over her shoulders, wore nothing but a sagging diaper. Inspired by the sight, Ernestine wrote the following poem:
One wears a bonnet of organdy rose That hides her adorable bangs, And one wears a bonnet that shadows her nose, And one wears a bonnet that hangs.
The first wears a pinafore (not very white!)
The second, a dress that is tidy.
But the belle of the beach is the third little mite
With the slightly inadequate didy!
The publication of "Sunbonnet Babies" in the Ladies' Home Journal (April, 1949) marked a change in Ernestine's fortunes. She had survived a decade of struggle and disappointment, but now she and Jeeves would be a successful and inseparable team. The 50s and 60s were busy and productive years for Ernestine. She wrote several books for children, continued to appear in children's magazines, (e.g. Child Life, Jack and Jill, Wee Wisdom, Highlights for Children), and gave talks in schools on libraries on the power of the subconscious mind. She received several awards from The National League of American Pen Women, and in 1972 was invited to Washington to be honored by the league for the best religious poem.
As Ernestine grew older, it pained her when magazines accepted her verses, then failed to publish them for a year or longer. Shortly before her death in December 1972, she wrote to a magazine that had accepted a verse the previous winter. In reply to her plaintive query, the editor said: "I am sorry we cannot publish your poem as soon as you would like, but we have to plan our layouts in advance." Ernestine wasn't happy with responses like this. . "How long do they expect me to wait? Do they think I'm immortal?" Some immortality has been achieved through the republication of many of her verses in books for school children written by her daughter, Barbara Beyer Malley.
Books by Ernestine: Happy Animal Families, Grosset & Dunlap, 1952; Aesop with a Smile, Reilly and Lee Co., 1960; The Story of Little Big, Reilly and Lee Co., 1962; The Story of Lengthwise, Follett Publishing Co., 1967 Books by Barbara Beyer Malley, Poetry with a Purpose, Good Apple, Inc., 1987; Rhyme Time, Fearon Teacher Aids, 1992; Read Me a Rhyme, Please, Humanics Learning, 2006