Pages for All Ages: A Quaker Singer by Nancy Wood

Some words and phrases to know before you read • leading • vain • couldn’t resist • Metropolitan • community • distracted • singing clubs • • organ • church choir • gave her blessing • beliefs • opera • respect, • Europe disrespect • strict • appalling • have a gift for

Quakers use the word “leading” in a special way. When David’s mother was a strict Quaker. In those days, Quakers say a person has a “leading,” they mean the Quakers believed that music was dangerous. They person feels absolutely, completely that they must do thought that music made people vain and distracted. a certain thing. All his life, David Scull Bispham felt David’s mother kept music out of the home – mostly. a leading to make music. (“Bispham” is pronounced But David’s father played the flute and he kept a “biss-fm.”) The problem was, David grew up in a “cabinet organ” in their home (that is, a piano-sized community that told him music was wrong. He was organ). So David grew up with a little bit of music in not allowed to follow his leading freely until he became his home, but he wanted much more. an adult. When David was eight, the family moved to David Scull Bispham was born on January 5, 1857, in Moorestown, New Jersey. There he made some friends Philadelphia, . Both of David’s parents, who were not Quakers. One of his friends taught him William Danforth Bispham and Jane Lippincott to play a little bit of banjo and piano. Then his Uncle Scull, came from Quaker families. David’s father left John (his father’s brother) gave David a zither, which the Quakers before David was born. David’s mother was the first instrument David learned to play well. kept her strong Quaker beliefs all her life. This meant Uncle John also took David to hear his first opera. that David grew up in a home with two different sets David would love opera for the rest of his life, even of beliefs. though his mother thought opera was “appalling.” As David grew older, he went to the big city of Philadelphia to hear music. After the shows, he would stay and talk with the musicians. David went to college in 1872. He went to Haverford, which was a strict Quaker college. He took his beloved zither with him to Haverford, but the college said that musical instruments were not allowed there. So David had to keep his zither at the train station, and he went to the train station every day to practice.

16 Western Friend, March / April 2018 After college, David worked for several years in his family’s business, selling wool. He married Carolyn Russell, and they started having children. David tried to live a simple Quaker life, but he couldn’t resist his leading to make music. So he joined some local singing clubs and a church choir, and made a little bit of music that way. Finally, David felt he just had to follow his leading to make music in a big way. In 1886, he went to Europe to study singing. Lots of people could tell that he had a gift for singing. In just a few years, he got a job as a singer in the opera. He moved back to America in 1896, and he worked as a singer in the in New York for many years. When his mother learned about this, she wrote to David and gave him be a good Quaker. He wrote that all his life, he never her blessing. She wrote that she knew he was “guided believed anything was “wrong” about music. Instead, by Other Hands than hers.” he believed it was wrong to treat music with disrespect. David Scull Bispham respected music all his life, even at a time when nearly all the other Quakers thought it was wrong. Eventually, the other Quakers changed their minds. In 1900, when David was famous all over the world for singing opera, his old Quaker college, Haverford, invited him to perform in a concert there. David stayed true to his leading all his life. He could not live without music. He was a life-long Quaker, and he was also a life-long musician. David Scull Bispham was truly a “Quaker Singer.”

• Think of a time when you had a leading. Were you able to follow it? How did that make you feel? • Do any of your friends have leadings that you could help them with? • What would the world be like if everyone David Scull Bispham became friends with many could follow their leadings? famous people, including the American author Mark Twain, the English poet Robert Browning, and the Nancy Wood’s essay, “Paying Attention,” was published in the American artist John Singer Sargent. When David got Western Friend anthology, Enlivened by the Mystery. She too old to perform opera on stage, he started teaching is a member of Santa Cruz Meeting in California (PYM). others how to sing. He put together a songbook to help them. He also wrote a book about his own life, A The picture on page 16 shows a man playing a zither on his Quaker Singer’s Recollection. In that book, he tells about lap. Page17 shows an ad for a record by David Bispham and how he kept making music, even while he also tried to his portrait. All images are in the public domain.

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