Bertha Cushing Child

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 (1912–2004).^[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.