Vera Brady Shipman

Vera Corinne Brady was born in Salina, Kansas,^[1] the daughter of John Leeford Brady and Julia Mary Simons Hoinville. Her father was a newspaper editor in Kansas,^[2] and later in Oregon and Idaho.^[3] He also served in both houses of the Kansas Legislature, between 1904 and 1913. Her uncle was James H. Brady, Governor of Idaho.^[4] Her mother lived in Chicago.^[5] Vera Brady attended Hyde Park Academy High School in Chicago,^[6] and the Cosmopolitan School of Music.^[7]

Shipman taught music and played in churches as a young woman.^[8] She played piano accompaniment for various vocalists and instrumentalists, including singer Permelia Gale and cellist Vera Poppe.^[9] She wrote music, including a setting of "Po' Li'l Lamb" by Paul Laurence Dunbar,^[10] a song sung by her client Rosa Olitzka in concerts.^[11][12] She composed the music for Twenty Little Songs for Children (1914), with lyrics by Francesca de Capdevila (who later married cellist Pablo Casals).^[13]

Shipman was an arts journalist.^[14] She wrote for Radio Digest,^[15] Social Progress,^[16][17] Musical America,^[18] and was music and literary editor of The Salina Daily Union.^[19] She also wrote film reviews,^[20] and was a correspondent from the Republican National Convention in Chicago in 1920.^[21] She was heard on radio in the 1920s, including a report from Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans in 1923.^[22] She was a vice president of the Chicago chapter of American Pen Women of Illinois.^[23] She was a publicist for a Chicago department store,^[24][25] and she booked tours and managed musical performers.^[26][27]