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Yetta Dorothea Geffen

Yetta Dorothea Geffen (December 10, 1891 – May 21, 1986), also known as Jetta Geffen Mirkil, was an American musician, journalist, and publicist. She went to Europe after World War I to entertain the troops, playing violin in an all-female quintet sponsored by the YMCA.

Yetta Dorothea Geffen
A young woman with fair skin and dark hair gathered to the nape, photographed in profile, in an oval frame
Yetta Geffen, from a 1919 publication
BornDecember 10, 1891
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedMay 21, 1986 (age 94)
Longmeadow, Massachusetts, U.S.
Other namesJetta Geffen, Jetta Mirkil
Occupation(s)Musician, publicist, journalist, editor

Early life

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Geffen was born in Boston and raised in New York City, the daughter of Charles Geffen and Vera Schneirova Geffen.[1][2] Her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants.[3] Her father was a painter and a musician. She attended Wadleigh High School for Girls,[4] and trained as a musician at the Institute of Musical Art under Frank Damrosch.[5]

Career

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Geffen was a member of the editorial staffs at the New York Press and the Washington Times.[6] She also contributed to the New York Tribune, Musical Courier,[7] The Theatre,[8] and The Musical Observer.[9] She often interviewed musicians and actors, but she also covered the women's suffrage movement,[10] and public health reforms.[11]

In 1916 she appeared in period costume for the Civil War segment of the Great Pageant at Yale.[12][13] In March 1918 she was a judge at a costume ball in Greenwich Village.[14] In 1919 she was traveling with D. W. Griffith as his press representative.[5][15] She toured post-war Europe in 1919, playing violin as part of a YMCA-sponsored musical quintet called "Just Girls".[15][16] She wrote from Europe, "Paris may face a coalless winter and New York begins to look very good to me."[17]

Geffen was also an actress,[18] and did publicity for the Greenwich Village Theatre.[19] In 1925, Geffen was managing director of the Richard Mansfield Players in New London, Connecticut.[20][21] She managed the Fifth Avenue Playhouse in Greenwich Village in 1926.[22]

Publications

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  • "The Cabaret Booking Agency" (1913)[8]
  • "Clinging Vines No More; Gently Nurtured Women Who Now Incite to Riot" (1914)[10]
  • "Gossip Anent Our Spring Coiffure? Is it to be High, Low, False or Real?" (1914)[23]
  • "Lou-Tellegen, Newest of Matinee Idols, Makes Love in Six Tongues and Calls American Girl Cultured and 'Tres Chic'" (1914)[24]
  • "A Queen of Stage Adventuresses" (1914)[25]
  • "Some Recent Hits" (1915)[26]
  • "Community Action Remedy for Cruel Waste of Babies' Lives" (1915)[11]
  • "Mme. Calve Great Even to her Own Secretary" (1915)[6]
  • "Outdoor Music on a Huge Scale" (1916)[27]
  • "The Russian Ballet Rehearses" (1916)[7]
  • "The Yale Pageant" (1916)[13]
  • "Wisdom and Wit from the Lips of Teresa Carreño" (1917)[28]
  • "Leopold Godowsky Discusses the Piano and the Universal Brotherhood of Art" (1918)[9]
  • "The Romantic Courtship of Gilda Varesi" (1922)[29]

Personal life

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Geffen married Hazelton Mirkil, a Philadelphia attorney and World War I veteran, in 1935.[2] He died by suicide a few months later.[30] Her inheritance from his estate was a matter for the courts.[31][32] She died in 1986, at the age of 94, in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.[33]

References

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  1. ^ Father's name, birthdate, and birthplace from Geffen's 1919 application for a United States passport, via Ancestry. She gave her father's name as "Sergei Geffen" on her 1935 marriage license forms, and her birthdate as December 10, 1896.
  2. ^ a b "Actress Weds Lawyer". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1935-02-16. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Alice Fahs, Out on Assignment: Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space (University of North Carolina Press 2011): 88-89. ISBN 9780807834961
  4. ^ Wadleigh High School, The Wadleigh Yearbook (1908 yearbook): images 90, 91. via Wadleigh History Project.
  5. ^ a b "Publicity Woman has Wide and Varied Career" The Fourth Estate (January 25, 1919): 28.
  6. ^ a b Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (1915-03-31). "Mme. Calve Great Even to her Own Secretary". Times Herald. p. 12. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ a b Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (May 4, 1916). "The Russian Ballet Rehearses". Musical Courier. 72 (18): 11.
  8. ^ a b Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (October 1913). "The Cabaret Booking Agency". The Theatre. 18 (152): 126.
  9. ^ a b Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (January 1918). "Leopold Godowsky Discusses the Piano and the Universal Brotherhood of Art". The Musical Observer. 17 (1): 14.
  10. ^ a b Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (1914-06-03). "Clinging Vines No More; Gently Nurtured Women who Now Incite to Riot". The Kansas City Star. p. 18. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ a b Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (1915-05-19). "Community Action Remedy for Cruel Waste of Babies' Lives". New Britain Herald. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "40,000 Applaud Music of Yale's Great Pageant" Musical America (October 28, 1916): 4.
  13. ^ a b Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (July 27, 1916). "The Yale Pageant". Musical Courier. 73 (4): 24–26 – via Internet Archive.
  14. ^ "The Society of Salamanders presents the Passing Show of Greenwich Village (advertisement)". The Quill. 2 (4): 29. March 1918.
  15. ^ a b "Publicity Woman Now in France with Y.M.C.A." Fourth Estate (1316): 19. May 17, 1919.
  16. ^ "Yetta Dorothea Geffen Coming Home" Musical Courier (August 28, 1919): 24.
  17. ^ "Yetta Dorothea Geffen Writes of her Concert Trip Abroad". Musical America. 30 (18): 39. August 30, 1919 – via Internet Archive.
  18. ^ "Bainbridge Players". Billboard. March 8, 1924. p. 27 – via Internet Archive.
  19. ^ "Jetta Geffen Gifted". Billboard. November 7, 1925. p. 43 – via Internet Archive.
  20. ^ "Richard Mansfield Players to Give Barry's 'You and I' in New Haven Tonight". Hartford Courant. 1925-10-19. p. 17. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ "Mansfield Players to be Reorganized". Hartford Courant. 1925-12-17. p. 21. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "Fifth Avenue Playhouse Opens Oct. 15 with Films". Billboard. October 9, 1926. p. 36 – via Internet Archive.
  23. ^ Geffen, Yetta D. (1914-01-05). "Gossip Anent Our Spring Coiffure? Is it to be High, Low, False or Real?/Yetta D. Geffen". The Washington Times. p. 8. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ^ Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (1914-02-15). "Lou-Tellegen, Newest of Matinee Idols, Makes Love in Six Tongues". The Washington Times. p. 6. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (December 1914). "A Queen of Stage Adventuresses". The Theatre. 20 (155): 291–294.
  26. ^ Geffen, Yetta D. (February 1915). "Some Recent Hits". The Theatre Magazine. 21 (168): 87–88.
  27. ^ Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (May 25, 1916). "Outdoor Music on a Huge Scale". Musical Courier. 72 (21): 9–11.
  28. ^ Geffen, Yetta Dorothea (April 11, 1917). "Wisdom and Wit from the Lips of Teresa Carreño". Musical Courier.
  29. ^ Geffen, Yetta (1922-06-25). "The Romantic Courtship of Gilda Varesi". Detroit Free Press. p. 96. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. ^ "Attorney Ends Life". Times Union. 1935-07-19. p. 15. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  31. ^ "First Wife Gets Mirkil Estate". Delaware County Daily Times. 1935-10-23. p. 8. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. ^ "Widow or Divorcee to Get War Insurance". Berwick Enterprise. 1936-12-12. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-06-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  33. ^ Jetta Mirkil in the Massachusetts, U.S. Death Index, via Ancestry
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