Saba Doak (1879 – December 8, 1918) was an American

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

from

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

Early life

Saba Regina Doak was born in Texas,"Obituary:Saba Doak"
''Chattanooga News'' (December 9, 1918): 7. via

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

and raised in

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in t ...

, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Algernon Sidney Doak, and his wife, Emma Regina Smith Doak. Both of her parents were originally from Tennessee. Her father served in the Confederate Navy during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. She was a descendant of

Samuel Doak Samuel Doak (1749–1830) was an American Presbyterian clergyman, Calvinist educator, and a former slave owner in the early movement in the United States for the abolition of slavery. Early life Samuel Doak was born August 1, 1749, in Augusta Coun ...

. She also lived in

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

as a girl. Saba Doak trained as a singer with

Oscar Seagle Oscar Seagle (October 31, 1877 – December 19, 1945) was a prominent musician and music teacher active in the early 20th century. He founded the Seagle Music Colony in Schroon Lake, New York. Early life He was born on October 31, 1877 on Oolt ...

Charles W. Clark Charles William Clark (15 October 1865 – 4 August 1925) was an American baritone singer and vocalist teacher. He is generally regarded as the first American baritone singer to be famous in Europe, and as one of the greatest baritone si ...

, and in Paris with

Jean de Reszke Jean de Reszke (14 January 18503 April 1925) was a Polish tenor and opera star. Reszke came from a musically inclined family. His mother gave him his first singing lessons and provided a home that was a recognized music centre. His sister Josep ...

Career

Doak sang in concerts and as a church soloist in Chicago. In 1917 she toured in the American South, and performed with

Pablo Casals Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: ; 29 December 187622 October 1973), usually known in English by his Castilian Spanish name Pablo Casals,

in Chicago. She announced that she would donate a percentage of her performance income to the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Also during the war, she sang for the troops stationed in Illinois, at Fort Sheridan and at the Great Lakes Training Station. She sang at a reception for the Political Equality League, a suffrage organization in Chicago.

Personal life

Doak died from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

during the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

, aged 39 years. Her remains were buried in Huntsville, Alabama."Miss Saba Doak Buried in Alabama"
''The Tennessean'' (December 12, 1918): 2. via

References

External links

A Saba Doak promotional brochure from the 1910s
from ''Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century'', Redpath Chautauqua Collection, University of Iowa Libraries.
Saba Doak's gravesite
on Find a Grave. {{DEFAULTSORT:Doak, Saba 1879 births 1918 deaths American sopranos American women in World War I Deaths from Spanish flu 19th-century American women musicians