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Note: Mobile Press Register January 23, 1955 (by Mrs. R.O.Collins, correspondent
The vivacious, alert little grandmother of 83, often seen alighting from a Greyhound bus on her homeward trek from a day spent in civic interests in the county, is Mrs. Frona Broyles McMaster of Robertsdale who can boost of a life rich in American heritage.
She refuses to live in the past years of her varied life interests and keeps alert with the tremendous amount of reading she does, the growing of flowers about her small home and her natural love for mingling with people about her.
For the past seven years she has served as secretary of the Baldwin County Old Age Pension Union, Inc. of Alabama. Oftentimes the state organizer, Mr Carter, and the state board of advisors send her into other counties to assist in organizational work. There are three locals in Baldwin County which she visits once a month. She works on a voluntary basis with this non profit organization receiving only her travel expenses.
"Miss Frona" as she is often referred to, came to Alabama with a heart full of music, her foremost interest in life. The reports of a flourishing tobacco company in South Alabama lured [her and her husband] to the pioneer life of Baldwin County in November, 1908, where they purchased a 560-acre farm in what in now the Elsanor community.
The transition froma very active social and cultured life in the midwest to the pioneer life of early Baldwin County was not an easy one for the McMasters. She immediately began weaving her musical talent in the social life of the people about her but she had to abandon her musical teaching, as she says, "the efforts were too stenuous among the scattered students, and the Alabama roads were rough going."
Mrs. Mc gave the first piano recital ever held in Robertsdale at the Old Town Hall and assisted in organizing church schools in the surrounding communities. There were the old square dances, and the graceful waltz has remained ever attractive to her. She says, "Believe it or not, I am still young at heart and I guess you would call me the eternal flapper." She has doubts about her soprano voice but feels sure she could waltz again.
The McMasters came South from Missouri and Iowa where Mr. McMaster was known as a prominent farmer and landowner, and where "Miss Frona" taught music, often giving as many as 50 lessons a week. As a girl she studied piano, voice, and theory in the Western Conservatory in Kansas City, MO.
At the age of 35 years when her two children, Violet and Paul, were 10 and 8 years old, she had a yen for more cultural training and enrolled in Hardin's College for a three-year course in piano, voice, harmony, history of music, English and German literature. Upon graduation she studied voice under Prof. Bruno Michaelis of Leipzig, Germany, who was a gradute of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Berlin, Germany.
She proudly displays programs of concerts given by Prof. Michaelis and Prof. Dunwaddy, a cousin of the late Pres. Teddy Roosevelt. They were accomplished pianists and violinist with Mrs. Mc as soprano soloist. During the summer months she furnished organ music for the Opera House in Missouri for the silent film shows and where she sang the beautifully illustrated songs so popular in that period.
Mr. Mc as she calls him, was also talented in music and once sang in one of the male quartette in Fort Smith, Arkansas for a period of time.
"Mis Frona" went to an old chest in the home and brought out several pieces of Battenburg needlework about 50 years old. She still hopes to complete some of the unfinished pieces as she read where this particular type is to be revivied.
There was also gorgeous satin hand emproidery on velvet mantel pieces which is worn with age but which she treasures for the beautiful work.
She was trained beautifully in the art of oil painting in the Kensington style of upraised characters of the painting. She was also tutored in the art of landscaping.
"Miss Frona" and her sister were reared from early childhood by her uncle and aunt, who were quite wealthy and provided wonderful opportunitites for early cultural training. Private tutors were provided for years of training in art, music, and literature.
Mrs. Mc says, "I began playing the chapel organ in Hopkins, Mo., church at the age of 12 years." She has been a member of the Christian Church since she was 14 years old. Some of the porminent businessmen of the towns and their wives and daughters are former students of hers.
At one time, Mrs. Mc served as field secretary of the Child Coonservation League working out of the Chicago Office. She traveled and worked through a district of five states in the Illinois area.
Speaking of her forebears Mrs. Mc says they were "rugged people." The paternal ancestors came to the U.S. in 1717, settled near Richmond, VA., eventually treking westward over the mountains into Tennessee, where her grandparents were born in SParta.
The maternal grandfather, George Van Gundy, was a descendant of one live of the royal family of Holland and came with his parents to Indiana as a young man.
"Miss Frona" was born in Galena, Kan. in 1872, the older daughter of the union of Wilson and Clara Van Gundy Broyles. In 1891 she was married to Abram McMaster of Iowa.
The McMasters were parents os three children. Her daughter, Mrs. Violet Sanders, resides with her in Robertsdale. Her son, Paul McMaster, resides in Westmont, Ill. Last summer her son and wife wook her on a return visit to her old home and friends covering 3100 miles through seven medwestern and southern states and she says, "I loved every minute of it and made a promise to travel to California in the near future."
Mrs. Mc finds great comfort and peace in reading Norman Vincent Peale's articles. She reads many types of books and on occasion se hears her children say, "Mom is reading a 'shoot-em-up'" when she is deeply absorbed in a western book. She is deeply interested in both local and national politics.
Mrs. Mc says, "Baldwin County has not given me a great deal of material wealth but it has given me a bountiful wealth of strength and sympathy for the good things of life, many wonderful friends and interesting experiences."
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