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Note: 86-g8Le7 Catherine8 Leggett born ca 1860s.
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89 ii. Catherine Leggett was born in Waterford Township, Oakland County, Michigan 1866. Catherine died --- in ---, at age unknown.
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Larry and Kathy McCurdy
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1900 Census says September, 1863.
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Leggett, Kathrine M
Age: 67 Year: 1930 Birthplace: Michigan Roll: T626_1019 Race: White Page: 24A State: Michigan ED: 132 County: Oakland Image: 0964 Township: Waterford Relationship: Maid :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
From the following 1948 newspaper article about her brother, we know that Catherine Maria "died two years ago, at the age of 82, in the same room where she was born."
THE PONTIAC DAILY PRESS, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 1948
[Photo] William H. Leggett, playing the Stradivarius violin which he recently presented to the Oakland County Pioneer and Historical Society. He is today celebrating his eighty-ninth birthday.
Music Has Filled 89 Years for Famous Pontiac Settler
By Joe Haas
Today Pontiac`s oldest active music teacher, William Haight Leggett, is celebrating his eighty-ninth birthday. He is spending it with his pupils and his favorite Stradivarius violin.
Born just north of Pontiac, in the old Clintonville settlement on March 3, 1859, he has been identified with local music circles for over three-quarters of a century, with exception of the six years which he spent in Paris, under the tutorage of the masters.
He is the son of Mortimer A. Leggett, who was born on the present site of the Empire State Building in New York city, and who settled in Clintonville in 1853. His father learned to play the violin in order to promote community dancing parties among the pioneers. His mother was a good singer, so he was born with music in his blood.
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He started playing piano early in life, but changed to the violin, and took lessons from Conrad A. Hoffman, prominent Pontiac music teacher of that period, who discovered his talent, and on whose recommendation he first went to Paris in 1885, where he spent two years.
He later made a second trip there for a much longer period. This time he was accompanied by his sister, Mrs. May Leggett Abel, who is now first teacher at the Detroit Conservatory of Music, a position she has held for many years.
They met and played with many of the world`s leading musicians of that time, and were scheduled to play before President Carnot of France on the evening he was assassinated.
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Mr. Leggett lived in Detroit for 37 years, but kept up his music affiliations and teaching in Pontiac throughout that time. He has been teaching music here for over half a century.
During that time he has had thousands of pupils, and points with pride to the fact that many of them have become professionals, or have attained prominence in other ways.
No regular pupil has ever fallen into trouble in any way, which he says is proof of the ennobling influence of music upon the lives of those who devote their time and talent to its study.
For many years Mr. Leggett had a quartet here, and was a member of the old Pontiac symphony orchestra. Home, Sweet Home was the first selection he learned to play, and he considers Paganini`s Witches Dance to be the most difficult thing he has mastered.
He likes the classics that came from the minds of the great masters, as they always provide an incentive to reach for the depths, and enthrall one in their ennobling effects.
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Soothing melodies like Gounod`s serenade are among his favorites. He does not class some modern music as being music at all. He points out that the work of the mastersis the only music that endures through all the ages.
Mr. Leggett feels that the greatest violinist whom he ever met was Sivori, who had been a pupil of Paganini and with whom he was in quite intimate association in Paris.
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The greatest violinist he has heard in recent years is Enesco, a 74 year old crippled man whom he herd [sic] only recently at a concert in Detroit, and whose rendition of Bach`s sonata held the audience more breathless than any other Mr. Leggett had ever witnessed.
In singers, he says the greatest was Melba whom he met and heard in Paris, but that the present Lily Pons tops everything in her style of high soprano.
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Mr. Leggett takes great pride in his violins, best of his collection being his Stradivarius, made by that master himself about 1734. He recently presented its counterpart to the Oakland County Pioneer and Historical society.
His knowledge of violins covers every phase of that instrument.
The tops of the best ones are made of spruce and backs of maple. The resin in the spruce and the sugar in the maple crystallize in a manner that produces the richest tones. This has been the combination followed without variation for over 300 years.
Besides his music, Mr. Leggett has for many years produced good work as an artist, liking water colors the best. He gives credit for his long life and good health to the fact that good music always brings restful relaxation, and his teaching work has kept him in close association with the younger people of each generation.
He remembers when Pontiac had no pavements and Saginaw street was a mass of mud and sand ruts, with more ox teams than horses. He still retains an interest in the old Clintonville home, where a sister died two years ago, at the age of 82, in the same room where she was born.
He vividly recalls being in the field with his father when news of Lincoln`s assassination came, and of how his parents embraced each other and wept, also of a memorial meeting held in Drayton Plains.
In company with his sister, Mrs. Abel, he attends all of the best music programs in Detroit, often being there several evenings in a single week. He has a daughter, Mrs. Florence Kee- [cut off by limitation of the scanner.]
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