Gary's Girl

Last week, the town of Gary, Ind., celebrated "Witwer Day." The newspapers had editorials and there was a concert. In the concert a girl sang to the sound of an orchestra. The girl's name was Kathryn Witwer, she was the daughter of a Gary, Ind., mechanic, she had won a young girl's singing contest, she had sung from the stage of the Chicago Opera Company, her voice had been mildly praised by competent critics, she wanted to go abroad and study music but she had no money. This last fact accounted for the existence of Witwer Day. The good folk of Gary were eager to club together and pay her schooling expenses. After the concert and the other festivities, Miss Witwer got $3,000.

Reading the far-flung accounts of this insignificant event, operagoers were at a loss to discover the reason for Miss Witwer's sudden prominence. Then they read what Miss Witwer's father, the mechanic, had told her after the concert: "You sang like a gol-durn angel." It became obvious that Miss Witwer was being groomed to enter the list of artistically mediocre "favorite daughters" of U. S. opera. Like Grace Moore (TIME, Feb. 20), Marion Talley (TIME, March 1, 1926), she would make her debut surrounded with newspaper reporters and home folks. If she made her debut at the Metropolitan (Otto Kahn, Chairman), opera-devotees would again make puns about "You Kahn or you Kahn't," or "What's the matter with Witwer? She's O.K."