Sarah's Story

Sarah Mather Deeter was a prototype for a mid-19th- mid-20th century middle class woman. The daughter of an enterprising couple, she was a good student in school, studied voice, married a singer, kept house and reared a family of five children in Mechanicsburg, a fairly typical, largely middle-class town in central Pennsylvania. Below the surface, Sarah Deeter was a strong, independent woman who was not about to sublimate her interests. She loved her children, encouraged them greatly in their individual pursuits, but did not live her life through them. Sarah Mather Deeter lived her own life.

The first child of Edmund and Jane Mather, Sarah was born in 1852 at the Crabtree Creek Papermill; three miles from Raleigh, N.C. A brother, Aked James, born near Mt. Holly lived only a few weeks and was buried at Papertown, Pennsylvania.

Sarah, a student at Miss Woodward's School in Harrisburg, earned good marks, according to report cards from her 16th, 17th and 18th years of age. She was especially good in "English Branches" (writing and grammar) and languages. She later attended Young Ladies Seminary in Carlisle, where the program for the "closing exercises," June 12, 1873 noted that she sang in two duets and one solo, no doubt the beginning of a career as a singer that was to follow.¹

In 1861 when Sarah was nine years of age, her father enlisted in the Pennsylvania Volunteer 84th Regiment, fighting in seven Civil War battles. Earning the rank of lieutenant, he suffered from shell shock and could not work for a number of years following the war. During the war and his disability, his wife, Jane, supported the family by operating a millinery shop in Harrisburg, located at one time at 36 North Second Street. In 1893 Edmund Mather started a business for water appliances and steam fixtures in Harrisburg. He was Harrisburg's water commissioner for fourteen years, creating a water supply system that was a model for the state (He changed from pump to a filter system, initiated water metering and reduced drastically the typhoid fever rate.)

Sarah's first public appearance as a singer was at Professor Ettore Barili's Fourth Grand Annual Concert at Music Fund Hall, Harrisburg, on April 12, 1872 when she was twenty years old. Admission was $1.00. A program for Inaugural Night for the Grand Opera House on October 13, 1873 gives her top billing. The Harrisburg Telegraph wrote: "Miss S. E. Mather, the soprano, rendered several selections in fine style, and was loudly applauded. She has a fine voice which is highly cultivated and is under perfect control. "

When she sang at the Floral Concert, in the hall of the House of Representatives, before "a very large and exceedingly select audience," the Harrisburg Patriot said, "Miss S. E. Mather was especially favored with applause after rendering the solo arranged for her in the programme. She was encored so heartily that in order to satisfy the audience she appeared and performed the 'Last Rose of Summer' on the piano, accompanying it with her rich voice in a delightful manner. Miss Mather has had the advantage of a thorough musical education and the high appreciation of her efforts by an intellectual audience proves she has accomplished a grand success."

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