Jessie Duke Richardson, The Muskogee Years

This is a picture the School of Fine Arts built by Jessie Duke Richardson. It stood across the street from the old West High School. Today, it houses the Harvest Ministries Church. Beckham Park now occupies the block where the school stood.

Jessie Duke was born July 7, 1878 in Memphis, Tennessee. She married John Edgar Richardson about 1897. Two years later, she gave birth to her only child, a son called "Jack." They lived in Memphis at the turn of the century. (Her husband shortly quit his grocery store bookkeeping in order to move to Fort Smith, Arkansas to become a public auditor.)

By April of 1910, Jessie is already teaching music in her home. Probably that summer, the family moved to Muskogee. Jessie and her family lived on West Denver Street through 1917. About 1917 or early 1918, her husband passed away, forcing the mother and son to move to 1218 West Okmulgee.

Jessie expanded her teaching in 1915. That spring she advertised that the "Duke-Richardson School of Music and Expression" would be beginning the following fall. Still operating out of her home, she promised to teach public speaking, expression and music education.

Jessie said she was a simple "piano musician" when the 1920 census enumerator inquired about her occupation. Teaching piano lessons must have been how Jessie made most of her income.

President Calvin Coolidge led the nation in celebrating the first week in May, 1924, as the country's "National Music Week." In Muskogee, students from Jessie's School of Fine Arts performed 20-minute recitals daily during the noon hour at West High School to mark the occasion.

Jessie began teaching drama that same year. She also taught Shakespeare and forensic oratory. In addition, she taught dance according to classical Greek principles. Finally, she added voice in private instruction or ensemble classes.

Jessie's students during the early 1930's included Misses Anna Lynn Cook, Olivell Graves (nee Moore), and Gloria Gulagar. Olivell described Jessie as "having a wonderful, charming personality." Jessie taught these girls "esthetic dancing" and "special readings."

Olivell attended the School of Fine Arts at the insistence of her mother. Jessie taught her how to express herself and how to talk to people. Olivell learned how to say "That would be so __" and "That would be, oh, just delicious." Jessie's manner inspired her students to conduct themselves properly.

Jessie stood about five feet, four inches tall. She was always immaculately dressed and wore her dark hair in tight curls. She "stayed at the Severs Hotel a good bit of the time. So many times the gentlemen in Muskogee would go and have lunch with her at the Severs. She was always lovely. [She] had on her diamonds and beautiful clothes that came from New York."

Jessie reportedly coached performers between 1928 and 1932 in Hollywood and the studios of New York's Long Island. In 1930, she lived in Manhattan because she studied advanced piano under the Spanish virtuoso, Alberta Jonas.

She returned to Muskogee about 1932 in all probability because her contracts for coaching dried up. Times were difficult because fewer Muskogee students returned to her studio. Such was the impact of the Great Depression on everyone's pocketbook.

Her financial circumstances improved measurably when she married James D. Simms on June 1, 1936. With her marriage, Jessie Duke Richardson ceased teaching music and elocution. The School of Fine Arts closed forever.

The final chapter of Jessie's story will appear next week.