Patti's Personality

Patti's Personality.

Former Business Representative Talks About Her.

Loves to Knit and Shuns Pastry

Howell E. Clark Says She Would Not Allow a Pie or Cake on the Cars In Which She Traveled During Her Last American Tour--Why She Hates Violins.

Howell E. Clark, who is the manager of transportation for the Castle Square Opera company, said to a reporter of the Kansas City Times and Star the other night that when Patti comes to America next year on her "farewell tour" she will undoubtedly visit Kansas City. On each of Mme. Patti's tours in the United States Mr. Clark acted as one of her business representatives, and it is often said he was about the only one who could manager he when she was in one of her "tempers." Mme. Patti is now the Baroness Cederstrom. Mr. Clark has a verbal contract to represent her when she comes here next season.

"Oh, yes, Patti has a temper," said Mr. Clark. "But there are other things more interesting to tell about and which have never been told in print. Did any one ever tell you how Patti, the greatest songstress of the age, loves to knit? By the way," added Mr. Clark meditatively, "she does detest the sweet tones of a violin. She hates a violin. Why? Well, because her first husband played the violin vilely."

Mr. Clark knows Patti in all her moods and all her customs. Though the public has often hear and read of the great Patti's triumphs, it knows but little of how she talked, ate, acted and occupied her time.

"Patti," says Mr. Clark, "was very regular in all her actions, and her daily life was lived by rule. She was strong and healthy. On the days when she did not sing she always took tapioca soup for breakfast; that and nothing more. But before breakfast there was first a bath, in which she was assisted by a creole servant who had been with her for thirty years, and then she was taken in charge by an East India woman masseur who is celebrated at the finest masseur in all Europe.

"At 12 o'clock, always sharp at noon, Patti ate lunch. For lunch the great songstress always ate boiled meats, cabbage, carrots, onions and other boiled vegetables; yes, a regular New England boiled dinner. But of pastry not a bit. Why, she wouldn't even allow a pie or cake on the cars in which we traveled. If any of us ever ate pie, we did it on the sly. Patti's dinner came at 6 o'clock. Soup, roasts, cabbage, turnips, salads and wines of all kinds.

"But on the days Patti sang," continued Mr. Clark, "there was a different regime. Tapioca soup at 9 o'clock in the morning, the boiled dinner at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then after the production at night a 'lunch' big enough and hearty enough for a laboring man, who had chopped wood all day long.

"I never saw Patti have a cent," added Mr. Clark reminiscently, "and I don't think she knows the value of or knows how to use money.

"She would amuse herself by knitting, playing with her little dog and principally with gossip. She dearly loved to watch a game of billiards, but she surely didn't like to hear Nicolina, her husband, play the fiddle. Patti's favorite American plays were Hoyt's 'A Trip to Chinatown' and De Wolfe Hopper's extravaganzas. It tickled her most to death to hear the song 'Annie Rooney,' but one of the funniest things about Patti was her small satchel of scarfpins which she always had with her. To every hotel chef who could please her with his soup she gave a scarfpin. But no soup, no pin."