CROCKER, BESSIE CAMILLA PARKER (1884-1978)

CROCKER, BESSIE CAMILLA PARKER, musician; b. Newcastle, 20 Apr 1884, d/o Timothy W. Crocker and Mary Isabel Betts; sister of Rowland Waldo Crocker; unmarried; d. Newcastle, 30 May 1978.

Bessie C. P. Crocker was educated at the Ladies' College at Mount Allison, where she received a diploma in piano in 1903. She also studied organ and voice and was an accomplished musician at the time of her graduation. In 1904 she became the organist of the Methodist church in Newcastle, and with only a few breaks, served in this capacity until 1925. Having a "wonderful contralto voice," she was the principal soloist with the Methodist church choir and a frequent guest soloist in other churches. For some years she also taught music privately.

After the United Church of St James and St John came into being in 1925 Crocker acted as a supply organist. A special task which she undertook in the late 1940s was to assist Louise Manny, who had no musical skills or training, in collecting and recording traditional Miramichi folk songs.

Crocker played an active part in the Red Cross Society and the IODE and was president of the women's section of the Miramichi Golf and Country Club. She was an avid curler as well. She lost her eyesight twelve years before her death in 1978, at age ninety-four.