Fleta Jan Brown Spencer

Fleta Jan Brown Spencer (March 8, 1882 – September 2, 1938) was an American songwriter, composer, pianist, and singer. Early life Fleta Jan Brown was born near Sioux Rapids, Iowa, the daughter of William Edward Brown and Jennie Etta Watkins Brown. Her father was a barber. She trained as a pianist and composer at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Career Brown moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after her studies in Cincinnati, and published her first three songs in 1905. After she married fellow songwriter Herbert Spencer, the pair moved to New York, and there were prolific songwriters, sharing credit on dozens of songs published by M. Witmark & Sons, and by Jerome H. Remick. They also performed together at times, both as singers and pianists, in concerts and on the vaudeville stage. Songs with music, lyrics, or both by Brown included “Tangle Foot Rag” (1907), “Fancies” (1908), “I Wish I was in Heaven Sittin’ Down” (1908), “The Party That Wrote ‘Home Sweet Home’ Never Was a Married Man” (1908, later covered by Jerry Garcia), “O Wondrous Night in June” (1909), “I Know a Blossom” (1909), “In the Dusk” (1909), “The Birth of Love” (1909), “Tickle Toes” (1910), “Back to the Old Folks At Ho