Florence Atherton Spalding

Florence Atherton Spalding (September 10, 1859 – December 13, 1933) was an American music teacher and a composer from Boston, Massachusetts. Early life She was born Florence A. Faxon in 1859, the daughter of Edward Faxon (1824–1886) and Eliza Otis Pope (1824–1869), a musically gifted and prosperous family with connections, that descended from Myles Standish and other colonial figureheads. Spalding grew up in an environment that played a big emphasis on musical composition. Her father was a member of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, and was an accomplished tenor singer, and later served as director. By profession, he was a dealer in the supplies of piano manufacture. Since her father was a key member of the Handel and Haydn Society, she would have witnessed the preparations for the celebrations marking the effective date of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, followed by the societies golden jubilee in 1865, which consisted of a five-day festival of nine concerts, employing a chorus of 700. Two years later the New England Conservatory of Music was established. At the age of nine her mother died. Her father remained in 1870 to Lucretia Eddy Holland. She focused h