Collection number: MC 233

Size: 5 boxes (1.66 cu.ft.)

About Walter S. Jenkins

Walter S. Jenkins was a music professor, MacDowell colonist, and lifelong biographer of Amy Cheney Beach. He was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, on March 29, 1909, and attended the University of New Hampshire in the late 1920s. After Jenkins’ graduation from UNH in 1931, he went on to earn a Master’s degree from Harvard University, a diploma that enabled him to land the various collegiate teaching jobs of his career. The first of these was a position as music director of Bennett Junior College in New York. His professional career was interrupted, however, by the advent of World War II, and Jenkins served in the United States Army from 1942 to 1945. When he returned, he landed a professorship at Louisiana’s Newcomb College, an all-womens’ undergraduate affiliate of Tulane University. Jenkins taught at Newcomb from 1946 until 1974, and was an emeritus professor from his retirement to his death on August 3, 1990.

Jenkins’ fascination with the great American composer Amy Cheney Beach began early in his career. The two began a friendly correspondence in the early 1930s. In April of 1935, Beach wrote to Jenkins to urge him to apply for a summer residency at the MacDowell Colony, a retreat for artists in Peterborough, New Hampshire. “I hope that it is not too late for your name to be considered,” she wrote him, adding that “[Marion McDowell] generally has about 500 applications, beginning to come in early in January, so do not be discouraged if she has already made up the quota which can only be about 50 or 60 for the entire season…”

Despite the odds, Jenkins managed to find a place at the MacDowell colony for the summer of 1935. It was there that he first met Beach in person. He was struck by her personality and her musical talent. One night, Beach and a fellow musician, Albert Spalding, played a few sonatas in a room in the Colony’s Library. “I was among those present in the Savidge Library that night,” Jenkins later recalled in his biography of Beach. “Some of us musicians followed the scores as Mrs. Beach and Spalding performed,” he continued, “and it was with [the] greatest admiration and respect for Mrs. Beach’s musicianship that we listened to a most inspired, yet grammatically correct rendition of the movement from the Mendelssohn work” (129).

Jenkins’ interest in the works and life of Amy Cheney Beach persisted for the rest of his life. “When she died at the end of 1944,” Jenkins’ editor later wrote, “Walter took it upon himself to be her definitive biographer.” Jenkins spent decades gathering Beach materials, including diaries, newspaper clippings, correspondence, church and city records, and the reminiscences of her friends and family. In 1973, his article on Beach was published in the third supplement of The Dictionary of American Biography. By then, he had hammered out a mammoth, 500-page biographical manuscript, but it was still not ready for publication by the time of his death in 1990. A colleague at Newcomb, John H. Baron, agreed to edit the work; with the 1994-publication of The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, American Composer, the life’s work of Walter S. Jenkins finally became public. In January of 1995, Jenkins’ wife, Ruth P. Jenkins, donated the Walter S. Jenkins Amy Cheney Beach Collection to the Milne Special Collections at the University of New Hampshire.

About the Walter S. Jenkins Amy Cheney Beach Collection

The Walter S. Jenkins Amy Cheney Beach Collection has been divided into two series for the ease of the researcher. Series I, “Walter S. Jenkins papers,” contains the professor’s correspondence, research notes, and manuscript drafts. Jenkins’ letters often revolve around his Beach biography and reveal how his life’s labor blended with his personal ties. A few of these letters may be of interest to the Beach researcher, however, since Jenkins wrote Beach friends and relations with questions about their memories of and experiences with Beach. One example of these, Hazel Gertrude Kinscella’s reply to Jenkins in August of 1959, expressed the spirit of many of these correspondents. After recalling her times with Beach in “random recollections,” Kinscella added that her stories “will assure you of my very definite affection for Mrs. Beach and of my desire that her life-story shall be told with all the care and accuracy which I know you will employ.”

Series II, “Amy Cheney Beach documents,” contains Jenkins’ photocopies of Beach’s incoming correspondence, his transcriptions of her diaries and some of her outgoing letters, as well as Beach-related newspaper clippings. These last items are of note since many of them date to Beach’s life, and cover such topics as her tours, performances, and the death of her husband. One folder holds a number of obituaries after the composer’s death in 1944. A few photographs of Beach and associates are also included in the collection.

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

This collection is open.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the University of New Hampshire.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Walter S. Jenkins Amy Cheney Beach Collection, 1914-2008, MC 232, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire Library, Durham, NH, USA.

Acquisitions Information

Gift from Ruth P. Jenkins, or Metarie, Louisiana, 1995 (Accession number:95.009)

Collection Contents

• Series I: Walter S. Jenkins papers, 1933-1989
  • Subseries A: Incoming correspondence, alphabetical by last name, 1933-1989
  • Subseries B: Outgoing correspondence, alphabetical by last name, 1950-1988
  • Subseries C: Miscellaneous correspondence, 1945-1987
  • Subseries D: Research notes
  • Subseries E: Manuscript drafts
  • Subseries F: Miscellaneous
• Series II: Amy Cheney Beach documents, 1882-1944
  • Subseries A: Incoming correspondence, photocopies, alphabetical by last name, 1882-1944
  • Subseries B: Outgoing correspondence, 1900-1944
  • Subseries C: Miscellaneous correspondence, 1942-1945
  • Subseries D: Typed diaries, 1925-1944
  • Subseries E: Newspaper clippings
  • Subseries F: Miscellaneous

Series I: Walter S. Jenkins papers, 1933-1989

Subseries A: Incoming correspondence, alphabetical by last name, 1933-1989

Subseries B: Outgoing correspondence, alphabetical by last name, 1950-1988

Subseries C: Miscellaneous correspondence, 1945-1987

Subseries D: Research notes

Subseries E: Manuscript drafts

Subseries F: Miscellaneous

Series II: Amy Cheney Beach documents, 1882-1944

Subseries A: Incoming correspondence, photocopies, alphabetical by last name, 1882-1944

Subseries B: Outgoing correspondence, 1900-1944

Subseries C: Miscellaneous correspondence, 1942-1945

Subseries D: Typed diaries, 1925-1944

Subseries E: Newspaper clippings

Subseries F: Miscellaneous