Leila Holterhoff, from a 1916 publication

Leila Holterhoff on horseback, from a 1917 publication

Leila Holterhoff (October 29, 1885 – February 21, 1968) was an American soprano concert singer from Los Angeles, California, who later (as Leila Mosher) became a psychoanalyst, translator, and philanthropist.

Early life

Leila S. Holterhoff was born in Dayton, Ohio and raised in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles,^[1] the daughter of Godfrey Holterhoff Jr. and Louise Schaeffer Lewis Holterhoff. Her father was a railroad, oil, and banking executive.^[2] Her aunt, Ida Holterhoff Holloway, was a notable painter based in Ohio.

Leila Holterhoff was blind from infancy. She attended the Marlborough School in Los Angeles. She studied piano as a girl, but concentrated on voice and languages when she traveled to Paris, Florence, and Berlin for further studies, especially with Edgar Stillman Kelley.^[3] She also earned a California teaching certificate in Latin.^[4]

Careers

Holterhoff performed to acclaim in Berlin in 1910.^[5] In 1911 she gave a series of concerts to benefit the Grand Ducal Institute for the Blind.^[6] On her return to North America, Holterhoff performed across the United States in 1910s, sometimes billed as "the Helen Keller of music.^[7] After her Chicago debut at the Ziegfeld Theatre in 1917, where a reporter found "the quality of the voice is exceedingly sweet and this – coupled with an engaging gentleness of manner in the singer combines to make her thoroughly charming."^[8]

Later in 1917, she gave a concert at Aeolian Hall in New York to benefit "blind soldiers in France".^[9] She became interested in helping disabled veterans more directly.^[10][11] After studying medicine and psychology at Columbia University and earning a medical degree in the 1920s, Leila Mosher earned another professional degree from the University of Vienna.^[12][13] She co-authored a book in French with René Maublanc, on blindness. Using her fluency in European languages, she worked as a translator at the First International Conference for the Blind in New York in 1931, sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind.^[14] Also in 1931, she also worked with the League of Nations in Geneva, for the International Bureau of Labor, on immigration issues.^[12]

Personal life

She was married twice, first to Bernard George Heyn in 1923;^[15] they divorced in 1925.^[16] Her second marriage was to Evan Royal Mosher by 1927.^[10] She and Mosher adopted two children, Ann and Allen. Leila Holterhoff Mosher died in 1968, aged 82 years, in Coronado, California.

References

External links

• Leila Holterhoff at Find a Grave