A quiet, gray box on a shelf in the archives of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County contains the fascinating story of a little known Quincy woman.
Elsa Hoskins made her operatic debut far from here in Italy, where she sang the role of Carmen, but she came from Midwest pioneer stock. Elsa was born in 1894 in Pearl, where her father held the post of engineer at the pumping station on the Illinois River. The family lived in a two-story log house, and she reported that when floods came, they simply moved everything upstairs and tied the boats to a second story window. In 1898, when Elsa was 4, the family moved to Quincy.
Elsa got her first taste of public attention in 1899, when President William McKinley came to Quincy to review the Illinois Soldiers' and Sailors' Home. He spoke to a huge crowd in Washington Park. Five-year-old Elsa was there, watching from her perch atop her father's shoulders. Her uncle, Capt. William Sommerville, who accompanied McKinley, was on the stage with the president and spotted his niece. Elsa loved to tell the story of how her uncle lifted her from her father's shoulders and sat her on McKinley's lap on the grandstand. She never forgot the honor.
This young woman began her path to fame quietly enough, working for Reib's Ready to Wear, which in 1910 was located in rooms at the Newcomb Hotel at 111 N. Fourth. By 1914, the store had moved to 521 Maine. Elsa worked as a model and sales clerk in 1912. For two years, she also worked as a lifeguard and swimming instructor at Highland Pool, where she was known for her diving prowess. Elsa, a strong swimmer, swam across the Mississippi River from the Missouri banks to Quincy. The newspaper reported that she was the first woman to accomplish the feat of crossing the river by swimming through the mighty current.
Elsa described the next stage of her early career and travels saying, "Then I went into song and dance, of course, light variety. Straight heavy drama followed and with the Clifton Mallory Company. I made almost every town in the United States and Canada. That was how I learned to act."
Acting played an important part in her career, but it was her voice that held the future. Elsa studied in Chicago at the Bush Conservatory of Music, where they recommended that she continue to develop her talent with a teacher in Italy. In preparation for singing operatically, Elsa studied the Italian, Spanish and French languages. On Oct. 14, 1928, Miss Hoskins gave a farewell performance in Quincy before leaving for Italy. She received rave reviews from the local press.
Her first Italian mentor was Alfredo Martins, a famous singing coach. Martins was connected with the Costanzi Opera Company of Italy and acted as singing coach to many famous opera stars. According to Elsa, he "directed the smallest details of my life, even criticizing my clothes and selecting my dentist." After about a year, she moved on to another voice coach. In April 1931 she won the leading role in Cavalleria Rusticana, staged by "a grand opera company" in Italy in the town of Civitavecchia.
When Italy's political climate worsened under Benito Mussolini's control, she decided to return to Quincy after spending two-and-a-half years abroad. Once home, she was received with open arms. In an interview with the Quincy Herald-Whig on July 12, 1931, Elsa talked about the differences between Italy and America, saying, "The independence of woman is frowned upon and their rules of etiquette are very strict." She also said the fear of Mussolini was growing. She never met with the dictator, but did have an audience with the pope before returning home.
In 1936 Elsa wed James Thompson, who had served 14 years in the U.S. Army and was stage manager of the WPA Opera, where Elsa was serving as director of the company. After they were married, Thompson served with the Quincy police as a special deputy for the next 14 years.
The married couple also established a business called Thompson Nuts & Candies, at a residence at 1639 Vermont. Then in 1940 they purchased a building at 1720 N. 12th, where they opened "The Elsan" which featured a restaurant and had rented rooms. The restaurant offered, "All the fried chicken you can eat for a dollar," but lasted only about a year before it closed. Next the couple planted an orchard of peach trees and raspberry bushes and converted the rooms to furnished apartments, according to Elsa's typed autobiographical notes.
Mr. Thompson became a leading parakeet breeder, and was noted throughout the Midwest for raising albino parakeets and other rare varieties. The parakeets were soon joined by numerous other birds and pets, ranging from dogs, "alley cats" and pigeons to a pair of monkeys. In 1951, the Thompsons believed they were the only people in Quincy to have monkeys as pets. The monkeys created quite a sensation with visitors, but were not too friendly. Elsa recounted that at one time they housed over one thousand parakeets, plus love birds, parrots, the monkeys and several raccoons and foxes.
Always the innovators, the Thompsons established a trailer park in the early 1950s, just as the homes-on-wheels were becoming popular. In l952, ads boasted that one could get a home that "costs under $8,000, sports the newest in modern utilities and colorful furnishings and is easy to keep clean." And one could park it with the Thompsons. The city directory from 1956 lists only two other trailer parks in Quincy. The Thompson Trailer Park closed in 1957.
Elsa Thompson lived 85 years, and in many ways exemplified the story of Quincyans through the years. She began humbly, achieved greatness at home and on the larger stage, and created her own niche.
It is stories like this, and the notes and scribbled memoirs and scrap books left behind, that personalize history and make it come alive.
Beth Lane is the author of "Lies Told Under Oath," the story of the 1912 Pfanschmidt murders near Payson, and executive director of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County.