Woman of the Century/Corinne Stocker

STOCKER. Miss Corinne, elocutionist and journalist, born in Orangeburg, S. C., 21st August, 1871, but Atlanta, Ga., claims her by adoption and education. Miss Stacker's great-great-grandfather fought under La Fayette to sustain the independence of the American colonies; her great grandfather was prominent in the war of 1812, and her grandfather and father both lent their efforts to aid the Southern Confederacy. Her maternal descent is from the French Huguenot. At an early age Corinne showed a decided histrionic talent. CORINNE STOCKER. In her ninth year she won the Peabody medal for elocution in the Atlanta schools, over competitors aged from eight to twenty-five years. In 1889 she was placed in the Cincinnati College of Music, where she made the most brilliant record in the history of the school, completing a four-year course in seven months. Prof. Pinkley, the master of elocution there, writes of her that among the thousands whom he has known and personally labored with he has found no one who gave surer promise of histrionic greatness. Her success as a parlor reader and as a teacher of elocution in the South has been pronounced. Her classes were large, and she numbered among her pupils some who were themselves ambitious teachers, and as old again in years. Her repertoire compasses a wide range of literature, from Marie Stuart and Rosalind to Stuart Phelps-Ward's "Madonna of the Tubs" and Whitcomb Riley's baby-dialect rhymes. After the first year of teaching Miss Stocker gave up her classes and accepted a position on the Atlanta "Journal," to do special work, in which line she has won great success. She continues her elocutionary studies and gives frequent parlor readings.