en:bio:grace_hilborn

Grace Hilborn

Grace Hilborn was the only child of Congressman Samuel Greeley Hilborn (1834–1899). She was one of the first generation of young American women who were passionate about Hawaiian music and performing as ukulele players.

Queen Lili'uokalani writes about her performance in Washington in 1897 in Hawaii's Story:

While I was at the Shoreham, Mr. Hilborn called, and introduced his wife and daughter; and the beautiful voice of Miss Grace Hilborn, as she sang some of my own Hawaiian songs, to our instrument, the ukulele, gave to me that joy, so sadly sweet, of listening to the sounds of home in foreign lands.

In 1907 she married the businessman Anderson Lincoln Jenkins (born about 1861).1) Her further whereabouts remain in the dark.


1)
Oakland Tribune, 13.4.1907