Bertha Alice Stanfield Dempsey
(August 4, 1890 to July 25, 1926)
Compositions    
1911
The Cabbage Rag
1912
That Touchy Kid: Rag
Uncle Zeke's Medley Rag
1914
Evelyn Waltz
President's Parade: Waltz
Genevieve: Song
1919
America's Pinch Hit March [as Bertha Stanfield Dempsey]
1922
Moon Man [w/Erwin Davis]
Bertha Stanfield was a born in rural Seneca, Newton County, Missouri to William Hall Stanfield and Mary Delina Niswanger. She was the youngest of five children, including brothers Harrison Clayton "Harry" (2/20/1870), Aaron Elijah (11/3/1875), James Orson Pratt (4/21/1880), and one older sister, Sarah Jane (1873). The family, comprised of William, Mary, Orson and Bertha, was shown in the 1900 census living on the Shawnee Nation Indian Reservation in southeast Kansas, with William and Orson working as farmers, the same occupation William had listed in 1880 while living in Buffalo Township, Newton County, Missouri. For the 1905 Kansas state census, the Stanfields were residing in Eminence Township, Kansas, about 50 miles south of Emporia, with Mary working as a weaver and William and Orson as farmers.america's pinch hit march cover It also indicated that at some point William had been honorably discharged from military service under a Kansas enlistment.
The Stanfields relocated to nearby Clifton Township, Wilson County, Kansas, over the next decade, where in the 1910 census William was shown simply to have his own income and Bertha, now close to 20, had no profession listed. Her cousin Lillie was living with the family as well. The following year Bertha had her first piece published, The Cabbage Rag, printed over the border in Joplin, Missouri. She soon moved to nearby Baxter Springs, Kansas, where two more lively rags found their way into print, That Touchy Kid and the vivacious and eclectic Uncle Zeke's Medley Rag. The motivation for the title of Uncle Zeke is unclear, but this virbrant work is one of her best, with an unusual 17 measures in the A section creating an interesting effect in the middle of that strain.
As it turns out, that was the end of her rag output. Bertha was married to Royal Etna "Roy" Dempsey of Lowry City, Missouri, on March 13, 1913. However, she still published under her maiden name with two waltzes coming out of Baxter Springs in 1914, Evelyn and President's Parade. The couple had a son, James Franklin S. "Frankie", who as per the 1915 Kansas state and 1920 Federal censuses and his burial record may have been born on July 2, 1912, but circumstances behind that are not clear, so he might have been from a previous relationship for either one of them. Roy was a manager for the local Home Telephone Company. He reportedly enlisted in the U.S. Army prior to World War I, but died on February 8, 1915 of tuberculosis, which was possibly contracted at an Army Camp somewhere in the United States, leaving Bertha a widow with a young son. Bertha did her own part for the war effort by touring the country playing with a band. According to a family member as relayed to ragtime historian Nora Hulse, they recalled a picture of Bertha poised at the piano on a railroad flatcar on the tour.
Now working as an operator for Home Telephone, a job first started around or even before Roy's demise, Bertha released one of her last two pieces in 1919, the baseball-themed America's Pinch Hit March, "The Hit That Ended the World's Greatest War," which was published under her married name in Joplin. The 1920 census showed that she and Frankie had moved back in with her parents in Baxter Springs, and she was now the chief operator at the local telephone exchange. Her father William was working as a janitor. One other work, the song Moon Man, to lyrics by Erwin Davis, was self-issued by Erwin and Bertha in 1922.
Bertha continued in her capacity with the telephone company until a bout with pneumonia in 1926 that took her life a week short of her 36th birthday. In her obituary there was no mention of her musical abilities or experiences. She was still greatly honored at the service by her fellow telephone company workers and three different preachers, along with her surviving family members except for Aaron who was now living in Southern California. Frankie died on March 28, 1928 at his grandmother's home at around 16 years of age. We are left wanting to have heard more from Bertha, but grateful for what she did leave behind in the ragtime genre.
Thanks as always to Ragtime Women historian Nora Hulse, provided much of the information here through her regional and local research in Baxter Springs, Kansas. Remaining demographics were researched by the author in Joplin, Missouri, Baxter Springs, Kansas, and in public records.
Article Copyright© by the author, Bill Edwards. Research notes and sources available on request at ragpiano.com - click on Bill's head.