During the summer of 1898, Sissieretta Jones and her mother, Henrietta Joyner, moved into a house on the east side of Providence, Rhode Island, that Sissieretta would call home for the next 35 years. Henrietta bought the nine-room house at 7 Wheaton Street in July 1898. More than likely, Sissieretta put up the money for the home, put it in her mother’s name, and then made the monthly payments. Henrietta closed on the house a month after Sissieretta filed for divorce from her husband, David Richard Jones.
The house, located on the west side of Wheaton Street, was in the College Hill area of Providence’s East Side, near Brown University. It became her refuge and retreat during the summers. From 1898 until 1914, she spent nearly every year touring the country with her Black Patti Troubadours or Black Patti Musical Comedy Company between late August and late May. She looked forward each May to returning to Rhode Island to spend her summers. When she retired in early 1915 she made her home there.
Henrietta died in 1924 and ownership of the house at 7 Wheaton Street passed to Sissieretta. The retired vocalist lived there until her death in 1933. She had to borrow against the property at least twice during the last five years of her life. Upon her death, the house went into her estate. It was auctioned off in 1935 to pay her unpaid mortgage and outstanding loans.
The home no longer exists. It was torn down many years ago. In fact, Wheaton Street doesn’t exist anymore either. It was added to the end of Pratt Street, making it part of that street. The street sits below Prospect Terrace, home of the 14-foot granite statue (dedicated in 1939) of Rhode Island’s founder, Roger Williams, that looks out toward the city of Providence.
This is the fourth of what I hope will be a weekly blog about Sissieretta Jones, leading up to the publication of my book, Sissieretta Jones, “The Greatest Singer of Her Race,” 1868-1933, on May 15, 2012 by the University of South Carolina Press.
Maureen D. Lee
March 2, 2012