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This and That:
A Cultural Blog

Jean Lenox and Harry O. Sutton, Songwriters

10/31/2018

 
After stumbling across a funny anecdote involving Jean Lenox and Harry O. Sutton's visit to an "Old Ladies Home," I originally intended to share that one item, which sounded like something that could happen where my mom lives.

However, one thing led to another.  When I decided to see what else I might easily turn up about the song-writing team, I found other anecdotes.   A few contradictory newspaper items led me on a quest to determine Lenox's relationship to Sutton. 

How far should we trust the newspaper anecdotes?  To what extent might they have served as good public relations, perhaps to enhance the song-writing team's reputation?  Exactly who were Jean Lenox and Harry O. Sutton? What can we learn from newspapers and public records?  I'll admit to not finding clear-cut answers to some of my questions but will offer several reasons for the remaining mysteries.   Perhaps someone will have the curiosity and time to look for more.

Biographical Backgrounds and Mysteries

Harry O. Sutton (1881-1911)
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Harry Owen Sutton
Harry Owen Sutton was born August 19, 1881, the second child of Owen E. Sutton and Alice French Sutton.  On August 25, The [Naples] Neopolitan announced, "Owen E. Sutton is the happy possessor of boy No. 2."

Shortly before Harry's sixth birthday, a mishap nearly ended his life.  The July 20, 1887 Naples Record reported that he "fell into the water at the head of the mill flume near Crocker's factory. and but for the timely assistance of Mr. Crocker must have been drowned."

Sometime before the 1892 New York State Census,  Harry began living with his father's sister and her husband, Mary Louise Sutton Pierce and Frank G. Pierce, who ran a music business. Mary Louise was also the Presbyterian church organist for several years.

During a Presbyterian social at their home in early April, 1893, 11-year-old Harry gave what may have been his first public performance when he and his aunt entertained guests with their unspecified piano duet.
In mid-June, 1895, Harry and three other boys, all members of the Presbyterian Junior Christian Endeavor Society, sang John T. Kelly's I Long to See the Girl I Left Behind, published by one of the major firms that would publish Harry's work somewhat more than a decade later.

Less than a month after his quartet performance, Harry and a group of other Naples children performed a cantata based on "Little Red Riding Hood."
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Witmark, 1893
The March 8, 1911 Naples Record mentions a march, Black Diamond Express, composed by 12-year-old Harry Sutton.  I have not been able to verify this piece through newspapers or copyright records, but if Sutton composed it, he should have been older than reported.  The Lehigh Valley Railroad line's Black Diamond Express made its first run on May 18, 1996 when Harry would have been 15. 

In April 1898, a few months shy of 17, Harry Owen Sutton copyrighted his first song, Sweet Nancy Lee, with lyric by W. H. W. Leland. The July 13 Naples Record commented, "Harry O. Sutton, of Olean, formerly of Naples, has composed a beautiful waltz song entitled Sweet Nancy Lee.  It has been published and has proven popular in the large theaters."  The article does not specify theater names or locations although other articles mention the song.  In February 1902, for example, Rochester's Democrat and Chronicle described the song as "simple and melodious" and "well suited to the sentiment."


At least a third-generation musician,  Harry had begun early to carry on the Sutton tradition.

According to the 1865 New York State census for Naples and the 1870 U. S. Federal Census, his grandfather Myron Carl Sutton was a "farmer and music dealer."  Well before Harry's birth, this cornetist/violinist future grandfather also led Sutton's Band.  Naples took pride in its local music and in Sutton's music business as illustrated by the following excerpt from a lengthy poem published in the June 30, 1860 Naples Weekly Express:
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A June 5, 1929 Naples Record article published on the occasion of the ninety-first birthday of Mrs. Olive Case Sutton, Myron Sutton's wife and Harry's grandmother, identified her as "a fine musician" who "brought to this town the first piano, a large square one." People were said to have come "many miles to hear Mr. and Mrs. Sutton play."
Early census records reveal that Myron and Olive Sutton had several children, including Owen E. Sutton, eventually to become a musician, composer, band and orchestra leader, and father of Harry O. Sutton.  Like Myron, Owen Sutton played cornet.
As reported in the Naples Neopolitan, Owen Sutton's career had him on the move, performing from town to town, city to city. In late June 1880, he went to Rochester "to drum major in the Germania band again."  In September 1880, he traveled to Jamestown "to seek his fortune" and reportedly planned to move there permanently.  By summer 1881, he was traveling back and forth between Naples and Olean where he was "teaching a band."  In mid-December 1883, he wrote the Neopolitan to report being "well and happy" in Piedmont, West Virginia while "seeing the world" with Baird's Mammoth Minstrel Show. 
During or possibly before 1886, Owen Sutton settled in Rochester, providing music for a variety of venues, ranging from church Christmas programs to rollerskating rinks and horse races.  He worked with several bands in and around Rochester, directing the Arbuckle Military Band and The Fifty-fourth Regiment Band, and taking charge of developing a new band in Ontario, NY.  He also taught cornet at the Rochester Music Conservatory.
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Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, NY, Apr.10, 1890
Among the more than two-dozen O. E. Sutton compositions located in copyright records and newspapers are Fireman's Parade March (during or before June 1882, Scott R. Sutton, publisher), Silver Star Polka (during or before 1888); Flour City, lancers, The Smuggler, march, and Polonaise (during or before 1889); Trolley Polka (1896); The Electric Wave March (1897);  Post Express (during or before 1898); Young America, march and two-step (1898); Our Favorite, two-step (1898); Funeral March, The Golden Gates (1899); Salute to Sam Johnson, cakewalk & two-step (1899); The Darktown Swell, march in ragtime (1899); Magnolia, three-step (1900);The Honeymoon (1901); Brownies' Quickstep (1901) Colonel Henry's March (1902); Midnight Revelers (1903), Roosevelt and Fairbanks Campaign March (1904), The Newsboy's March (1905); and Solitaire, an Autumn Reverie (1905). 
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Download Electric Wave band score
Other O. E. Sutton pieces can be found on the same site.
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Download Young America sheet music
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Around 16, Harry left his aunt and uncle, the Pierces, and went to live with his mother, two siblings, his maternal grandmother, and his mother's sister.

Before his 18th birthday, Harry copyrighted Cotton Pickers Rag, Bon Air Waltz, and Aunt Jemima's Birthday Party. Because he was living in Olean, these pieces were originally published there although Harry O. Sutton Co. or Sutton Music Publishing Co., both of New York City, later reissued them.
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Cotton Pickers Rag showing publication by Sutton Music in Olean, 1899
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Publication information from another printing of Cotton Pickers Rag showing publication by Harry O.Sutton Col, 10 East 14th Street, New York
Listen to Cotton Pickers Rag
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Bon Air Waltz showing publication by Sutton Music Pub. Co, 34 East 21st St. New York City
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Potter Enterprise, Coudersport, PA
Listen to a piano roll arrangement of Cotton Pickers Rag
Download Bon Air Waltz
Harry knew his career path.  Although he was not yet 20, the 1900 census listed his occupation as "musician."

No doubt, Harry Sutton's musical family helped shape his career.  He would go on to compose an assortment of music ranging from cakewalk and coon songs to a comic operetta, many of the most successful pieces with lyricist Jean Lenox.
Although Owen Sutton had frequently been absent from home when Harry was small and started a new family in Rochester in 1893, he must have maintained contact with his first family or, at least, maintained interest in his second son.   Owen and 18-year-old Harry teamed up in Pennsylvania for a week-long series of concerts at a Wilkes-Barre department store, during which they promoted and sold their music: 
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Wilkes-Barre Times, Mar. 29, 1900
A couple years later, an item from the Olean Democrat indicates that Harry was still living in Olean and playing solo gigs:                      
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Reprinted in The Potter Enterprise, Coudersport, PA, Aug. 13, 1902
By 21, Harry had been working with an Olean orchestra and was ready for a career move from Olean to Manhattan.
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The Potter Enterprise, Coudersport, PA, Feb. 2, 1903, probably also reprinted from an Olean, NY paper
 According to the New York, New York Extracted Marriage Index, 1666-1937, Harry O. Sutton married Jean V. Lenox somewhere in Manhattan on September 22, 1903.  Ancestry.com provides only this information and a certificate number:  18672.  Unfortunately, the certificate is not available on the website as many are.  Marriage certainly helps explain how Harry O. Sutton and Jean Lenox became a songwriting team in 1904, the year their first collaborations appeared in copyright records.
A second marriage record for Harry Sutton raises questions.  On January 15, 1905, he married Vera G. Pearing in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The record identifies Harry's  birthplace as Naples, New York, and Vera's as Charleston, South Carolina.  Vera's parents are John Pearing and M. E. Ravenel.  The record identifies Harry Sutton's occupation as  "Musician" and Vera's as "At home."
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1905 Marriage Record for Harry O. Sutton and Vera G. Pearing, ages 23 and 21
Harry had married into another musical family.  A variety of military records on Ancestry and Fold3 reveal that Vera's father, John Pearing, had been a long-time U. S. Army band member.
A short time after their marriage, the 1905 New York State Census for Manhattan lists H. O. Sutton, "actor." and Mrs. H. O. Sutton, "actress," lodging at Hotel Markwell, West 49th Street.

Had Jean Lenox and Harry Sutton divorced, freeing him to marry again?   Interestingly, Harry and Vera's marriage record indicates this is the first marriage for both.  Given Jean Lenox's middle initial V. and a new actress wife according to the 1905 state census, Jean Lenox may have been Vera's stage name.  If so, this was a second marriage to the same women, using her legal name this time rather than her stage name.

At the time of writing, I have not found other public records for Vera Pearing, and Harry and Jean Lenox's relationship may not have been as simple as the two marriage records make it sound.
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Hotel Markwell
Pinpointing the precise relationship between Jean Lenox and Harry Sutton becomes increasingly complicated as we look at other sources. Further discussion of this mystery will appear below as I discuss Harry's death and what I know of Jean Lenox' s life.
Although I haven't found other records for Vera Pearing, I have located other children for John and Mary E. Pearing, including a daughter approximately six years older than Vera, based on Vera's reported age in 1905 when she married Harry Sutton.  Although the spelling varies, John and Mary E. Perring in the 1880 census are clearly Vera's parents from the 1905 marriage record--John, a soldier born in New York, and Mary E. born in South Carolina:
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Two-year-old daughter Jennie appears at the top of the next census page:
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Thus, Jennie was born in approximately 1878.  At the time of 1905 marriage, Vera gave her age as 21, meaning she should have been born sometime during the year preceding January 18, 1885. Based on the early 1905 marriage, most likely she was born in 1884.
Vera and Harry O. Sutton's Deaths.  Five years after marrying Vera, Harry appears in the 1910 census as a widower, age 29, working as manager of a music publishing house.  He is living with his 56-year old widow mother and his 3-year-old son Lloyd or Loyd; both spellings appear from record to record.  I have split the census record for legibility:
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1910 U.S. Federal Census
At least one problem exists with this census record.  Mary E. was not Harry Sutton's mother, whose name was Alice.  We have already seen that Mary E., born in South Carolina, was Vera Pearing's mother.   

Quite likely, the census taker jumped to wrong conclusions or was given incorrect information by someone else, such as a neighbor.  A less likely, but not impossible alternative, would be that Mary or Harry deceived the census taker for some reason.

From this census record, we can infer that Vera and her father had both died.  It is easy to conclude that Vera's widowed mother might find a new home with her son-in-law, helping care for her grandson. This arrangement could benefit all three.
Still in his 20s, Harry O. Sutton died on February 22, 1911.  Although his cause of death was not widely publicized, the February 25  Allentown [PA] Democrat provides some new information although not all specific or accurate:
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The article offers new information. 
  • Sutton had lived in Allentown and managed the music department of a local department store.
  • He and Raymond Hitchcock were cousins, a piece of information I haven't been able to verify but that, if true, could help explain Hitchcock's adoption of And the World Goes On and Lenox and Sutton's later association with M. Witmark & Sons, which published the book and music of several musicals in which Hitchcock starred.
  • During Sutton's last year, the "music publishing house" he managed, according to the 1910    U. S. census, may have been Witmark's publishing department.  However, Isidor Witmark and Isaac Goldberg's The Story of the House of Witmark doesn't mention Sutton; at least, he doesn't appear in the extensive index.
  • Jean Lenox is identified as Sutton's sister with no mention of a wife or deceased wife by any name or of a son.
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Harned-Early Company, Allentown, 1908, where Sutton once managed the music department
On the same day, The New York Times carried this brief announcement:
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Frank E. Campbell's Funeral Church, opened April 1899, 241 W. 23rd St.; now located at 1076 Madison Ave. and known as funeral home of celebrities, including Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Irving Berlin, Walter Cronkite, George Gershwin, Judy Garland, Jim Henson, John Lennon, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Igor Stravinsky, Arturo Toscanini, Mae West, and Rudolph Valentino.
A September 2019 update: Harry's Final Years.  Thanks to someone who  contacted me through my website and who has asked to be identified only as a Sutton relative, I have additional information pertaining to Harry Sutton's "failing health" and death.

Knowing that many of its readers knew Harry Sutton from his early years in Naples, the March 17, 1909 Naples News informed its readers of his illness and on-going treatment"
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From this information, we can estimate that Sutton became ill sometime during summer 1908, very shortly after he and Jean Lenox had launched their vaudeville act.
A March 8, 1911 Naples News article sent by the same Sutton relative adds, "He had been ill about four years and had stayed most of the time in the mountains near Allentown, Pa.  His death was sudden and a shock to his relatives, as we thought he was getting better." The article then lists his grandmother Olive M. Sutton, uncle Scott R. Sutton, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Pierce, who largely raised him, as his close Naples relatives.  Any of these people should have been able to provide information about the course of his illness, making it possible that Harry Sutton might have showed signs of illness as early as 1907.
With the information contained in these two articles, we have to wonder where Harry Sutton was living at the time of the 1910 census.  Were his mother-in-law and son living in his apartment while he was approximately a hundred miles away in the mountains near Allentown, PA?  Had he recovered sufficiently since his letter to the Pierces to have returned to New York City?  Was he in charge of the Witmark Publishing Department?
Harry O. Sutton is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Jean Lenox
Was Jean Lenox Harry O. Sutton's sister or his wife?  Evidence exists for both possibilities. 
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Looking at Jean's photo and Harry's, we might see a family resemblance to support the Allentown Democrat's claim that Harry had appeared in that city with his sister.
 Public records reveal little about Jean Lenox other than the reported but unavailable1903 marriage record on ancestry.com.  Jean Lenox next appears in the 1910 U. S. Federal Census, as a guest in a hotel, female, white, 26, single,  a native-born New Yorker with a New York-born father and South Carolina-born mother.  Rather than working as a songwriter, she is  a "writer" in the "literary" industry.

Her age in 1910 would indicate birth in approximately 1884, making her roughly three years younger than Harry, born in 1881.
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1910 U. S. Federal Census entry for Jean V. Lenox
Jean's mother's South Carolina birth brings to mind  Vera's mother's birthplace.  Jean's approximate 1884 birth also matches Vera's birth year, based on Vera's age when marrying Harry.
According to census records, Jean Lenox lived alone at least temporarily in 1910 while Harry lived with his small son and Vera's mother--a peculiar arrangement if Vera Pearing Sutton/Jean Lenox is still alive and living as Jean Lenox.

In 1912, Jean Lenox advertised for someone to care for a 5-year-old boy, a child the age Harry and Vera's son would have been a year after Harry's death:
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Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 9, 1912
A year later, Lenox sought someone older to fill a similar position:
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Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 13, 1913
Both advertisements conspicuously indicate Lenox's marital status (MISS JEAN LENOX)  and fail to identify her relationship to the boy.
The 1915 New York State Census either helps or further confuses the issue. 

Jean Lenox , 31, literary writer and head of household is living on Broadway at the Hotel Marseilles with a German-born maid and with Lloyd Sutton, 8, identified not as her son, but as her nephew.  Thus, the state census helps support a Harry Sutton-Jean Lenox sibling relationship.
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Hotel Marseilles, Broadway
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However, aside from Sutton's Allentown obituary saying that Sutton had performed with his sister Jean Lenox and the 1915 census identifying Loyd/Lloyd Sutton as her nephew, I have found no evidence to support the brother-sister relationship.
When Harry O. Sutton died, a brief article appearing in the town where Harry had lived as a boy with his aunt and uncle supports the likelihood that Vera Pearing and Jean Lenox were one and the same. 
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Naples News, Mar. 8, 1911
This item seems to tell us that the former Jean Lenox was Harry's wife at his time of death.

However, that still leaves us wondering why the 1910 census identifies Harry as a widower and the 1915 New York State Census identifies the boy as Jean's nephew.

By 1920, 13-year-old Loyd no longer lived in New York City with Jean Lenox, either  the boy's aunt or mother.  Instead, he was  living with Mary Pearing, his grandmother, and with Thomas Pearing, his uncle and Vera's brother.
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1920 U. S. Federal Census, District of Columbia
Mary and Thomas first appear in the 1918 Washington directory.  Thomas had found work as a clerk at the Treasury Department, but that may not have been their reason for moving to the District of Columbia.

National Archives records reveal that former army band member John Pearing, Mary's husband and Thomas and Vera's father, died in Washington, D. C. on December 3, 1918, and was interred in the Soldier's Home National Cemetery, now the United States Soldiers and Airmen's National Cemetery.  John Pearing's cause of death was tuberculosis, the same disease that had claimed Harry Sutton's life and that would claim Thomas Pearing's life in 1924.
Why was Loyd no longer with Jean Lenox as he had been five years earlier?  If Jean Lenox was really Loyd's aunt, how was she related to the Pearings? In other words, how could Jean Lenox be Loyd's aunt and Thomas Pearing Loyd's uncle?
Improbable as it sounds, it's not impossible.  According to birthdates appearing in census records, Vera had an older sister named Jennie.  Might Harry Sutton's first wife have been Jean Lenox/Jennie Pearing?   With Vera as a second wife and mother of Loyd, Jennie Pearing (stage name Jean Lenox) would have been as much young Loyd's aunt as Thomas Pearing was his uncle.

This would also mean that Harry could have been a widower as indicated by the 1910 census. Vera could have died while Jennie/Jean lived on to become Loyd's guardian for several years after 
Harry's 1911 death.

Finally, this scenario could explain why Mary E. Pearing might live with her son-in-law while Jean Lenox/Jennie Pearing lived elsewhere. Otherwise, it seems unlikely that Mary would live with her  son-in-law following a divorce from daughter Jennie.  However, if Harry next married Mary's younger daughter Vera,  Mary might logically care for the son of that deceased daughter--one of two daughters who had been married to the boy's father, Harry Sutton.

While this possibility would solve several mysteries, it would leave us with an age problem.  Jean Lenox and Vera Sutton appear to have been the same age, not Jean Lenox and Jennie Sutton.

The biggest question remains:  Who exactly was Jean Lenox--the boy's aunt or mother?
Loyd Sutton's 1943 Charlotte, North Carolina marriage certificate offers little help, listing his parents as Harry O. Sutton and Vera Sutton, both deceased.
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His 1952 Oregon death certificate proves more interesting.  Listing Harry O. Sutton as Loyd's father, it identifies his mother only by the first name Jean.
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Loyd Sutton's 1952 Death Certificate, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/86537208
A September 2019 Update: Part of the Pearing/Lenox Mystery Solved.  Thanks to Bill Edwards
(https://www. perfessorbill.com/) and again to the Sutton relative who contacted me through my website, I'm also able to add more about Jean Lenox's life and death as well as her relationship to Harry Sutton.
Bill Edwards sent two valuable public records.  To supplement the bare bones 1903 marriage record for Jean V. Lenox and Harry O. Sutton that I originally included in the Sutton biographical information, he supplied a more detailed record that provides the middle name Veronica and both parents' names: John Lenox and Helen M. Ravenel. At first glance, we might focus on Jean's father's surname and conclude she really was a Lenox.  However, her mother's maiden name, Ravenel, matches Vera Pearing's mother's maiden name (M. E. Ravenel), and her father's first name matches Vera's father's (John Pearing).  This record sent by Edwards supports the likelihood that Jean Lenox was Vera Pearing and introduces the possibilities that Vera may have been a nickname for Veronica. 

With M. E. Ravenel Pearing's name also appearing from place to place as Mary E., Ellen M.,  and Helen M., we can guess that this may have been an example of variations common in census records.

As for John Lenox, I first considered the possibility that Jean gave his middle name for the marriage record because she had previously adopted it as her pseudonym.  However, I found no middle name among the military and civilian records I had saved.  Even if John Pearing's middle name was Lenox, Jean supplied a false surname for her father when marrying  under her pseudonym.

Because this record came from familysearch.com, I checked the corresponding record for Harry Owen Sutton, and it provided slightly more detailed information although none of it is surprising.  It gave his birth place as Naples, NY, and age as 22; Jean's as Charleston, SC, and age as 20.
Edwards also located and suggested I look at a 1900 U. S. census entry for the John Faring family. He added that he was 90% sure that this was the Pearing family.
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1900 U, S. Federal Census
With John, Ellen M., Jennie (22), and Thomas (18), I had to agree.  The only person missing is Vera/Jean, who according to her age of 20 when she married Harry Sutton in 1903 and her age in later census records, should have been approximately 16.  Although a variety of reasons could explain her absence, it also raises a question:  Might Jennie and Vera/Jean have been the same person?

In answer to the possibility that Lenox may have been John Pearing's middle name, this is the only record in which I have seen what may be an initial for John Pearing although the letters and numbers immediately under Daisy's name and between John's surname and given name might  mean this is not an initial at all, but part of some census taker's notes. If an initial, it is almost certainly a T,  rather than an L for Lenox. Furthermore, it appears to be a first name, making John his middle name although the name he used.
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1900 U. S. Federal Census, enlarged
Although the initial between John's last and first names differs somewhat from the T starting his son Thomas' name, it differs far more from the L that is their neighbor Daisy's name at the top of the image. The horizontal line that could possibly make this initial an L is part of the E for wife Ellen M. 
The 1905 New York state census confirms that this 1900 record was for the Pearing family.  The 1905 census includes John, Ellen M., and Thomas F, now 23, but not Jennie.  In both the 1900 U.S. and 1905 state census, John is a ticket agent for the railroad.  We can easily explain Jennie's absence if Jennie, Jean, and Vera were the same person.  She had already married Harry Sutton.
Items received from the Sutton relative substantiate most of my earlier speculation.
The March 8, 1911 Naples News, quoted in the Harry Sutton biographical update above, comments not only on his death, but also on his wife and son:
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Although the first sentence contains an incorrect death date, the last sentence tells us that Jean Lenox was Loyd C. Sutton's mother, not his aunt.  We can conclude that Jean Lenox was Vera Pearing Sutton.

The same Sutton relative sent a transcription of another crucial item I hadn't been able to find. Armed with the date and page number, I tried again to locate the original and again temporarily failed.  The extremely dark copy of the New York Times I had accessed was illegible and unsearchable.  By using a different resource to read the same issue, I found Jean V. Sutton's/Jean Lenox's death announcement:
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New York Times, Aug. 26, 1919
The announcement not only identifies Jean V. Sutton as Jean Lenox but also confirms she was the  daughter of Mrs. Mary Pearing.  Since Jean V. Sutton had died in 1919, it also explains why the Sutton's son was living with her brother Thomas and mother at the time of the 1920 census.

After the Sutton relative contacted me he first time, he visited a nearby LDS library to search for more information.  One document he located was Jean V. Sutton's death certificate.  Given Harry's and her father's deaths from tuberculosis and Jean's young age at time of death, it comes as no surprise that she died of pulmonary tuberculosis.

However, the death certificate does contain a few surprises:
  • Jean was living at 1419 Columbia Rd. NW, Washington, D.C. at the time of death, not in New York City.  When I compared her address to Thomas and Mary Pearing's Washington address, they were the same. Jean and Loyd must have moved in with her brother and mother before her death, which followed Harry's death by eight and a half years and her father's by about eight months.
  • According to documents we have already seen, Jean should have been approximately 35 when she died, but the death certificate reveals she was 41.  Jean was not born in 1884, but on May 8, 1878, slightly more than three years before her husband and songwriting partner.  Jean did not have an older sister named Jennie.  Jean V. Sutton/Vera Pearing was not only Jean V. Lenox, but also Jennie Pearing, John and Mary Pearing's two-year-old daughter in the 1880 census.
  • Jean was not born in South Carolina as frequently claimed, but at Fort Hamilton, Long Island, New York, during her father's time in the military band.
Due to a lack of time, the Sutton relative providing this death certificate information was not able to obtain a copy of the original certificate the day he visited the LDS library.  He has offered to send me a scan after his next visit so that I can add it.

Several mysteries have been solved since my original Lenox and Sutton blog post on October 31, 2018, yet several others remain.

Although divorce was sometimes treated as death, I've found no evidence that Harry O Sutton and Jean V. Pearing Sutton had divorced. The New York Times death notice above refers to her as "beloved wife of the late Harry O. Sutton." 
Why was Harry listed as a widower in the 1910 census?  Was it an error on the census taker's part or something else?  Why did Jean Sutton live apart as Miss Jean Lenox during some of their married years?  And why did Miss Jean Lenox pass off her son as her nephew?

The most logical guess is that the team of Lenox and Sutton may have concealed their marital status for professional reasons.  Some of the articles and documents we have already seen may have intentionally concealed their marriage and facts of Jean's age and birthplace.  Others that we will see below do much the same.

Living as Miss Jean Lenox, Jean Vera Sutton may have identified Loyd as her nephew to avoid questions about his sudden appearance in her sole charge or to avoid the stigma of appearing to be an unwed mother.

Professional Careers

In the March 14, 1908 issue of Music Trade Review, Jean Lenox briefly describes meeting Harry O. Sutton while also providing some personal background.  Four and a half years into their marriage, she avoids mentioning anything other than a working relationship and formally refers to him as "Mr. Sutton":
In 1904, while engaged in writing short stories for the magazines, I chanced to meet Mr. Sutton, who sets music to most of my lyrics.  We were both ambitious,and between us we came to the conclusion that song writing might be made profitable if we could solve the mighty problem of getting a singer of note to place our efforts  before the public. 
Since the pair appears to have first married in September 1903, setting the meeting in 1904 seems to demonstrate her intentional misleading of her readers.
Early Song Successes
However Lenox and Sutton met, her story would probably ring true.  Few readers would have known them  before their first collaborations in late 1904:
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A First Show Hit
Jean Lenox's account of meeting Harry Sutton and searching for the right singer to make their work famous picks up again with an anecdote about writing a song for Eva Tanguay:
Our first opportunity came unexpectedly.  I had been introduced to Miss Eva Tanguay, as a 'writer,' and with an air of polite boredom Miss Tanguay inquired what sort of writer I was.  With my heart thumping at my audacity I murmured 'song writer,' and whether it was a desire to be polite or whether Miss Tanguay had a well defined sympathy for the song-writing craft, I have never since been able to discover.  Still in quite a sociable way she asked me to write her something.  A weak feeling came over me.  In my vivid imagination I was already counting prospective royalties.

As soon as I could rally sufficiently I managed to murmur 'delighted, I am sure,' or words to that effect.  I then asked what sort of song she required.  Miss Tanguay, who seemed to regret her hasty commission, remarked, 'I don't care as long as it's good.'  That night with the words 'I don't care' ringing in my ears, I sat up late--very late--and evolved my first lyric, which has since been presented in a printed form to the public under the title I Don't Care.

Wise ones have told me that to write that lyric I must have known Miss Tanguay all her life.  I consider it quite the prettiest compliment ever paid me. 

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Listen to Eva Tanguay sing I Don't Care
Listen to Judy Garland sing I Don't Care
Download I Don't Care sheetmusic
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Download Ragtime sheet music, another Lenox and Sutton song sung by Eva Tanguay
One could easily believe Lenox's story about meeting Tanguay and laboring into the night on the lyric suggested by Tanguay's words.  Was it the truth or a good tale to attract public attention?
In 1925, while in his 70s, actor Frank Norcross related a different version of the writing of what would become Tanguay's signature song.  Telling how he had conceived of The Sambo Girl and chosen Tanguay to star when she was still "only a 'song and dance girl' on the smaller vaudeville circuits," Norcross explained his memory of the day he invited two songwriters to meet Eva Tanguay:
A meeting was held in my office.  There were four of us, Eva, Harry Sutton and Jean Lenox, song-writers, and myself.  To the others I said, 'We've got to have a song that will fit Eva.  She has an unusual personality and it will have to be about that.' 

To these remarks, Eva replied, 'Say anything about me.  I don't care.'

'That's it!" I yelled, 'I don't care.'  And so we went to work on the song that was to make Eva famous. In about ten minutes we had it completed.

There's no rhyme or reason to it. Nobody could sing it but Eva Tanguay.  I sold it to a music publisher and he never made a dime on it.  I don't believe they sold twenty-five copies.  It was strictly a personality song and could only be sung by Eva Tanguay.  But the lyrics fitted Eva to a 'T' and the song has stuck to her ever since.

Whether Lenox and Sutton made Tanguay famous or Tanguay and Norcross made them famous, the right singer performed Lenox and Sutton's song and called attention to the fledgling songwriting team.

Growing Popularity

 The pair's second success followed closely on the heels of I Don't Care, and the right singer promoted it, too.

The New York Dramatic Mirror (Sept.30, 1905) provided a detailed account of the writing. 

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Raymond Hitchcock
Every one in the audiences that go to see Raymond Hitchcock in Easy Dawson goes out humming 'And the World Goes On.' The true story of how that remarkable catchy and catch-ony song was written few persons believe, but they are persons who haven't met Jean Lenox.  I have, and having met, believe. 

The song was written in twelve minutes, the music ditto.  This is the way it happened.  Jean Lenox, in the privacy of her apartment, was combing her hair.  It is long, dark, shining hair, and Jean herself is a smart, well turned out girl who was born in Charleston, S. C., a few years ago and has lived most of her life at army posts with her father, who was an officer.  But that is by the way.  Miss Lenox was combing her hair, and doing that, as she does everything, thoroughly. 

R-r-r-ding!   

Miss Lenox said 'Pshaw!' for, as I have said several times, she was combing her hair and a telephone is a delightful thing when you want it and a pestiferous thing when you don't.

'Well,' said Miss Lenox. She is one of those girls who by way of variety doesn't say 'Hello' through Mr. Bell's transmitter.

'Who is this?  Oh, Harry Sutton?  Yes.  Good morning, Mr. Sutton.'

'Henry W. Savage wants a song for Hitchcock,  Wants it bad.  Doesn't care about the theme.  Anything that will go.  Can you write some verses for it?'

'Yes.'

'When?'

'Now.'

'When shall I send for them?'


'Start your boy.  By the time he gets here they will be written.'

'Thank you.'

'Good-bye.'

'Good-bye.'

Miss Lenox went on combing her hair.  Out of the air, from the uncertain somewhere, came the light first phrase:

                                               't is sad to contemplate,'

and immediately from the same indefinite source came-----

                                              'And it's sadder to relate.'

Quite in sequence came, as Miss Lenox struggled with a stubborn snarl in her tresses,

                            'How this good old world forgets you when you're broke.'

When she had tied the end of her braid with a handy rubber band, she was muttering to herself, while she sought for an envelope from the morning's mail, the chorus,

                                        'And the world goes on just the same,
                                        And the problem is to find the one to blame,
                                        For there ain't much sense in whining
                                        When you're forced to give up dining,
                                        And the world goes on."'

Fastening the last pin in her hair, she scribbled with a bitten, demoralized, feminine looking pencil the last stanza, as she had improvised it.

'R-r-r-ding-ding!'  It was the telephone again.

'Well?'

'There's a boy here from a music publishing house.  What d' you say it was?  Oh, Joseph Stern's.'

'Send him up.'  Twelve minutes from the time the first telephone bell rang the messenger was on his way to Mr. Sutton with the scribbled lines, which receiving the composer sat down at his piano, struck chords and thought deeply.  'It,' that indefinable something that artists look for in the elements or in the human heart, and which others call inspiration, came after three minutes, and in twelve minutes he, too, had done his stint.  The combined efforts of the clever pair, therefore, covered less than half an hour.

A phenomenal feat to all appearances, but we cannot evade the fact of the preparation for such an achievement.  They had studied the elements that go to make up popular songs. They had written songs, written and failed, no doubt, and learned from their failures.  And when the chance came they were ready for it.

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Listen to And the World Goes On
Download And the World Goes On sheet music
Of questionable veracity, the story may have been good public relations.  It continues the ruse of professional distance. Lenox and Sutton seem little more than strangers. 

Stressing their mutual understanding of what might make a hit, it characterizes Jean Lenox as otherwise preoccupied with her beauty routine.

Still early in their joint career, this seems to have been image-making at work--an effort to create public interest in two young single people thrown together in the pop music world of their day--one a New Yorker and the other a Southern belle barely out of childhood although, in reality, she was approximately 27.

Retold by many newspapers over the next couple of years in varying degrees of detail, the story of the hit song written in minutes would have contributed to the pair's reputation.
Following Hitchcock's introduction of And the World Goes On,  the Music Trade Review outlined Lenox and Sutton's other noteworthy successes, ending with their exclusive contract with Joseph W. Stern:
Probably no artist has made arrangements to place more songs with prominent artists than Mr. Sutton, as the few examples mentioned below will indicate.  Raymond Hitchcock, the well-known star, who is being featured this year in a comedy called Easy Dawson, is featuring with enormous success his song entitled And the World Goes On, of which the lyric is written by Jean Lenox, and the music by Mr. Sutton.  Another of his songs is placed with the Shubert Bros' Babes in the Wood company, and is entitled In a Kiss.  It is one of the daintiest and best things Mr. Sutton has done.  Two other songs, Liz and In the Valley That the Sunshine Never Leaves, are being featured by the Primrose Minstrels, while a number of other songs are in preparation for different prominent musical comedy artists.  Mr. Sutton and his partner, Miss Lenox, have signed a contract to write exclusively for Stern & Co. for a number of years, and he has also placed the sole agency for the Sutton catalogue with this house, who are making active preparations to push the same.
Even territorial Hawaii must have been interested in Lenox and Sutton.  The Maui News soon carried an item about Liz:
It is really curious how certain songs seem to take hold of audiences and please them more than anything else they may hear in a long program of music.  This is just the case with Liz, the clever darkey love song by Jean Lenox and Harry O. Sutton.  It is being made a special feature by the Primrose Minstrels, and makes itself easily the greatest hit in the entire production. 
That popularity probably stemmed in part from the singer. George H. Primrose had chosen Liz as the only song he, himself, performed in the show.
Before the end of 1905, another popular performer promoted one of the songwriting team's songs:
Anna Laughlin, late of The Wizard of Oz and now in vaudeville, is singing Won't You Take Me Home with You, written by Jean Lenox and Harry Sutton.  Miss Laughlin considers this song one of the daintiest songs of the season. 
By early March 1906, the Music Trade Review announced that "the youngest team  of songwriters known to the realm of popular music, at least so far as the length of their term of co-partnership" had signed a contract  to write exclusively for M. Witmark & Sons:
With the signing of the contract, they handed the Witmarks a hit in the song Let Good Enough Alone, now being sung in The Galloper by Raymond Hitchcock, who is taking his audiences by storm with its aid. . . . The team of Lenox and Sutton . . . have, within a short time, written some remarkable successes, among them Smile on Me, sung by Eddie Leonard, Virginia Earle and a host of other bright lights of the musical stage--another recent Witmark hit.

Other noteworthy songs from their pen, which are soon to see daylight, are Persuasion and Love Dreams.  These will be featured by such popular professionals as Eva Tanguay, Anna Laughlin, Adele Ritchie, Truly Shattuck, Pauline Hall, Blanche Ring, Irene Bentley, George Primrose and many others who have sung their compositions heretofore.  M. Witmark & Sons are bringing out, in addition to their songs, a patrol and two-step by Mr. Sutton called The Galloper, which is played at each performance of the comedy.

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Download Smile on Me sheet music
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An Uncharacteristic Project
Perhaps because Witmark published a large number of operettas and other musical theater works, Lenox and Sutton turned out a one-act romantic operetta before the end of the year. Telling the story of obstacles encountered by a matador and the woman with whom he planned to elope, the operetta was described containing music "of the classical style."
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Although The Rose of Castile might have suited Witmark's catalog of short productions marketed for educational and other non-professional productions, Lenox and Sutton's popularity probably also resulted in its vaudeville debut at Union Square theater.  Variety's "New Acts of the Week" column included the following mixed review:
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Anecdotes Related to Lenox's Name
Shortly after Witmark copyrighted The Rose of Castile,  an anecdote in the New York Dramatic Mirror revealed that Lenox's exact relationship to Harry O. Sutton was not the main source of confusion in the minds of some contemporaries.  Stereotyping composers as male and perhaps thinking of others such as Jean Havez and Jean Schwartz,  some of Lenox and Sutton's contemporaries assumed Jean Lenox was a man.
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Harry Guilfoil, of much vaudeville fame, heard the song Let Good Enough Alone, by the author of  As the World Goes On.

'I like that song,' he said.  'I know the truth of it better than the next one.  I've been broke myself.  I'd like to meet the fellow that wrote it.'

'We'll see that you do.'

The promise was kept. Mr. Guilfoil received a pleasant note signed Jean Lenox, written in a big, sprawly, fashionable hand, inviting him to join the writer's guests at the writer's apartment the next evening.  Guilfoil frowned when he approached the magic number and heard silvery and unmistakably feminine voices within. 

'Thought it was going to be a stag,' he grumbled.

The frown disappeared when the door opened and he was facing a tall, dark-eyed girl in white, a veritable Gibson girl.

'Beg pardon,' he said.  'There is some mistake.  I was invited to meet Jean Lenox.'

' am Jean Lenox.'

'Your--I mean your brother.'

'I haven't a brother.'

'But--you're not the fellow who wrote Let Good Enough Alone?'

'I am the fellow.'

'But Jean is a man's name.'

'And a girl's. Do come in, foolish, and meet my other guests.'


                                                     --New York Dramatic Mirror, Dec.1,1906
Minus Lenox's claim that she didn't have a brother, a similar story appeared in the a Indianapolis Star:
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Indianapolis Star, July 5, 1908
Miss Jean Lenox, the versatile little woman song writer, newspaper woman and magazine contributor, whose songs, Won't You Take a Little Walk with Me, All the Boys Look Good to Me, Whistle If You Want Me, Dear, Acushla, Love Dreams, Let Good Enough Alone, and I'd Rather Be Like Paw, had a rather unique experience recently of being introduced to herself.

Miss Lenox received an invitation through a mutual friend to attend a reception given by a prominent New York society woman.  This friend, in extending the invitation, offered the fact of a prominent song writer being the guest of honor as an inducement to Miss Lenox to attend.

On the night of the reception the hostess, on hearing Miss Lenox's name, gushingly cried:

'Why, how strange, our guest of honor is named Lenox--Mr. Jean Lenox, the noted song writer!  I must present you to him,' and without further ado she hustled the astounded woman song writer up to the guest of honor and effusively presented her to him.

Miss Lenox has a keen sense of humor and said nothing to arouse the suspicion of the 'faker,' but she decided to expose him in her own way.  Quickly she called a messenger and sent to her home for some copies of her songs, and when they arrived she asked the unsuspecting Mr. Jean Lenox if he wouldn't favor the assemblage with some of his songs.

'Strange as it may seem,' he confessed, 'I can not sing my songs without the music.'

This was what Miss Lenox was waiting for and she quickly produced three or four sheets of her music and invited him to the piano.  The fellow couldn't play a note, and after a pitiful attempt to carry out the bluff Miss Lenox called him and after thoroughly exposing him the hostess turned him from the house.

Entering Vaudeville
Already a song-writing team, Lenox and Sutton launched a vaudeville career.  On April 19, 1908, Jean Lenox made her singing debut in Easton, Pennsylvania. Due to amusing stage mishaps, she and Harry Sutton were lucky to have had this relatively obscure debut before opening in New York:
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Scranton Republican, June 24, 1908, several weeks after the Easton debut
With a bit of practice behind them, Lenox and Sutton opened at Keith and Proctor's 58th Street Theatre.  As indicated by an advertisement, people still had trouble with Lenox's name: 
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The Sun, Apr 26, 1908
Although the following article from the May 16 Auburn Citizen would incorrectly lead us to conclude that Lenox and Sutton didn't open in New York until May 10, it praises the pair's performance and predicts further vaudeville success:
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The opening racing auto effect of the 1907 Hippodrome show The Auto Race probably inspired Lenox and Sutton's flying auto/piano effect.
Download In an Auto Car sheet music
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Written in schottische time, Whistle If You Want Me Dear, which told of a village maiden's love for young Willie Brown, suited the barn dance craze.
 On June 20, Billboard announced that United Booking Offices had awarded the pair a thirty-five week contract on the Keith & Proctor Circuit and added, "The act which she and Mr. Sutton are putting on is filled with many novel surprises which, together with Miss Lenox's charming personality, should make it a winner everywhere it is played."  Reports of their performances soon appeared in Harrisburg, Allentown, and Reading, Pennsylvania.
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Portion of an Orpheum Theater program, Allentown, PA, Sept. 12, 1908; for the week beginning Sept. 14

From Vaudeville to the Old Ladies Home

Another of Lenox and Sutton's vaudeville tunes provided an entertaining story for Billboard's mid-December 1908 issue.  Newspapers indicate that the incident occurred in mid-November:
Harry O. Sutton and Miss Jean Lenox, that clever pair of song writers, who recently entered vaudeville, had a remarkable experience last week.

Sutton and Lenox are the writers of some dozen of songs, among them being the big march success, In Grandma's Day. This song, besides having a beautiful melody, is filled with sweet sentiment which appeals particularly to older people. The story of its verse, which was written by Miss Lenox, tells of an old person's longing for the good old songs of fifty years ago, and in the chorus little strains of these old songs are cleverly interwoven in the melody.

Now, Miss Lenox, who has always been a great respecter of age, volunteered to sing for the Old Ladies Home in one of the cities where she appeared recently, and Harry Sutton went along to accompany her on the piano.

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One of the songs they sang was In Grandmother's Day, which made a tremendous hit with the fifty old ladies present, and at the conclusion one of them asked who had written it.  Miss Lenox modestly replied that she and Mr. Sutton were the authors.

At this juncture, the enthused old lady planted a resounding kiss on Miss Lenox's lips with a 'God bless you' and passed it along to Mr. Sutton. The other 49 old ladies, after their surprise, quickly followed the example of their aged sister, and before the two song writers left the room, they were the most thoroughly kissed young couple in the country.

Lenox, the Writer
Shortly after Lenox and Sutton's New York vaudeville debut,  the Indianapolis Star noted that Lenox's newspaper and short story writing experience had prompted the press to focus attention on her new vaudeville career, and added that she had turned down an editing offer by a well-known women's magazine in favor of "a flattering salary" on the vaudeville stage.
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Indianapolis Star, June 14, 1908
Due to Lenox's success not only as a lyricist, but also as a reporter and fiction writer, the  June 6, 1908 Billboard issue reported that performer Grace Leonard had awarded Lenox the contract to write her new act.  Having achieved success during the current season performing Lenox and Sutton's All the Boys Look Good to Me, Leonard gave Lenox nearly carte blanche control over the act, stipulating only that Lenox write that tune into the act and compose another for it. Harry Sutton probably wrote the music for whatever new lyric Lenox wrote for Leonard.
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If Jean Lenox was 26 at the time of the 1910 census, we have to wonder how she had achieved a reputation as a reporter and fiction writer before teaming up with Sutton in 1904 at age 20. This problem is solved by her more recently discovered correct age.  Because Jean Lenox was also 2-year-old Jennie Pearing in the 1880 census, she was 6 years older than most later documents lead us to believe.
An End to Lenox & Sutton
Lenox and Sutton's vaudeville career ended shortly after it began.  I have found no further mention of such performances after November 1908. Most likely, Lenox and Sutton did not fulfill the 35-week Keith & Proctor circuit contract.

Their time with Witmark, which began in early 1906, seems to have ended with that publisher's January 12, 1909 copyright on A Reckless Sort of Chap.
On October 21 and November 16, 1909, Remick copyrighted what appear to have been Lenox and Sutton's final joint projects, Little Lady and I Wonder.  On October 23, Stern copyrighted Sutton's instrumental Sabbath Bells, a reverie.

For 1910,  I have found only one copyright--Sutton's vocal orchestra arrangement of their 1908 song My Dream of Long Ago. 

Sutton's declining health, which forced him to seek treatment in Allentown, had ended Lenox and Sutton's expanding career.

Jean Lenox After Harry O. Sutton
With Harry Sutton's illness and death, Jean Lenox's life changed again. At appears that she temporarily gave up performing to raise young Loyd.  Although she had turned down an editorship in 1908 to pursue a vaudeville career, we have already seen that the 1910 U.S. Federal Census and 1915 New York State Census indicate that she soon turned primarily to "literary" writing--although the nature and scope of that writing isn't entirely clear.
Copyright records and other sources yield a small number of collaborations with other composers,  including one in 1911 with St. Louis-born Edna Williams, who composed briefly for Joseph Stern before starting a long-term business career in the film industry.
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Never again did Jean Lenox form a songwriting partnership such as she shared for a few years with husband Harry O. Sutton.  A short list of her later songs will be found near the end of this page.
Lenox's short remaining life is not easily documented.  A March 1912 New York Daily Tribune item about a benefit for Washington Heights Hospital lists Lenox and a Mr. Spencer as among the performers currently in the Eddie Foy company.  Mr. Spencer may have been composer Herbert Spencer or a later collaborator, Fred Spencer. 

In 1914, she appears in Trow's Directory for Manhattan and the Bronx as Jean V. Lenox with the occupation "pictures."  Since the 1910 U.S. and 1915 NY censuses list her as a "literary" writer, we can guess that at least part of that writing was for the film industry.
By late 1917,  Norma Talmadge had cast Lenox in a supporting film role.  Although I cannot rule out earlier Lenox film roles, this is the first role located.
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New York Sun, Nov. 11, 1917
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Actor-producer Norma Talmadge
Roughly a year later, Lenox spent six months in L. A. editing film scripts and performing in a few films.  Eight years after Harry O. Sutton's death, the New York Clipper still believed that Lenox and Sutton were siblings:
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New York Clipper, June 11, 1919
Just over two months after leaving L. A., Jean Lenox was dead.

William Christopher O'Hare had arranged some of Lenox and Sutton's music for band and orchestra.  Now he and Jean Lenox share a final resting place--Washington, D. C.'s Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Works by Lenox and/or Sutton

Sutton without Lenox

Sweet Nancy Lee, words W. W. Leland, music Harry O. Sutton, 
        Harry O. Sutton, 1898
Cotton-Pickers Rag, Harry O. Sutton, 1899
Bon-Air Waltz, Harry O. Sutton, 1899
Aunt Jemima’s Birthday Party,
Harry O.
        Sutton, 1899
Hazelmere Waltzes, Harry O. Sutton, 1901
Moonlight Caprice, Shapiro, Bernstein, & Co, 1903
Where I’ll Meet Her By and By, Harry O. Sutton, 1903
Kokomo, A Japanese Serenade, for piano, Harry O. Sutton, 
        1904
La Vérité, valse, Stern, 1905
The Galloper, Witmark, 1906
Does It Pay?, words Florian Zittel, music Harry O. Sutton,
        Witmark,1907
Sabbath Bells,
reverie, Stern, 1909
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Download Kokomo sheet music
Lenox and Sutton
In the Valley That the Sunshine Never Leaves, Harry O. Sutton,  
        Olean, NY, 1904
Rosie McGee, Harry O. Sutton, Olean, NY, 1904
Kokomo, A Japanese Serenade (song), Sutton Music Co., NY, 
       1904
Ragtime, Shapiro, Remick & Co, 1904
I Don’t Care, Jerome Remick, 1905
Liz, Jos. Stern, 1905
And the World Goes On, Stern ,1905
In a Kiss, Stern, 1905
The Lily and the Rose, Stern, 1906
I’m Trying to Find a Sweetheart, Remick, 1905
Won’t You Take Me Home with You, Remick, 1905
Thou Art Mine, Remick, 1905
A Ragtime Jap, Remick, 1906
You’re In Love, M. Witmark & Sons, 1906
Let Good Enough Alone, Witmark 1906
Smile on Me, Witmark, 1906
Use Diplomacy, Witmark, 1906
The Lily and the Rose, Stern, 1906
Love Dreams, Witmark, 1906
It Was Persuasion, Witmark, 1906
Acushla, Witmark, 1906
Rose of Castile, romantic operetta in one act, Witmark, 1906
Old Yankee Land for Me, Witmark 1907
All the Girls Look Good to Me, Witmark, 1907
Won’t You Take a Little Walk with Me, Witmark, 1907
I’d Rather Be Like Paw, Witmark, 1908
In an Auto Car, Witmark, 1908
My Dream of Long Ago, Witmark, 1908
Sweet Yesterthoughts, Witmark, 1908
Whistle If You Want Me, Dear, Witmark, 1908
In Grandma’s Day, Witmark, 1908
A Reckless Sort of Chap, Witmark,1909
I Wonder, Remick, 1909
Little Lady, Remick, 1909
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I'm Trying to Find a Sweetheart
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Download I'd Rather Be Like Paw sheet music
Lenox after Sutton
June Rose, words Jean Lenox, music Edna Williams, Stern, 1911
I Want a Regular Gal for a Pal, words Jean Lenox, music George Christie, Witmark, 1911
Sweet Memories, words Jean Lenox, music Fred Spencer, Wenrich-Howard, 1913
Pierrot and Pierrette, words Jean Lenox and Ray Sterling, music L. Edwards, Stern, 1916
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Download sheet music
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View sheet music

Lenox and Sutton Tunes Arranged by W. C. O'Hare

The Galloper, intermezzo; orchestra, 1906
Smile on Me; orchestra, band, song for cornet, song for trombone, 1906
Love Dreams, waltz,  Intro. It Was Persuasion; orchestra, 1906
Smile on Me; female quartet, male quartet, 1908
Won't You Take a Little Walk with Me, barn dance; orchestra, 1908
In Grandma's Day, march and two-step; orchestra, 1908
Whistle If You Want Me, Dear, barn dance; orchestra, 1908

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    I am a retired community college professor and the great-granddaughter of composer, orchestrator,  arranger, organist, and teacher William Christopher O'Hare.

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