Creating Fiction from History: 11/17/2021

Adell Peregrine Huffman emerged into this cold, cruel world on a warm fall day in 1852. On September the 22nd of that year, the day after her parent's first anniversary, she set the stage for her life by singing her lungs out!

As heiress to the family business, Adell married the Barnard half of the equation on the 6th of September, 1871. The picture included was taken on the occasion of her 19th birthday, just over two weeks after she married her partner in business, Alonzo Barnard. This was also the day of her debut as a lounge singer at "The Parrot," across the Mississippi River in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, about 50 miles from their studio in Waukon.

Although she is most well-known for her half of the family business, Adell went on to become a fairly famous singer at her favored venue in LaCrosse, belting out old favorites as well as her own work. With her unique sound and talent as a singer/songwriter (the first female as such, west of the Mississippi), she soon became the favored crowd-pleaser, not only at "The Parrot" but in the surrounding region. Even some of the larger gentleman's clubs back East were clamoring for her attention.

Although Waukon was all Adell ever knew for a home, she was actually introduced to this world a bit further south and west, in Castalia, Iowa. Growing up, as she did, in her family's photography studio, Adell was always known for her sweet, lilting voice as it followed her around the studio. It even showed up in the church choir on Sundays. Perrin and Chasta Huffman, her parents, while encouraging her to pursue that voice, were yet not pleased with the direction in which it took her. Though her father continued to work in their studio for 20 some years after his stroke, it eventually led to his death in July of 1894. He was a mere 61, which was old enough, I guess, for that era.

Want to create fiction from history? Stop by the Ledger office and choose a photo from the Jefferson Valley Museum Archives to create a fictional story from.