How my project began... “Women Composers” was taught by a leather suit wearing, sports car driving, 70 year-old red head named Margaret Stephenson. I adored Mrs. Stephenson and planned to impress her with my “keen intellect.” She had plans for me as well. She strolled into class, set a stack of scores on the desk, and assigned each of my colleagues a prominent composer. I watched as Pauline Viardot, Josephine Lang, and Amy Marcy Cheney Beach were met with “Oh! How Exciting” faces. Margaret looked at her depleted pile of music, and said, “Here, Becky. Why don’t you try to find something on her.” I took the yellowed copy of In the Luxembourg Gardens. Kathleen Lockhart Manning? Oh, boy. My initial research led to nearly a hundred songs, including 12 song cycles, and rumors of 2 operas. Yet beyond the standard reference books, there was little written about the woman. I received a small grant, left Ohio for Los Angeles and spent countless hours digging through Pacific Coast Journals, the L.A. Times, and other dusty books. Using these resources and my best deductive reasoning, I scrapped together the biography of a charming, patrician socialite, a musician of adequate talent who sang briefly in Europe and composed as an avocation. Kathleen Lockhart Manning, a hat making, cream puff eating widow who went gently to her death. Was I ever wrong. In May of 2007, I was contacted by the grandson of Manning's cousin. Fortunately, I was sitting down when I read his e-mail. "I've read on-line that you have done considerable research on Kath, but that not much is known about her," he said. "I've got her diaries and scrapbooks, dating from 1908. Would you be interested in seeing them?" I can't repeat what I said, but it was high-pitched and loud. During the summer of 2007, I examined Manning's scrapbooks, read her diaries in disbelief, and returned to California in search of Kathleen. This time, I found her. I visited her historic home in the Hollywood hills, (see picture!) sat in her library and walked down the winding stairs that led to her and Ned's bedroom. I met Manning's great niece and nephew, who brought video footage of Ned and Kathleen's yachting escapades. And I fell in love with her family, who welcomed me into their home as if I were a Manning and not a Lanning. Who was Kathleen Lockhart Manning? A complex, extroverted, lovable steamroller who charmed everyone she met, including herself. A singer on the cusp of greatness who chose love over renown. A composer of varying quality whose music bridges the gap between the parlor and the art song. A widow whose grief begat drunkenness, paranoia and a complete mental breakdown. And at her death, she was the writer of a controversial will that split the family and made my jaw drop. There is much I could tell about destiny's hand in this project. Or is it someone else’s clutch? Kathleen was convinced that she communicated with the dead. Perhaps she has fine-tuned the process in reverse and has posthumously realized her dreams of stardom.