https://www.theancestorhunt.com/blog/rhode-island-online-historical-photos-research

Other harp owners and musicians

Try to find other members of the Alhambra Mandolin Orchestra. No other members were listed in the Worcester Directory that I know of. It would be cool to find out where/when/what they played.

#141 was bought by J. Ed. Handy of Passac, NJ.
#143 was bought by Dr. D. R. Frazer of Newark, NJ. Possibly Rev D.R. Frazer?

H. L. Jacobs

And this was possibly her husband?  Nope!

Crazy cat lady confirmed!

Kitty!

The lady in the upper right corner is the original owner of my harp. I would not be able to pick her out of a lineup. Her cats are mentioned much more than she is, so I didn't get much new information about her.

Clicking on the image does not give a full enough image to read. Maybe I will transcribe the article here. Someday. Ha!

Thanks to the Ask-A-Librarian folks at Providence Public Library for finding this article for me!

Ask RI

Askri.org was only able to find a death notice, not a full obituary.

The following was printed in the Providence Journal from March 15, 1915, page 3:

JACOBS-- In East Providence, on the 14th inst. Mabelle L. wife of H. L. Jacobs.
Funeral private. Interment at Worcester, Mass.
Worcester papers please copy.

To me, that sounds like the Worcester papers would only print a death notice, as well.

The Chatauquan

Mabelle Lynn Childs is included in the 1898 vol 27 edition of The Chautauquan in a list of "successful and widely known American harpists".

Crazy cat lady!

I found an article about Mabelle Lynn Childs/Jacobs that is more on the cat side of things.

The article link was broken, but the cached version still works. The article is in the Providence Journal (where she married Jacobs in 1909 after moving from Worcester) and titled "Midweek Time Lapse: Pampered cats of 1913 lived like royalty in East Providence" by Sheila Lennon on Sep 2, 2014 at 2:48 PM.

She started the Rhode Island Cat Club, built a bungalow to house either her cats, or the chickens and rabbits to feed her cats, (or both?), and sold them for a lot of money.

I can't find the link in the article that's reference by "As our Jan. 19, 1913 story above (click it to read a full-size page)", but I bet I can find it!

ATL'd original article
Emailed askri.orgfor obit