Roberta Dodd

Roberta Dodd (1895-1954) was born in the Tanktown section of Bonham. She attended Washington School and later worked as a waitress at Curtiss Boarding House.

As a youth she sang in local churches, the Opera House and the Alexander Hotel.

With help from five socially prominent white women benefactors from Bonham she attended Wiley College in Marshall Tx for two years, then entered Fisk College in Chicago. After that she entered Chicago Musical College where she studied for six years.

Her debut concern in Chicago was a huge success and received rave newspaper reviews. She toured and performed over the next two years in many major US cities and at black colleges..

Her concert program included classical pieces as well as contemporary black composers. In her concert program she sang in German, Italian, French, Spanish and English, and included works by Bach and Brahms.

In Chicago she had met and married Capt. William Crawford, a rare black WWI officer and war hero. They later divorced.

Benefactors in Chicago arranged for her to travel to Paris for study. Before sailing for Europe she returned to Bonham and gave a concert at the First Methodist Church and at the Fannin County Courthouse.

In Paris Roberta married an African prince, Kojo Marc Tovalou-Houenou in 1932. He died in 1938.

She was trapped in Paris when the Nazis occupied France in 1940. A German edict set out to eliminate “degenerate Jewish-Negro jazz” and all performances of black musicians were banned. Roberta later told friends that she had been sent to a concentration camp.

After liberation she worked for the American Red Cross and performed for US soldiers. Soldiers from Bonham sought her out in Paris at the urging of their mothers.

Her health was failing. She returned to Bonham in 1948. She never sang in public again. She moved to Dallas.

She died on June 14, 1954 and was buried in Gates Hill Cemetery in Bonham.

Sadly, no recordings of her performances have yet to be located.