Elsie Barge (October 12, 1898 – December 16, 1962) was an American pianist, music educator, and clubwoman.
Early life
Elsie Thomas Barge was born in Cordele, Georgia and raised in Brookhaven, Mississippi, the daughter of Thomas Cicero Barge and Laura Douglas Wilkins Barge. Her father was a businessman. Both of her parents were from Georgia. Her grandfather James Madison Barge was a Confederate States Army veteran of the American Civil War. As a young woman, she performed with her younger sister Frances, a violinist.
Later in life, Barge taught music in the schools of Brookhaven. She was also a speaker for the Mississippi Agricultural and Industrial Board. She organized the Fine Artists Series in Brookhaven, and founded the town's music club. She was active in the Mississippi Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, and the Mississippi Federation of Music Clubs. A scholarship to attend the latter federation's Transylvania Music Camp was named for Barge.
Personal life
Elsie Barge married twice, first to Scottish-born Chicago press agent Gardner Frederick Wilson in 1925. They had a daughter, Patrycia (1926–2000). She married again to chiropractor Morris Cook Hennington Sr. Elsie Barge Hennington died in 1962, aged 64 years, at a hospital in Jackson, Mississippi.
