Mildred Carey-Wallace

Mildred Carey-Wallace was born near Dunedin. She was a pianist, singer and what used to be called an ‘elocutionist’, and her recitals were a mixture of all these talents. Charles Baeyertz, the notorious editor of The Triad, ‘A journal devoted to Literature, Art, Science and Music’ which was published from 1893 until the late 1920s, wrote ‘Miss Wallace played Beethoven and Chopin with the power and intellect of a man, and the insight and sympathy of a woman.’ Baeyertz was an adjudicator for Speech and Music of many competitions around New Zealand and from a young age Mildred had entered many that he adjudicated. They met again when she was twenty-two and a contestant in the Invercargill Competitions in 1911. She was teaching piano at that time. He began following her around and writing enthusiastic reviews of her in the magazine. By December 1912 their affair was revealed to the family and for the next two years he lived where he could and saw Mildred when he could, Baeyertz’s wife refusing to give him a divorce.

Baeyertz and Mildred moved to Sydney in June 1914 and Mildred gave birth to a son in 1915. After the First World War Baeyertz decided to promote Mildred’s career in America. They left Sydney in the middle of the influenza epidemic in 1919, but by Samoa she was dead. She was buried in Pago Pago. Baeyertz posthumously published Eight Monologues, which were very popular at the time, and Two Triolets and a Little Song. A preview in The Triad states, “Mere suburban bleating is the sort of thing that Mildred Carey-Wallace detested above all other distortions of the musical art she loved so well.” The only publically available holding of the songs is in the British Library.