- [Announcer] Funding for this program was made possible by WQED's Members, The Allegheny Regional Asset District and the Pittsburgh Foundation.

Thank you.

(uptempo music) - [Man] The house became a refuge for African American artists.

- [Woman] And one of them was Mary Cardwell Dawson.

- [Woman 2] Her reputation was all over the country.

Many of her students went on to really do fine things.

- [Woman 3] She founded the National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh in this house.

- The house has national significance.

- Everyone in the world should know that a treasure like this exists in Pittsburgh.

- [Mary] But what will become of this grand old home where legends gathered, where some people can still hear the music?

- Unfinished business, the music played on, just waiting for someone to pick up the chorus.

- [Mary] Where Madam Dawson's opera company opened doors for generations to come.

- She left a legacy that is worth fighting for.

- [Mary] Also featured.

(piano music) - [Patricia] I can remember sitting at that piano thinking this is what I want to do with my life.

- [Mary] What a life it's been for Patricia Prattis Jennings, another groundbreaking artist from Pittsburgh.

- The Pittsburgh Symphony was rather progressive.

- [Mary] She was the first African American woman awarded a full contract by a major US orchestra, making music, making history and now reflecting on a remarkable career.

- [Patricia] As long as my fingers are willing to do it, I think I should honor them.

(film strip advancing) - It was really named Mystery Manor.

It was a mystery.

- We identified this as being, having national significance.

- [Man] It was used to entertain and it was used to host people.

- We used to start naming names.

The people who came through this house who learned music, who stayed here.

- [Man] People like Cab Calloway.

- [Man 2] Roberto Clemente, Lena Horne, Ahmad Jamal.

- Sarah Vaughn.

She would come into Pittsburgh, she would stay there.

(horns playing) If the walls of that house could talk.

- Oh, they would talk all day long.

- Oh boy.

That would be wonderful, wouldn't it?

Now that would be wonderful.

- [Michael] Barbara Lee lives in a nursing home now and needs oxygen around the clock.

In her wheelchair she passes the rooms of others where inside memories are fading but not Barbara's, especially her memories of a place just a few miles away, 7101 Apple street.

- Oh yeah.

We had a glorious time in that house.

It was gorgeous.

Stained glass windows - [Michael] But those windows were broken or stolen long ago.

- [Barbara] And up on the third floor was the ballroom, dancing.

- [Michael] And all signs of life are long gone.

- It was quite a showpiece and it could be again.

- [Michael] Barbara Lee hopes so, she has a special connection to this grand old Victorian which sits on the border of Pittsburgh's Homewood and Lincoln Lemington neighborhoods.

Many Pittsburghers don't know it, but the National Negro Opera Company started in this house.

Even fewer know the story of the woman who founded it.

Barbara's aunt, Mary Cardwell Dawson.

- I was Aunt Mary's secretary, her confidant.

I traveled with her.

- [Michael] And it was quite a journey for Mary Cardwell Dawson.

During an era when few African Americans had access to opera and classical music training, this woman would teach and inspire generations.

- Oh, Aunt Mary was delightful.

She was quite a musician.

She could do it all.

- Mary Cardwell was raised in Munhall but had to leave the Pittsburgh area to further her dream of a musical education.

- She couldn't get in to Pitt.

So she had to go to New England to get into a university.

- [Michael] By 1925, Mary had degrees in piano and voice from the New England Conservatory.

She later studied in Chicago, New York and hoped for a career in opera.

- [Barbara] She was a singer, an impresario.

- [Michael] But America wasn't ready for a black opera singer.

Mary would have to pass her dream down to others.

- She used to say all the time, the richest child is poor without a musical education.

- [Michael] So Mary Cardwell Dawson taught.

Her school of music boasted an impressive faculty and trained hundreds of young African Americans.

First on Frankstown Avenue, then later Apple Street.

Students came from all over Western Pennsylvania to learn from Madam Dawson.

She stood barely five feet tall in high heels, but had a bigger than life reputation.

- Oh tough, she was a hard task master that everybody would tell you that.

She got their results.

- [Michael] In the 1930s, she formed the Cardwell Dawson Choir, getting rave reviews wherever they performed - [Barbara] The critics, they loved her.

If Mary Cardwell Dawson sent out a choir, it was a choir.

- [Michael] Along with the awards came a prestigious invitation to perform at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

And she was elected president of the National Association of Negro Musicians.

- [Barbara] Her reputation was all over the country, you see.

- [Michael] Talented, smart, and charming, Mary spent years networking, holding fundraisers, selling tickets.

Her devoted husband Walter pitched in too.

His salary as a master electrician and Mary's drive kept the music going.

(opera music) In 1941, Madam Mary Cardwell Dawson took that music to a new level.

She founded the National Negro Opera Company, opening new doors behind this third floor window in Pittsburgh.

(opera soloist) - [Barbara] Many of her students went on to really do fine things.

You know, Ahmad Jamal.

Now he was one of Aunt Mary's pupils, Bobby McFerrin, he was the first black male to sing at the Metropolitan Opera house.

- [Michael] Madam Dawson worked with pioneering soprano La Julia Rhea, who is the National Negro Opera Company's first Aida.

Mary mentored Napoleon Reed, a former stockyard worker who later went on to Broadway.

The opera company expanded with chapters in Chicago, New York and Washington.

Here's a photo of Mary with Richard Nixon in 1955.

This is a check to the opera company signed by Eleanor Roosevelt.

And as Mary's national reputation grew, the house on Apple Street remained a beacon in the Black community of Pittsburgh.

- Anything that was going on for the community, it kicked off there.

- There would be some great deals.

Great business deals done there.

The entertainment there was first class.

- [Michael] John Brewer is a Pittsburgh historian, now piecing together the legacy of this old house.

And it's a legacy dating back to 1894.

The first owner on record George Schaffer, much more though is known from 1930 on, when William "Woogie" Harris bought the house.

Harris would partner with another well connected businessman Gus Greenlee using the home to host high society and with the famous or infamous, always coming and going, the house earned the nickname Mystery Manor.

- [John] It was a mystery.

It was an enigma to many people who lived in that area.

It seated up rather high.

So therefore you get the feeling of royalty when you walk around that house.

- Harris and Greenlee were like royalty in the community and they kept the house humming with social events, benefits and parties.

- Woogie Harris, and Gus Greenlee were in fact the bank of the black community.

I guess the proper word would be digitarians.

Woogie Harris was in fact, a numbers man, as was Gus Greenlee.

They were the driving force behind the clubs.

They were the driving force behind the Negro baseball teams.

- Greenlee's wife, Mayme opened a top shelf tea room in the house and Mystery Manor welcomed people who weren't welcome elsewhere.

- The hotels were segregated.

They were always very prominent people coming in town.

- [Michael] People like Lena Horne, Joe Lewis and Roberto Clemente.

- The house became a refuge for African American artists and for professionals who were not able to get accommodations at the hotels.

There's no other place in this Homewood Brushing district that has that kind of richness, that kind of history.

(upbeat jazz music) - As I was just driving by one day I saw the plaque, got out of my car, read the plaque.

And I was amazed that something like this was in Pittsburgh.

- [Michael] But by now the surrounding neighborhood was not what it once was.

On Apple Street, owners had come and gone.

The house was empty when Jonnet Solomon bought it from the bank in 2000, along with a friend Mariam White.

They paid $18,000 with hopes of raising more money to reopen as a community center with another music school and tea room.

- Starting a nonprofit, running a nonprofit.

And it's a huge task.

It's a lot bigger than I thought it was.

- [Michael] Among the challenges, potential investors had little or no knowledge of the history here.

Previous owners had sectioned the house into apartments, removed the grand staircase, sold most of the original fixtures.

With no money for improvements, high hopes have turned into frustration.

- It's even been suggested that we tear it down and rebuild, but it wouldn't be the same.

- [Michael] Good intentions dissolved by decay and vandalism.

- People have just basically ripped the house apart.

- It's just a piece that should be preserved.

- And everyone in the world should know that a treasure like this exists in Pittsburgh.

(construction sounds) - We have a few more board ups to do on the lower level.

- These are kind of unique, you know, windows.

- [Michael] Saving local history is what these people do.

- Hopefully that's sturdy.

- [Michael] Dan Holland runs the Young Preservationist Association of Pittsburgh.

- We call ourselves the young preservationist to get more young people involved.

What all we're trying to do is continue the legacy that the older generation has created.

- [Michael] On this day Dan's volunteers are joined by Renew Pittsburgh, yet another community group that stepped up when they heard the house was in danger.

- And now our effort is to start to build a coalition to try to bring this property back to what it deserves to be.

- [Michael] Outside, they've boarded up windows and gotten rid of things that aren't worth saving.

Inside, they take stock of what is.

- In here, some of the original paneling.

- And it's a beautiful floor.

- This is oak, this is plaster, you can, it's down to the lat and that can be re plastered.

- [Michael] It can be restored, but not without more help and lots of money, an estimated $2 million.

- That's gonna take a little bit of work.

Even though in the grand scheme of things, $2 million for a house that has national significance on a property of roughly four to seven acres of land, it's worth the investment.

I think they're from the top part.

I see potential.

I see this place restored.

I see people coming in and out of it, using it.

I see a community asset, I see the pride and hope of Pittsburgh - [Michael] Pride and hope that passed through this house decades ago with the likes of Mary Cardwell Dawson.

When Madam Dawson died in 1962, her National Negro Opera Company died too, but its spirit is very much alive.

- Oh yes, I think there's music coming outta that house.

- It was like unfinished business.

You know, the music played on and played on and just waiting for someone to pick up the chorus.

(piano music) - I hear the grand piano going.

- [Michael] Barbara Lee has kept that music in her memory, kept her Aunt Mary's wedding ring on her finger.

- She left a love of good music, an appreciation of the arts.

A legacy that is worth fighting for.

- [Michael] It's a fight that Barbara Lee has entrusted to the next generation.

- I sometimes feel just overwhelmed that we have something that's this rich and many people still don't know about it.

- But this house is so important and to lose it would be a huge loss for Pittsburgh, a huge loss.

- I never think that thought.

I always think of what can we do to keep this house standing?

And it's still here.

So it's still possible.

(film tape advancing) - [Chris] Hardly a day goes by you won't find Patricia Prattis Jennings practicing on the piano.

It's a routine she started years ago and continues even though she retired from the Pittsburgh symphony orchestra back in 2006.

- I try to practice every day because I never know when I'm going to be asked to do some sort of a little gig.

I think that when you have a talent you shouldn't let it just die completely.

I don't have arthritis in my fingers.

So as long as my fingers are willing to do it I think I should honor them by using them.

- [Chris] Those nimble fingers along with extraordinary talent and skill helped her maintain her position as principal keyboardist with the PSO for more than 42 years, an accomplishment in of itself.

But it seems from the start Jennings was destined to make history.

In 1964 she became the first African American woman to be awarded a full contract by a major US orchestra.

Do you miss it?

- There are things about being in the orchestra that I definitely miss.

It's an experience like no other.

And I don't think we appreciate these things until they no longer exist.

It's in retrospect that you appreciate what it was like.

(playing piano) - [Chris] What it was like was exciting and challenging.

A job where she got to work with many famous musicians and singers and there were many opportunities to travel across the globe, but it was a demanding profession, requiring strict discipline and dedication.

- One does not do these things without working very, very hard, spending many, many, many hours at the piano.

Learning concertos, learning piano reductions, where the orchestra part is reduced so that the piano can play.

Because I had to do much of that when soloists would come to town.

(playing piano) I wasn't always happy about having to do that, because I felt that it was taking time away from music that I would be performing as the featured person.

- [Chris] Performing is something Jennings has always enjoyed.

She began to play at age five after her parents bought a piano.

- And I started taking piano lessons and I must have progressed fairly well because by the age of seven I was playing for teas at Wesley Center AME Zion Church.

And I can remember sitting at that piano playing, thinking this is what I want to do with my life.

I was going to be a musician.

- [Chris] This love of music led her to soon take up another instrument, the violin.

- So I began to take violin lessons and quickly became a member of the Lemington School Orchestra.

By the age of 12, I decided that two instruments was one too many to concentrate on.

So I stopped taking violin lessons, but I didn't stop playing the violin.

But I played in the All City Orchestra of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony.

I played in the Westinghouse High School orchestra.

- [Chris] But the piano would prove to be her first and last love.

At the tender age of 14, she made her debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

- There used to be something called the Pittsburgh Symphony Jr., in which high school students sat chair for chair with the members of the big orchestra.

But then in 1956, I was invited to be the piano soloist.

It gives you an idea that the Pittsburgh Symphony was rather progressive.

It's only in looking back that I understand how proud Pittsburghers must have been to have this little African American girl in her blue satin dress on the stage.

- [Chris] Jenning's musical ability so impressed symphony members that they eventually hired her.

- In 1964, I was hired by Dr.

William Steinberg, who was for many years the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, but the next conductor was Andre Previn.

- What was it like to play with Andre Previn in the Pittsburgh?

- Well, it was like a dream come true.

I played twice for the opening show of Previn in the Pittsburgh, 1977 and 78.

(orchestra music) - [Announcer] Previn and the Pittsburgh.

- This series is nationally broadcast television series.

I think that he might have thought that it would be good to showcase this African American young woman, that it would be good for the orchestra.

- [Chris] Jennings would go on to work under two other musical directors, Lauren Bissell and Morris Johnson.

But now retired, she's turned much of her attention to another artistic medium, writing.

A talent she might well have inherited from her father P.L.

Prattis.

- He was the editor of the "Pittsburgh Courier."

And I think that writing and reading have always been important in our family.

And I've always been a big letter writer.

- [Chris] But not just letters, Jennings also wrote articles for the "Pittsburgh Post Gazette."

And from 1988 to 1994, she published a newsletter called Symphonium, which highlighted the accomplishments of African American musicians.

- And this is Paul Ross.

- [Chris] Now she can add one more title to her list of accomplishments, that of book author.

In 2013 she wrote, "In one era and out the other," a collection of contemporary essays.

- I write about what pops into my mind and I have nothing but admiration for novelists and story writers because I can't make anything up.

Everything that I write is true.

I guess, perhaps you might call me a reporter.

- Like your dad?

- Maybe so.

I definitely feel as if I've got quote the writing gene or printer's ink in my veins, which has come out later in life.

That's so corny.

- It really is.

- [Chris] In her later life Jennings has more than enough to keep her busy, but now she also has more time to spend with her husband, Charles Johnson.

- He is the most admirable person I know.

We have been married for 30 years.

Were at not for him, I don't know where I'd be.

I probably would not be sitting here talking to you.

- Really?

- He's been such a wonderful support.

He's a role model for me.

- [Chris] And Jennings has become a role model for other aspiring musicians, although she's too modest to say so.

- I just look back and think how fortunate I've been that I hope I've done a good job.

And been an inspiration to some people.

All I can hope is that they see me on stage, see me playing and perhaps aspire to do something similar to what I've done.

(playing piano) (film tape advancing) (soft music)