Weast Bichl, Emma G. (1870-1949) | University of Illinois Archives

Name: Weast Bichl, Emma G. (1870-1949)

Variant Name: Emma Weast, Emma Weast-Bichl, Emma Bichl

Historical Note: Emma Gertrude Weast Bichl (1870-1949) was born in Charlotte, Illinois on May 14, 1870. The daughter of a saloon owner Peter A. Weast and Anna Brown Weast, she grew up in Streator, Illinois. Both a harpist and a pianist, she trained with Edmund Schuecker, harpist with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in Chicago. In 1899, she married Joseph Peter Bichl. Throughout the early 1900s, she performed in numerous concerts around the city of Chicago, performing with the Ballmann Orchestra and the Metropolitan Orchestra of Chicago and at the Auditorium Theater, the Turner Hall, and the Bismarck Gardens. In the 1920s, Bichl served as a spokeswoman for the I-ON-A-CO electric belt system, which was a pseudoscientific device that was designed to cure many diseases including diabetes. Bichl died in Chicago on March 10, 1949.

Sources:

IONACO Advertisement featuring Bichl, The Los Angeles Times (February 18, 1926), 9.

Emma G. Bichl, US Find a Grave Index.

"Fine Harpist with Orchestra" The South Bend Tribune (IN) (January 21, 1905), 6.

"Pete Weast Will Is Contested by His Daughters: Former Streatorite Left Fortune For Heirs To Quarrel About," The Times (Streator, IL) (January 29, 1925), 5.

"Music," Chicago Tribune (November 15, 1903), 21.

Glenn Dillard Funn "Some Abuses of Music," The Inter Ocean (Chicago) (November 29, 1908), 37.

Note Author: Nolan Vallier