Jennie Kimball

Jennie Kimball (also, Jennie Kimball Flaherty and Jennie Kimball Schaefer; June 20, 1848 – March 23, 1896) was an American actress, soubrette, and theatrical manager.

She appeared first at The Boston Theatre in 1865. After the success made by her daughter Corinne in H.M.S. Pinafore, Kimball retired from the stage herself and became Corinne's manager. Kimball was interested in several theatres. She was a woman of remarkable business ability. She personally superintended all of the work connected with the theatre and the companies in which she was interested; wrote her own advertising matter and superintended the work of the scenic artists, occupying a unique position among women of the time.

Early years Jennie Kimball was born in Portland, Maine, June 20, 1848. a piano dealer of Boston.

Corinne, who became a comic opera prima donna, was born Christmas Day, 1875, in Boston, and made her first public appearance four years later at the Boston National Baby Show. She was adopted a year later by Kimball, who exploited “The Little Corinne” as a child actress from the time she was six years old, making continuous tours all over the country, but maintaining a home in Philadelphia and perpetually fighting Prevention of Cruelty to Children societies. Corinne’s first part was Little Buttercup, in “Pinafore,” but when she was still a child, she starred in the prima donna roles in Olivette, The Mascotte, and dozens of light operas. She made her most conspicuous success when she was fifteen in Monte Cristo Jr., which was produced in New York in 1888. The mystery concerning the parentage of Corinne (she was never known by any other name) was carefully fostered by Kimball for advertising purposes, and at various times it was given out that she was the offspring of derelict nobility and had been snatched from dreadful surroundings by Kimball; that she was an octoroon, and that she was the daughter of H. R. Jacobs and an Italian wife, although the manager never had an Italian wife.

Thomas died in 1892. On October 1, 1893, at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she married Arling Schaefer, a banjo player in her company. Kimball died in her private car at Saint Paul Union Depot, Saint Paul, Minnesota, March 23, 1896, of pneumonia. Services were held at the Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston. It was then said that she left Corinne a large fortune, the proceeds of profits from the Kimball Opera Company, which for years she had managed with Corinne as the star.