Mary Eastman

Mary Hewitt Tippett Eastman (born July 21, 1911) was an American lyric soprano

Early years Eastman was born Mary Hewitt When she was a child she went to live with her uncle and, at his request, began calling him "Father". In 1937 she said, "In fact, hardly anyone knows to this day that he's not my real father." Tippett was president of International Products Corporation, and she was of French and English descent. Her siblings were all musically talented, and she could play piano by age 7 although she had no lessons on the instrument. She was more interested in singing, however. Her family could not afford vocal lessons, but her uncle provided that opportunity. He was moving from South America to Chicago, and he offered to take her with him so that she could study music there, which she did. That move led to her taking her uncle's last name and looking on him as her father. She began taking vocal lessons at age 10, and she studied for three years at Chicago Musical College. From 1938 to 1941 she was the featured female singer on Saturday Night Serenade. Waltz Time, Melody Masterpiece, and Voice of America. In 1938 Eastman signed a contract with the World Broadcasting System to make a series of transcriptions of operettas. She began using Eastman as her professional name when she began performing with Lawrence Tibbett. The similar sounds of their last names led to a coin toss to determine which one would change. Tibbett won the toss, so Mary Tippett began performing as Mary Eastman.

By 1939, Eastman's repertoire included: 53 major arias from 19 operas in French, German, Italian, and Russian

Personal life and death She married Lee Semmes Eastman, an executive with the Packard Motor Car Company, on August 8, 1932, in New Rochelle, New York.

On February 21, 1969, Eastman died at the age of 57 at Bethesda Hospital in Delray Beach, Florida, of injuries sustained 11 days earlier in an automobile accident in that city, where she and Lee Eastman had maintained a winter residence. Survived by her husband and children, as well as two brothers and two sisters, her funeral was held—and her remains interred—in Greenwich, Connecticut, where the Eastmans had resided during the rest of the year.