United States. A city symphony board was Oklahoma County Mental Health Association One’s great honor is to established and the Oklahoma Symphony was founded. As chair she engaged with have time and opportunity hosted regular performances from 1924 different clubs to book speakers and distribute to 1931. When the depression hit the leaflets with information about the state of to work on the many symphony was discontinued. Just six years mental health facilities in Oklahoma. Under community needs. Their later The Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra her leadership she built a network of 2,000 was created as a Federal Music Project members and it was at that time the largest realization is their reward. of the Works Progress Administration, and effort of any county in the United States. this organization is known today as the They worked to improve the institutions in MERLE BUTTRAM Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Oklahoma, providing much needed everyday Merle believed strongly that string supplies and enhancing the lives of patients music was important for Oklahoma students. with programs for music and art. In her own words, “Without strings, the The Buttrams moved to Nichols Hills Merle Buttram, far left, leading a club meeting, Merle Buttram with her violin, 1940. Courtesy The violin section of the Oklahoma Symphony 1952. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society. Oklahoma Historical Society. Orchestra, 1952. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society. great heritage of symphonic and chamber in 1938, after eight years of planning and music given us through the centuries by such construction of a beaux arts style home on masters as Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms a large, immaculately landscaped estate. It will be lost.” She worked closely with the was designed by famed architects Ayers and Oklahoma City School Board in establishing Ayers of San Antonio, Texas. The Buttram a string music program. In 1949 the program home in Nichols Hills was a showplace began, and some of the first students would of the city for many years and housed an eventually become string players in the extensive art collection with originals by Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra. Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Millet, Raphael, In the early 1950s, the conditions of the Gainsborough, and Leonardo da Vinci. The state’s mental health institutions came into home was often open for civic gatherings question, with reports of inadequate facilities and meetings for music and church groups. and lack of funding. Reverend Bill Alexander In 1976 Dorsey Buttram was asked The Oklahoma City Junior Symphony,1955. was tasked with addressing those issues and what kind of gatherings drew hundreds of Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society. formed a citizen’s state committee to work with people to the sprawling estate in Nichols the legislature. Merle was asked to be the Hills over the three decades his family lived chair for Oklahoma County, and thus the first there, he replied, “You should be asking 51 35