A Joint Project of the Sam Rayburn House Historic Site and the Fannin County Historical Commission
Celebrating America 250 with Spotlights of Fannin County Citizens Who Participated In or Witnessed Historical Events
Bonham, Texas -- Roberta Dodd (1895-1954) was born in the Tanktown section of Bonham. She attended Washington School and later worked as a waitress at Curtiss Boarding House.
The Chicago Daily News at that time wrote, "A voice with unusual charm, high and clear, yet soft. Her high notes are perfectly controlled and her pianissimo is of exquisite quality. Roberta Dodd expresses admirably all the joy and all the distress of the Negro spirituals."
She toured and performed over the next two years in many major US cities and at black colleges.
In Chicago she had met and married Capt. William Crawford, a black WWI officer and war hero. They later divorced.
Benefactors in Chicago arranged for her to travel to Paris for study.
Before sailing for Europe she returned to Bonham and gave a concert at the First Methodist Church and at the Fannin County Courthouse.
She was trapped in Paris when the Nazis occupied France in 1940. A German edict set out to eliminate “degenerate Jewish-Negro jazz” and all performances of black musicians were banned. Roberta later told friends that she had been sent to a concentration camp.
After liberation she worked for the American Red Cross and performed for US soldiers. Soldiers from Bonham sought her out in Paris at the urging of their mothers.
Her health was failing. She returned to Bonham in 1948. She never sang in public again. She moved to Dallas.
She died on June 14, 1954 in Dallas and was buried in Gates Hill Cemetery in Bonham in an unmarked grave. Her death certificate gives her name as Roberta Dodd Crawford.
