Beverley Sitgreaves
Beverley Sitgreaves (born Susan Beverly Sitgreaves; April 17, 1863 – July 14, 1943) was an American stage actress and philanthropist whose theatre career spanned some 50 years. Early life Susan Beverly Sitgreaves was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 17, 1863, the eldest of six children raised by Julius A. and Eliza B. Sitgreaves. Her father, a native of South Carolina, worked as a copyist, and had married her mother, a Virginian, in 1862. Julius Sitgreaves was one of two men, the other, South Carolinian newspaper editor Edmund Ruffin, credited with firing the first shot in the American Civil War at the onset of the battle for Fort Sumter. At the time of his death in 1912, Julius was an editorial writer for the publication American Art News in New York City. Beverly received her early education at Mount de Chantal Academy near Wheeling, West Virginia, not far from where she and her family had settled after the war. Broadway actress Mansfield's Beau Brummel was staged at the Madison Square Theatre in May 1890, a play in four acts subdivided into six scenes. The plot held little intrigue for audiences which crowded the venue dressed fashionably. Sitgreaves was complimented