Estelle Ricketts

Estelle Ricketts was an American composer.

Personal life

Ricketts lived in Darby, Pennsylvania, which is now a suburb of Philadelphia. She lived with her mother, her younger brother, and her father, who operated a boarding stable. Her father was born into slavery in Maryland and self emancipated about age 11. He ended up in Darby Pennsylvania, taken in by Quakers John and Rachel Hunt. There he was educated at the Darby Friends School. He graduated and became a farmer at the Sharon Boarding Academy. About age 27, he was tricked and kidnapped and taken to Baltimore to be sold into slavery. Because he was literate, he was able to get a letter to Friends in Darby who rescued him.
see https://www.swarthmore.edu/friends-historical-library/underground-railroad-and-sharon-female-academy-delaware-county

Career

Estelle Ricketts's 1893 parlor piano piece Rippling Spring Waltz is the earliest known piano solo written by a black woman. Rickets is mentioned in a book entitled "The Work of the Afro-American Woman" written by Gertrude Bustill Mossell. This book highlights the achievements of African-American women in all different disciplines, and was published in 1908.