Zimbalist, Mary Louise Curtis Bok (06 August 1876–04 January 1970), founder and president of the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, and philanthropist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Cyrus H. K. Curtis and Louisa Knapp. When she was an infant the family moved to Philadelphia, where her father became an eminently successful publisher of newspapers and periodicals. Her parents were gifted musical amateurs, and music became one of her principal subjects when she received her formal education at the Ogontz School for Young Ladies in Abington, Pennsylvania—a school to which she contributed generously in later years. Her studies in piano and music theory were ably supervised by her mother, with whom she began extensive travels to Europe at the age of thirteen. In 1893 she became engaged to ...
