On display now through November 2020 at the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music at the University of Illinois in Champaign is “Anna Fay Herron and Bohumir Kryl: Mementos from the Women’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago,” an exhibit documenting Herron’s experiences as an oboist and member of the touring Kryl Women’s Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra toured the Midwest and East Coast between 1943 and 1949 under founder Bohumir Kryl; he was a Czech émigré. Several of the orchestra’s musicians had successful music careers after leaving Kryl’s orchestra; Herron, born and raised in Central Illinois, went on to a nearly fifty-year career as a local music educator and performer. In announcing the exhibit, the University of Illinois noted that by the start of World War II, most women’s symphonies had disbanded as their musicians began to gain footholds in male-dominated orchestras after men left their positions to serve overseas in the war.
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