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CRAWFORD, ROBERTA DODD (1897-1954). Roberta Dodd Crawford, black contralto, also known as Princess Kojo Tovalou-Houenou, was born in 1897 in the black Tank Town section of Bonham, Texas, the oldest daughter among eight children born to Joe and Emma (Dunlap) Dodd. As a child she attended Washington School and later worked as a waitress at Curtis Boarding House. Her singing talent brought her to the attention of several Bonham women who arranged for her to perform at the Alexander Hotel and at several Bonham churches. With help from benefactors, she attended Wiley College at Marshall for two years, then entered Fisk University, where she studied with Roland Hayes. About 1920 she entered the University of Chicago, where for the next six years she studied voice with Madame Herman Devries. In 1926 she debuted at Kimball Hall and received favorable reviews from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Defender. While in Chicago she married Capt. William B. Crawford of the Eighth Illinois Regiment.

Two years later she performed at the First United Methodist Church in Bonham, where her program combined Italian, French, German, Spanish, and English art songs and operatic arias with Negro spirituals and at least one "primitive African melody." She then left for France to become a student of Blanche Marchessi in Paris. In 1931 she made her French debut by singing selections in five languages at the Salle Gaveau. Now widowed, she met Kojo Marc Tovalou-Houenou (or Marc Tovalou Quenum), a doctor and lawyer and Pan-African activist from Porto Novo, the capital of Dahomey in French West Africa. Some sources also refer to him as a prince. They married in 1932; he died about 1938. After his death, his widow returned to Paris. Unable to secure funds from her African property, she worked in the National Library of Paris and during World War IIqv joined the Red Cross and sang in churches and canteens for American soldiers. Suffering from anemia, she relied on friends for financial help and credited a Fort Worth physician with saving her life by getting surplus food coupons for her. She reportedly spent time in a concentration camp during the German occupation of France, but was released. In 1948 she returned to Bonham, but her poor physical and emotional health left her unwilling to perform again. She later moved to Dallas.

Roberta Crawford sang in several cities in the United States and at Spellman and Tuskegee universities as well as in Europe. She had no children. She died on June 14, 1954, in Dallas and was buried in Gates Hill Cemetery in Bonham.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bonham Daily Favorite, June 15, 1954, November 25, 1973. Fannin County Folks and Facts (Dallas: Taylor, 1977). Juanita C. Spencer, Bonham-Town of Bailey Inglish (Wolfe City, Texas: Henington, 1977). Pat Stephens, ed., Forgotten Dignity: The Black Community of Bonham...1880-1930 (Bonham, Texas: Progressive Citizens, 1984).

Nancy Baker Jones

SOURCE:
"CRAWFORD, ROBERTA DODD." The Handbook of Texas Online.