We are pleased to reinstate our Silverbrook Legacies Series. Presented in partnership with Friends of Silverbrook Cemetery, the series focuses on the lives of those buried in the cemetery and Niles during the times they lived here. Please join Editor Katie Rohman and writer Kathie Hempel at Friends of Silverbrook Cemetery’s annual meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. tonight at the Law Enforcement Complex, 1600 Silverbrook Ave., Niles. We invite you to share stories of your relatives, memories of Niles and suggest those you might like to see featured in future columns. Photos are always welcomed.

In its day, Niles was home to a renowned theatrical presence. During the heyday of vaudeville, this was home to some of the darlings of the stage.

These were talented performers, who didn’t get retakes, edits or synthesizers to enhance musical numbers, and who traveled the country and the world to bring entertainment to packed theater houses. Among the best of their time were Jeppe and Fannie DeLano.

The announcement of his death, carried in this newspaper March 13, 1925, stated “…that to speak of one was to think of the other.”

They met as performers with The Peak Family troupe, also based out of Niles, and became inseparable.

Anna Mary Sutter

Born in New Jersey in 1850, Anna Mary Sutter moved to Niles with her parents as a toddler. By the time she was 6, she had so impressed those who heard her sweet high soprano voice that she was welcomed into the choir at the Methodist church.

When W. H. Peak, head of the western troupe of the Peak Family Swiss Bell Ringers, heard Anna, he recognized her exceptional talent and convinced her mother to allow her to join his troupe when she was only 7. She assumed the name of “Fannie” Peak.

Jeppe DeLano
Jeppe DeLano was born in Charleston, Mass., in 1845. His family owned a jewelry store; however, after working in the family business for a time, he soon discovered the gem business was not for him.

DeLano, with two of his brothers, joined the division of the Peak Family troupe which operated in the eastern states and Canada by W. H. Peak Sr. He remained part of that organization while little Fannie grew up singing for Peak Jr.

Each made a reputation as individual entertainers, but it was when Jeppe joined the western troupe he and Fannie heard the sweet strains of romantic melody and the pair were married in Niles with their boss playing the harp in 1872.  They had been married 53 years at the time of his death.

“I cannot tell you anything about Fannie or myself, unless I tell of both,” Jeppe was quoted as saying in answer to interviews. “Our lives have been too closely interwoven to be separated, even in talking of them.”

With the Peak Family Bell ringers, they traveled the country playing to full houses. Jeppe was primarily a comedian, while Fannie played bells and the horn, continued to charm crowds with her legendary voice and, by some reports, became an accomplished comedienne herself.

When the troupe disbanded, the DeLanos began a duo act and entertained audiences with music and comedy routines.  They played the best houses throughout the United States, Canada and the West Indies.

They were headliners with magicians Old Signor Bilfy and Decastro for two seasons then went to play the famous stage at Tony Pastor’s in New York City. The Metropolitan in Newark, N.J., featured the DeLanos on “a bill of rare excellence,” when it reopened under new management, according to the New York Mirror, the Inside Edition newspaper of the era.

The real star

There are indications Fannie was always the star of the show. A critic for the Mirror wrote of an appearance in Louisville that “Jeppe DeLano’s dude act has grown tiresome, yet season after season, he continues to inflict it. The sprightly Fannie, however, still charms by her pleasing presence.”
Jeppe conceded, saying, “Oh, she was versatile. More so I guess than my admirers ever attributed that quality to me.”

Though it appears there were opportunities when either could have made more money as a solo act, the only break from the entertainment world seems to have come when Jeppe worked for a few months as a cartoonist on the staff of Pomeroy’s Democrat in Chicago.

Civic life in Niles

Once the pair retired from their 25 years on the road, in part due to Jeppe’s increasing problems with rheumatism, they returned to the 498 Elm St. home in Niles, built by Fannie’s parents, John and Magdalena Sutter and given to the pair as a wedding gift.
Home again, Jeppe served two terms as city treasurer. A report in the book “Fifty Years in Theatrical Management” by M. B. Levitt read: “… Jeppe DeLano, a well-known and clever stage artist” retired to Niles “where he served as alderman and given other accounts of himself to the public.”

Their life was not without tragedy, however. Of three pregnancies, only one baby survived until on Aug. 14, 1881, the Niles Democrat reported the death of their baby son, also Jeppe.

“The death of Jeppe, the 8 months’ son of Jeppe and Fannie DeLano, which occurred in this city on Sunday, was attended with circumstances of a peculiarly touching nature, awaking the deepest sympathy among hosts of friends, in this their old home.”

The couple had been spending their summer in Niles but had left for a New York engagement.

The baby was in the care of his grandmother Sutter when he became seriously ill. To read the remainder of the heartbreaking article, see the Friends of Silverbrook website, at friendsofsilverbrook.org.

For more information on Friends of Silverbrook with regards to memberships and work days to help restore and catalog the monuments, contact: Friends of Silverbrook Cemetery, 508 E. Main St. Niles MI 49120, Tim and Candace Skalla at 684-2455, wskalla@sbcglobal.net or contact Ginny Tyler at 445-0997, SPHINX1974@aol.com.