Elizabeth Eaton Converse, better known by her stage name Connie, was a published author, a Greenwich Beat intellectual, and a singer-songwriter of an album that skyrocketed on Spotify. She has been missing for 45 years, 5 months, and 17 days. Her legacy is in our hands.

 

Hers is the quintessential story of a woman attempting to enter the music world -- a domain that was not prepared in any way for her sound. Born in 1924 to religious, middle-class parents, her sharp intelligence and diligent work ethic earned her the title of valedictorian upon her high school graduation. A merit scholarship to women’s liberal arts school Mt. Holyoke College aimed her straight towards academia.

 

Her writing was astounding, but it wasn’t what she was meant to do; in her sophomore year she dropped out, decided to blaze her own path in a Manhattan apartment, writing music and fraternizing with contemporaries. Her sound, grainy and earthen and authentic, stood bizarrely in the midst of the manufactured doo-wop and milkshake pop that dominated the 1950s.

 

The world wasn’t ready. But she continued.

 

Through a mutual friend, Converse was connected to jack-of-all-trades Gene Deitch, known best for his illustrations but important in this narrative is his position as a producer and cultivator of recording artists at his Beatnik parties. Around five years before, he had recorded the political hymns of another cult artist, Pete Seeger. He records her, now, and he books Converse her only gig; a performance on “The Morning Show” with Walter Kronkite. As it was performed live, there are no known recordings of the performance. We do know of the reviews, though; one notably said they were looking to being able to say they knew her before she became a star.

 

It was a painful ten years in New York City. There was no interest in Converse’s distinct sound, not yet. Her brother Phil, one of her closest confidants, remarks that he never knew her to have a romantic relationship in her life. He speculates, delicately, on her sexuality, but she answered all personal questions with a yes or a no, according to Deitch. Any further delving into her experiences would risk disrespect.

 

The year 1961 was a remarkable one for Greenwich Village, Manhattan, and folk music itself. Bob Dylan moved in and the music world accepted him with their arms wide open. Connie Converse, approaching middle age with no success after a decade, moved out. She looked towards Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Phil had settled down into academia with his family.

 

Converse returned to her previous vision of a life behind a desk. She protested politically, on paper. She dove head-first into nicotine addiction and alcoholism. She never wrote again. She never married. She never had children.

 

In August 1974, she wrote letters to loved ones after a years-long period of depression. She asked them to let her go. She packed up her Volkswagen Beetle and left.

 

Converse, and her car, were never found. No one knows her fate. She could be 95, somewhere, sitting in a tiny home in the middle of nowhere, a new life sprawled around her. Phil, however, speculates that she ended her life -- specifically, by driving her car into a body of water.

 

A new story begins, however, around five years ago when Phil rediscovered a file-cabinet full of Converse’s demos, recorded in the decade she spent in Manhattan. He soon reached out to Deitch, who has been living in Prague for the last sixty years. Between the two of them, they produced an 18-track album of Converse’s music, entitled “How Sad, How Lovely” that due to Spotify’s Discover Weekly algorithm, quickly catalyzed the acknowledgement of a woman who had desired airtime for so long. 

 

I found her music about three years ago. I remember the month was May, because it felt right. There’s an eerie quality to her music -- I imagine it’s the reverb and the low quality of the recordings as the majority of them were produced at parties or get-togethers rather than a professional gig. The lyrics are diverse, some allegories or stories, others simple commentary on love and loss. The feminine simplicity is that which seems contrived and far more intricate the longer one studies it. “How Sad” is shocking and lovely and removed from the timeline, and the success of the album truly illuminates the reality of how ahead of time she was.

 

A play based on her life was released about three years ago, and a documentary is online. More and more frequently are reworkings of her songs; a concert, various contemporary covers and a tribute album are the most notable. Musicologists even speculate that she may have been one of the earliest modern singer-songwriters of her genre and wonder if she should be credited for it.

 

Connie Converse is a lesson to be learned, an enigmatic talent, and a remembrance of a foggy past. Most of all, though, she is a creator. She reminds us that even when all seems lost, it never is; time is never a detractor. Her loving lyrics and commentary on what womanhood is and should be has not ceased to be relevant since the 1950s. I encourage any woman to take an hour and let her play; you’ll feel it. Converse may be lost to us now, but she’s living once more.