She was one of five children born in New Orleans, Louisiana to strict Seventh Day Adventist parents. Her father moved the family to Los Angeles, California where she was raised.
She was a professor of voice at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Currently on the voice faculty at the University of
Michigan. (April 2004)
American mezzo-soprano and soprano.
She is survived by a granddaughter, her adopted daughter Francesca LoMonaco, and her husband, Lou LoMonaco.
She lived in Paris, France for three years in the 1980s.
She was awarded the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1961
and studied at Juilliard School in New York City.