When Sue Robinson appeared at Maguire’s Opera House, she wasa favorite of both fire companies so she wore the colors of each on alternate nights, and both companies strove to outdo each other in size of silver bricks presented to her for singing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”
Sue Robinson or Sue Robinson Getzler was a famous entertainer in Virginia City and SF – considered a “native daughter” of the Comstock. She played Piper’s in confections such as Theresa’s Vow, The Countess for an Hour, The Robber’s Wife, and The Stage Struck Chambermaid. She distinguished herself in Julius Ceasar and Hamlet. She was divorced and died suddenly at age twenty six, stricken by a mysterious complaint labeled “cancer of the bowels”
Her path through life was not all sunshine and devoid of domestic trouble, by any means. She was at times a hard-working woman, toiling at menial labor to support her little family, as well as professionally an actress upon the stage, but at last she finds peace and rest.