Mildred Dilling, born in Marion on January 12, 1894, became internationally known as the "First Lady of the Harp." The daughter of a successful candy company proprietor, she studied piano at the Marion Conservatory of Music as a child and began playing the harp after her family moved to Indianapolis in 1905. She gave her first professional performance at age 13, when she appeared as a last-minute stand-in at a local concert and was paid with a dozen carnations and a jar of pickles for her mother. Throughout her teen years she performed at receptions and luncheons in Indianapolis, then studied music in New York and Paris before beginning a 75-year career. During that career she played in 25 countries, traveled up to 30,000 miles per year, performed for kings, queens, and five U.S. Presidents, recorded music, and appeared on television and radio. She founded the American Harp Society in 1946, helped popularize the harp as a solo instrument, wrote two books about the harp, and taught students including Harpo Marx, Sir Laurence Olivier, and Bob Hope. Dilling also assembled what was thought to be the world’s largest private harp collection, at one point owning 110 harps, and after her death in 1984 part of that collection was donated to Indiana University in Bloomington, where it remains on display.