Olive Walke, MBE (21 December 1911 – 10 September 1969) was a Trinidadian musician and ethnomusicologist who was one of the first to collect regional Caribbean folk songs. She founded the well-known choir, La Petite Musicale and directed it for many years. Between 1961 and 1966, she served as a Senator in the first Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago established after its independence. Early life Beatrice Olive Walke was born on 21 December 1911 in the Belmont neighborhood of Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Anella and Samuel Arthur Walke. Walke was raised by her aunt and uncle, Edith and Simeon Hayes, from the age of 10. She attended Tranquillity Girls School and the Intermediate Government School, before graduating from Bishop Anstey High School. Walke moved to London to continue her education, studying music at the Trinity College of Music. She met and married Frank Hercules, a Trinidadian student of law, who would become a noted writer, in 1936 in Hampstead, London, England. Graduating with her ATCL degree, Walke furthered her studies at the Royal Academy of Music and the couple had a son, John. She graduated with her licentiate and returned to Trinidad. Hercules left London and immigrated to New York and the couple divorced. Their son John was adopted by Walke's aunt and uncle, Edith and Simeon Hayes, and in later life, John Simon Anthony Hayes would become the first nephrologist in Trinidad and Tobago and founder of the Trinidad and Tobago Kidney Foundation. Career Walke began giving music lessons and hosting a weekly radio show, Musicians in the Making, which featured young musicians and gave them a platform to gain exposure. In December 1939, she founded a choral group called "La Petite Musicale", originally as a seasonal choir which performed traditional Christmas carols. The group met in Walke's home, where they would rehearse and then, renting a bus, the choir sang carols at various homes in the community. Soon after the new year, the group began to focus on the traditional folk music of Trinidad and Tobago, when Walke took members of the group to the rural areas of Trinidad and Tobago. They travelled to Blanchisseuse, Guaico Tamana, Sangre Grande and Scarborough on Tobago to learn local folk songs in rural parts of the island. Village people would teach the choir members the songs, tell them of the background of the songs and Walke would take notes. She