Conn and Lillian Grable had a pact - no more children. It was 1916 - Marjorie was 6 and their little son John had just died. But when Lillian found herself pregnant again she was not going to give up her baby- no matter what Conn said. Lillian's dream was to be a dancer. She… Continue reading Betty Grable
Category: Dancer
Hall of Famous Missourians
There are seven women (out of 38 inductees) in the the Hall of Famous Missourians in our State Capitol, Jefferson City. What do you think of the women deemed "Famous" and who would you select to be included? Josephine Baker Susan Blow Rose Duchesne Betty Grable Ginger Rogers Sacajawea Laura Ingalls Wilder
Ginger Rogers
In the middle of the summer, 1911, Lela McMath gave birth to a little girl in the front room of a 2 bedroom house on Moore Street in Independence, Missouri. Shortly after, Lela divorced her husband, left her daughter with her parents and went to Hollywood to write movies. Lela's little girl, Virginia Katherine McMath, or "Ginja" would become a Hollywood legend… Continue reading Ginger Rogers
Josephine Baker
“. . . I improvised, crazed by the music. . . . Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.” Josephine Baker only spent the first 15 years of her life in Missouri but… Continue reading Josephine Baker