Ernestine Myers

Myers was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, the daughter of professional baseball player Al Myers and Flora LaTart Myers. She trained as a dancer at the Chicago Musical College, then pursued further dance studies with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in Los Angeles.^[1]

Myers appeared on Broadway and on vaudeville stages.^[2][3] She toured with Ruth St. Denis's dance company, which also featured Martha Graham, Florence O'Denishawn, and Doris Humphrey at the time. In 1917 she toured in a singing and dancing act with Carl Randall,^[4][5] including "a pseudo Egyptian fox trot in costume with just enough burlesque in it to give it pep," noted reviewer Giles P. Cain.^[6] She wore a purple wig while performing in 1921, creating a "weirdly beautiful" effect, according to Billboard magazine.^[7] Her credits included roles in the shows Sinbad (1918), Follow the Girl (1918),^[8] Silks and Satins (1920),^[9] and Ziegfeld Follies. "Miss Myers is a splendid dancer, and works hard to put her selections over," commented one reviewer in 1921.^[2]

From 1923 to 1978, Myers ran a dance school in her hometown.^[1][10] She produced, choreographed, and designed costumes and lighting for the school's biennial revue,^[11][12][13] which included over two hundred performers in some years.^[14] Elise Reiman, a teacher at the School of American Ballet, was one of Myers' many students.^[15][16] In 1976, her photo was part of a Bicentennial salute to American theatre at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.^[17] In 1980 she gave an oral history interview for the Vigo County Oral History Project.^[18]

Myers married Chicago businessman Daniel E. Morrissey in 1948.^[19] Her husband died in 1949,^[20] and she died in 1991, in Terre Haute, aged 91 years.^[18]