(This April, the Bradford Branch of American Association of University Women (AAUW) will celebrate the 100th Anniversary of its founding. To celebrate that event, we join with the Bradford Landmark Society in encouraging girls and women everywhere to dare to ‘be extraordinary.” This month, we recognize a Bradford woman in the early 1900s, who had the courage to overcome a physical disability that would have stopped many women in that time period from attaining their dreams – but did not stop her.)
Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” He would have approved of Estella Norris, a local woman who, although crippled in a freak accident as a child and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, had the fortitude and determination to forge a career in vaudeville as a talented singer.
Jennie Estella Norris was born in Bradford on July 23, 1890, to Hiram and Flora Norris. The family moved to 62 Pleasant Street when Jennie — more commonly known as Stella — was just two years old. She would live there the rest of her life.
A tragic accident when she was just seven years old — falling from a teeter-totter and breaking her lower back — led to a lifetime of physical challenges, but never diminished her drive to become a vaudeville star.
Norris began singing at local churches, various women clubs, and as a vocalist with the Bradford’s Citizens’ Band as a teenager. A friend of hers, Harvey Palmatary, a vaudeville performer himself, encouraged her to turn professional and to go into show business. In a letter written in 1910, he wrote “how about your entrance into vaudeville? Are you considering any offers? I can’t help but compare your voice to the others I hear. And I can truthfully say that in every case, I have never yet heard a song rendered that could in any respect be compared to your singing. It certainly seems to me that anyone with such a wonderful voice as yours shouldn’t stay at home and deprive the music loving public from hearing it.” Stella took his advice and joined the vaudeville circuit two years later, joined by her niece, Flora Messimer, who often accompanied her on the violin. Her stage moniker was “the Nightingale Singer.” Later, Harvey Palmatary became her manager.
Stella Norris advertised herself as a high class vaudeville performer, singing popular songs of the day, with a high soprano voice that could reach three and a half octaves. She was particularly popular in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, performing at Auburn, Glen Falls, Geneva, and Syracuse as well as in the Buffalo area.
Vaudeville was popular during the silent film era, as entertainers — singers, comedians, jugglers, actors, musicians, and specialty acts of all kinds would ‘fill in’ between reel changes. For Estella Norris, her vaudeville career entailed singing at theaters which ran three or four different silent movies each night.
One such theater, Motion World in Glen Falls, N.Y. — which boasted ‘all roads lead to Motion World, for that is the place where the best pictures, the best music and the most comfortable surroundings are’ wrote: “the management has been fortunate in securing Miss Estella Norris, soprano, for the next week. Miss Norris has not walked in 15 years, but she has made happy all those who come in contact with her by her charming personality and wonderful voice.”
The Independent Vaudeville Company of Buffalo often handled the contracts and Stella earned fairly good money. In April 29th, 1912 she sang at the Plaza Theater in Buffalo for one night, and earned $7; she followed that with a booking at the Lumberg Theater in Niagara Falls and was paid $15 net for three days. That may not sound like a lot, but in 1915 for example, an average day’s wage was $5.00.
Imagine, however, the difficulties encountered when traveling with a wheelchair in the early 1900s. Wheelchairs were made of wood, wicker, and iron and relatively heavy; not an easy task to board a train for singing engagements in New York State. Her niece often wrote home to her mother, frequently reporting that the train, once again, had to be held while they maneuvered Stella aboard.
Add to the fact that a woman in a wheelchair was an oddity, much less one who was an independent entertainer. But Stella Norris was a remarkable woman. She couldn’t walk, but she could sing and her voice became her livelihood.
She later married, in 1917, at the age of 27, to Robert A. Smith and had one successful birth; a son, Robert A. Smith, Jr., born August 4, 1918. She never again sang as a professional.
Stella Norris Smith died in 1962 at the age of 72 and her past, perhaps intentionally, died with her.
However, a few years ago, a grandson visited Bradford in search of family history. He knew nothing of his grandmother’s vaudeville career and was amazed to discover that not only was her house on Pleasant Street still standing, but nearly a hundred letters, newspaper clippings, and photographs that documented Stella Norris’ life as a vaudeville singer still existed, hidden away in the attic. The owners of the house at that time had kept them safe for over forty years — perhaps in admiration of an extraordinary woman who overcame a disability to find her own path in life.
