YOUR DAILY DOSE OF EUBIE!!
During World War II, Eubie led a band touring USO camps and hospitals in the US. After leaving the USO in mid-1946, Eubie settled into his new Brooklyn home with his new wife, Marion Gant Tyler. Like his first wife, Avis, Marion was light skinned—so light skinned that she could and did pass for white during at least some periods of her life—and came from a middle-class family. Her maternal grandfather, Hiram S. Thomas, was born a free black man in Canada in 1837. He found his first employment working as a steward on river boats on the Great Lakes and Mississippi River. Sometime after the Civil War, he came to Washington, DC, where he became a steward at the Capitol Club, befriending many high society people and politicians including Ulysses S. Grant and Grover Cleveland.
By the 1870s, Hiram was working during the summer months in Saratoga Springs, New York, a summer retreat for many of the most wealthy (white) Americans. He began managing Moon’s Lake House, famous for its Saratoga Chips (later known as potato chips). In later life, Thomas claimed to have “invented” the potato chip, although others have claimed this honor. By the time of the 1880 Census, Thomas and his family maintained a home at least during part of the year in New York City on West 3rd Street. The Census taker recorded his wife, Julia A. Thomas, and 8 children at this address, listing them all as “mulatto.” During the fall months, Thomas was working as a head waiter at a hotel that served “millionaires and blue-blooded families” in Lakewood, NJ. In 1888, he had achieved enough wealth to purchase Saratoga’s Grand Union Hotel, where he previously had served as head waiter.
By the turn of the 20th century, Thomas was operating the Rumson Inn, located near Red Bank, New Jersey. Only two of Thomas’ children married, and only his daughter Antoinette (“Nettie”), who married James Gant, produced children. When Hiram died in 1907, it appears that his son-in-law and daughter continued to run the Inn for at least a while. Their daughter, Marion Gant, was born on Feb. 11, 1896, and raised in New York City. Compared to many black families, the Gants were middle class and didn’t have many financial concerns. Marion spent most summers at the family inn. She later recalled that: “The summers were the exciting times…There were luncheons and teas and dinner parties on the wide porches of a beautiful gothic house; and lawn parties on the several acres of beautiful landscaped grounds. At night the lawn would be decorated with electrically lighted lanterns. … The clientele of the Inn were the social elite of the Jersey Coast. The dinner parties were followed by dancing and entertainment which would last long into the night.”
Among the musicians who performed there, Marion recalled Jesse Wilson, a “song-and-dance man,” and the Eureka Trio, which played for dances. We know that James Reese Europe visited the Inn around 1915 because there is a photograph of him there with Marion along with the rest of her family. Unlike Blake who only attended school through the 8th grade, Marion left school on May 31, 1912, when she was 16 years old.
In 1921, Marion married a violinist named William A. (Billy) Tyler. Classically trained, like many other African-American musicians of the day Tyler could not find employment in a “legitimate” (white) orchestra. Instead, he worked primarily in New York City in dance bands and in theatrical orchestras. Among his engagements, he led the all-black house band at Harlem’s Lafayette Theater in 1913 and participated in W. C. Handy’s first recording session in 1917 as a member of Handy’s “Orchestra of Memphis.” (Despite its name, its membership was drawn from New York City-based players.) He also worked at times with Jelly Roll Morton, notably when Morton was working in Los Angeles around 1920; the ever-jealous Morton claimed that Tyler tried to “steal” his band from him.
Tyler’s greatest success came when Lew Leslie hired him to assist conductor Will Vodery for the show, Dixie to Broadway. This show was developed to showcase the star performer Florence Mills, who Leslie hired away from the original Shuffle Along cast. “Marion thought it a good opportunity to get into the act, and so became one of the original chorus girls” in the show she later wrote, referring to herself in the third person. She believed that Leslie only hired her as a favor to her husband, noting that he complained that she was the only Negro woman he had ever seen who couldn’t dance. It is possible that Eubie and the Tylers crossed paths during this period, but Blake never mentioned this in any interviews he gave later in life.
Will Tyler subsequently travelled to Paris with Benny Peyton’s Blue Ribbon Orchestra, and the couple divorced. Marion made a few more appearances on stage, including “a tour with Miller & Lyle’s in “Keep Shufflin’”; a stint in the Club Alabam; a vaudeville tour with Lilian Brown of Brown & Dumont, and a few miscellaneous appearances.” Never a shrinking violet, Marion filed a claim against the Keep Shufflin’ company in order to get paid for her work. After her brief performing career, “having finished secretarial school before her marriage to Tyler,” Marion went to work in the mid-‘30s as a secretary. She first worked for composer/musician W. C. Handy’s music publishing company in the mid-‘30s. Blake also worked for a time as a musical director for Handy from at least mid-1935 through early 1936; it is possible that he met Marion at the Handy offices, or at least saw her there, although he does not mention it in any later interview. After leaving Handy, Marion held several positions with the WPA and Civil Service offices in the area.
By the war years, Marion was tiring of life in New York City. Working through the Civil Service Administration, she landed a job in Los Angeles in November 1943. While visiting Los Angeles on one of his USO tours, Blake stopped in to see Andy Razaf, who had relocated to the West Coast. He met Marion there, but only got to talk to her for “ten or fifteen minutes. But when he left he asked if he could write to her while he was on the road.” The fair-skinned ex-dancer was extremely attractive, and Blake was always quick to express interest in a good-looking woman.
