Finding Edith (my search for La Sylphe)

         

Since we moved to New Mexico in November 2017 I’ve posted six new blogs, the last one being back in March 2018. I’d been saying for a long time that I needed a break so I finally got to do it. I started researching again a few weeks ago. This was on the professional trick bowler Andy Varipapa. I just wasn’t feeling it though and I lost interest. This happens sometimes, but I’m keeping his tree in case I decide to try again.

Meanwhile, I came across exotic dancer Edith Langerfeld and, as always, I’ll first give you a brief rendering of what is already out there from the other sites about her.

Edith exhibited a real talent for dance early on and when about six years old her mother took her to Europe for many years because in America at that time children weren’t allowed to dance on stage. While in Europe she received much training and gained tremendous experience and accolades. She learned many dance styles, including the body dance from the Far East. Her contortions while dancing made her appear to the audience almost like she had no bones, or snake-like. She toured the world a couple of times and spent many years training. All of this training and touring resulted in her becoming fluent in several languages.

She used the stage name of La Sylphe. A sylph is generally a young, slender graceful female. It had originally been a mythical being that was similar to a fairy. There had been a French ballet called “La Sylphide”, which may have lead to the word’s use to describe ballet dancers and slender girls in general. 

After conquering Europe and Australia she came home to conquer America. She performed well into the 1920s and later opened a dance training business. She also performed at just about all of the more important venues around the world. Here are seven other pictures I could find of her:    02    03    04    05    06    07    08

I began her tree up on Ancestry and found her birth record pretty quickly. This helped eliminate some of the wrong dates out there. Edith was born in Manhattan, New York on 3 June 1883. Her parents were Arthur H Langerfeld and Margaret Ann Douglas. Arthur was born about 1855 in Elberfeld, Prussia and Margaret was born about 1854 in Loughgilly, County Armagh, Ireland. They had both emigrated to America during the 1860s and got married in Manhattan on 28 October 1876. Edith also had an older brother, Wallace Douglas Langerfeld, who was born 27 August 1877 in New York City. 

When Arthur was about 18 he won an award from a local company for his ornamental drawing. As his life went on this would get him into drafting, designing, and eventually inventing. He had several patents but his most famous one was a coal-separating machine that sorted out the impurities from the coal. The sorting had been done by breaker boys before his invention. Two advantages of the sorter was that it had much greater accuracy than the boys could do and it removed the need for the boys, many of whom would contract serious lung ailments. More on the invention here: 18Oct1908. Here is a picture of Edith’s father with his machine.

Since you’ve now seen a picture of Arthur it’s only fair to see one of Margaret.

Margaret Ann Douglas

Edith’s full name was Edith Lambelle Langerfeld. The only documents I saw showing Lambelle as her middle name were her applications for her passports. If it was her middle name, which I believe it was, then it probably came from her mother’s side. I did find out that it was much more common in England. Margaret’s parents were from Scotland and Ireland so it is easily possible that it was from either of her parents.

When the US Census was done in 1890 the New York City administration felt that the city had been under-counted by the enumerators so they decided to do their own in the autumn of that year. It’s called the 1890 Police Census because it was done by the police department and it covered the entirety of  New York County. They found that they had been under-counted by 13%. Regardless, Edith and her family participated in the census.

All the talk about her going to Europe for many years when she was 6 years old is not true. She was 7 years old when that 1890 census was done. Also, she performed for a charity event four years after the census at age 11. If you’ll notice, the article says that she has been training for three years and that she is the top student of some dance teacher named Maria Madison. I was not able to find anything on the dance teacher. Also, note in the article that Edith is already using the La Sylphe stage name. A later newspaper article said her dance teacher gave her the La Sylphe name.

She finally did leave for Europe on 24 January 1895 aboard the SS Mohawk, arriving in London on 1 February. Notice that she and her mother are using the Lambelle name as their surname. Throughout the research they used different names at different times, which made it more difficult to find them. I do know they got back before 18 October 1899 because she gave a performance in New York at the Koster & Bial’s Music Hall and also gave one at Madison Square Garden in early November.

Late in November 1899 was this news item that says she and her mother were going to visit her uncle, Archibald Douglas, in Kansas. She continued performing for the locals in her uncle’s town in December. This article is in two parts and is from 9 December 1899:  Part1   Part2. This one comes from 12 December. It mentions that her brother Wallace composes all of her dances and makes her gowns. He would go on to compose the Ivory City Waltzes for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St Louis World Fair) in 1904.

In 1898 her father moved the family to Scranton, Pennsylvania. I doubt Margaret or Edith lived there very much though, if at all. Regardless, Arthur lived there for the rest of his life. For the 1900 Census he and Wallace were living in a rooming house at 337 Harrison Avenue. It says that the occupation for both of them is operator, but Arthur shows as a draftsman in the 1900 city directory. Wallace shows as a musician in the 1901 city directory so I’m not sure what the operator thing is all about. All the other information is correct. 

I searched for Edith’s and Margaret’s 1900 census for a while but wasn’t having any luck. That’s when I ran across the passenger list for them arriving in Southampton, England on 15 February 1900 aboard the SS St Paul. That explained not being able to find them on the census. If you look at the passenger list you’ll see them using the Lambelle surname again but Edith is also using La Sylphe as her first name. The crewman that filled it out apparently didn’t know how to spell Sylphe because he wrote it down as La S. 

On 9 August 1900 Edith went to the US Embassy in London for an emergency passport. She gave her birth year as 1884 instead of 1883 and it shows that she was residing at 150 Oxford Avenue in London, which was actually the Royal Princess Theatre at that time. Two years later, Edith was performing in Russia when she went to the US Embassy for another emergency passport, which she received on June 17th. 

Next up is this item from a London newspaper on 29 June 1905 about her performance at the Alhambra. Now, here is where the key is as to whether or not they spent years touring, and that is Margaret’s passport application from 1907 in London. She clearly states in it that she has been gone from the USA since February 1900. It also shows that she still claims New York City as her permanent residence, not Scranton, Pennsylvania.

This article shows them in Sydney, Australia in December 1907. Finally, they arrive in Honolulu from Australia on 6 February 1908. In it Margaret is Mrs Lambelle and Edith is going by the surname La Sylphe. 1908 was probably the busiest year for Edith and her mother. Edith made her successful Broadway debut in July 1908. Here is just a sampling of news stories about her from all over the country during 1908:  25Apr   26Apr   29Apr-1   29Apr-2   13Jul   20Jul   26Jul   22Aug   30Aug   13Sep.

Edith and others that performed in a similar style inadvertently created a dance craze that swept all over. One side effect of Edith’s style and popularity was in women’s beauty items. Here are a few of the ads I found:   Jan1909    5Apr   Sep1910. This news item, if true, shows that Edith was earning quite a living:  Earnings.  Those earnings are equivalent to about $19,000 a week today. Keep in mind though that she didn’t work every week. Also keep in mind that I think the inflation calculator is wrong, however I did try three different ones. Near the end of 1909 Edith was the cause of a theater to lose their license in Vancouver, British Columbia. The theater had been getting many moral complaints and La Sylphe was the final straw. 

Regardless whether or not Margaret lived in Scranton earlier, she was there for the 1910 US Census. You’ll find her and Arthur at the bottom of the page. So where was Edith? Well, in 1909 she had apparently gone back to Europe by herself but we’ll get more into that shortly. Late in 1910 or early in 1911 Margaret went back to Europe, specifically France. She returned to New York from France aboard the SS Oceanic on 22 Nov 1911. The passenger list is in two parts:  Page1   Page2. Margaret is number 10 on both pages. The only things of note are: On page 1 that she used the surname Lambelle before changing it to Langerfeld and on page 2 she used her Scranton, Pennsylvania address. 

Apparently there was a reason for Margaret to go back to Scranton at this time, and that reason was to file for divorce, which she did on 6 January 1912. Oddly though, she claims that HE deserted HER on 19 January 1895. If you’ll recall, she and Edith left for Europe five days later on their first trip. My guess is that Arthur wanted the divorce also and they both decided upon desertion for the reason to save her the embarrassment. That wasn’t so unusual. Margaret was granted her divorce on 29 February, 1912. 

According to Margaret’s 1915 passport (Page1  Page2  Page3), she left the USA in April 1913 to visit Edith in France and had planned to return in 1914. World War 1 delayed her departure though. She finally got to leave on 22 January 1916 from Lisbon, Portugal and arrived back in New York on 2 February. This brings us back to Edith. Edith had stayed in Europe because she had married a Frenchman named Merlet and was living in Toulouse, France when Margaret went to visit in 1913. Toulouse is about 115 miles (185km) from the Spanish border.   I was never able to find anything on this Merlet guy and am hoping that some reader in France can find their marriage record over there for me.

When Margaret left in 1916 to go home, Edith went also. Here is the manifest in two pages:  Page1   Page2. When you look at the first page you’ll see her listed as Edith Merlet. She claims to be a French citizen and had been living at 44 Avenue Camille Pujol in Toulouse with her husband. Page two shows that she says she’ll be joining her brother in Scranton. She and Margaret are living together in March 1920 when the US Census is done. She is at line 34 on the census. It shows them as living at 300 W 49th Street in Manhattan. She’s still using the Merlet surname but she says that she is a widow. Considering the horrible amount of casualties France endured during the war, I automatically assumed Merlet had died in it. Later though she claims to be divorced. She also says in this census that she is an actress in the theater.

There was a newspaper story on 29 May 1920 that was interesting. It talks about a new Broadway play the year before and how she wowed the crowds. Then it gets into her history. Two things stand out. One is that the crowds loved her work but didn’t know who she was as La Sylphe, The other thing is that it says she came back to America due to an eye injury. Here it is in two parts:  Part1   Part2. When the New York 1925 State Census is done, Edith and her mother are still living together. Edith is now a dance teacher. 

The only family member I could find in the 1930 census was Wallace. The last I could find Arthur was in the 1920 city directory living at 729 Alder in Scranton. The next I could find anything on him was where he checked himself in to the State Hospital in Scranton on 8 December 1930 and died the following day from myocarditis. Based on the fact there was no mention of him in the local papers and that he was sent to Philadelphia after his death I am betting he was cremated. 

From 1931 comes this news story on Edith. I had to put it up in three pieces because as one piece it would be blurry when you zoomed in. Part1   Part2   Part3.  Here is a story from September 1932 about former 1920s ballet dancer Dorothy Ann Rassmusen that mentions La Sylphe. This was the absolute last news story I could find on Edith. 

We need to cover Wallace briefly. In 1901 he married Elida Johnson Schoonover and then in 1904 they had the first of their 10 children. Although Wallace lived in Scranton near his father for many years, by World War 1 he had moved back to the New York City area as a career move. Sometime between 1925 and 1930 the family moved to Detroit, Michigan. By 1935 they were in Mamaroneck, New York. This is where he would live for the rest of his life. It’s also where Edith and Margaret lived for the rest of theirs. In the 1940 US Census they are living with Wallace and his family, and like Wallace, Edith and Margaret say that they’ve also been living in Mamaroneck since at least 1935. Edith shows as still owning her own dance studio and is still a dance instructor. 

Nothing else shows up until 1943 when Margaret passed away. Try as I might, I could never find exactly when or where, though most likely in Westchester County, New York. Wallace died in Mamaroneck in 1958 and his wife in 1968. Edith was living in Mamaroneck but died in Greenwhich, Connecticut on 20 December 1968. I’m not exactly sure why she died there but there was a niece that was living in the area at the time. 

Sadly, all of them died with no fanfare or even acknowledgement. The only thing left to show is the tombstone. You’ll see several names on it. Margaret, Edith, Wallace, his wife, and two of their 10 children:  Grave

For my other research blogs:  HOME

Thanks for stopping by! -Ray

Comments are welcome and encouraged. You’ll find them here near the bottom or a link to them near the top. Also feel free to share, like or follow this or any of my blogs.