They are all well into retirement age by now, but dozens of people from around Jefferson County still hold fond memories of their days as one of “Della’s Dancing Dollies.”
For at least four decades, the late Della Weirschem taught hundreds of students how to dance, and many of them still talk about their annual trips to perform on the SS Admiral, an excursion boat that plied the Mississippi River in St. Louis.
“My brother and I were in the Della’s Dancing Dollies group and went on the Admiral,” Elaine McKinney of Crystal City wrote on a Facebook post. “I remember her studio on Henry Street very well. She knew her business and was thought of very highly in the community.”
Miss Della ran a dance studio out of the basement of her Festus home, where boys and girls from all around the area – toddlers to teenagers – came to her to learn tap, ballet, swing, hula and baton.
“Every year, we did a hula. I always thought she had some connection to Hawaii, but maybe she just liked it,” said Beth Brockman, 63, of Kentucky, who was Beth Shapiro when she took lessons in the 1960s. “She had a million cats – they were all over the place. They didn’t come into the studio, but they were always around.”
Little girls weren’t the only ones to learn from Miss Della.
“I always loved to dance around,” said Larry Blaha, 73, of Festus. “Mom and Dad used to drive me in from Pevely every week. She was pretty much the only dance instructor in the area – people came from all over the place.”
Loving but stern
Miss Della grew up in Festus and took dance lessons in St. Louis, going professional at 16 when she joined the Rex Family acrobatic team. The team appeared at the 1934 World’s Fair in Chicago.
Later Miss Della went on the vaudeville circuit as a dancer and then settled back in Jefferson County just before World War II and began her teaching career.
“I started at age 3 in a room above the blacksmith shop at Main and Mill,” Lana Crollay of Festus said on Facebook. “From there she moved her studio to the basement of the Miller Theatre on Main Street, then to her house on Henry Street.
“I loved her. She was such a kind person.”
A 1950 article in the Daily News Democrat said Miss Della, herself, still took dance classes whenever her schedule permitted.
“She has taken instructions from Patricia Bowman, ballerina of the Muny Opera in St Louis,” the article said. “And only two weeks ago she attended classes given by Oster Johnson, who appeared at the American in ‘Kiss Me Kate.’ She is still affiliated with the Dance Masters of America, a national organization of dance instructors, and the National Association of Dance and Affiliated Artists.”
Earline Vaughn Kohler, 72, of Arnold was about 4 when she started taking lessons with Miss Della.
“The top of my mom’s cedar chest got all scarred where she let me put on my tap shoes and practice,” Kohler recalled.
Like many of the Dollies, Kohler says she clearly remembers the basement-level studio where Miss Della could be a stern taskmaster.
“We had classes two times a week, I think,” she said. “It was always so cool in there. She wasn’t mean but she was strict.”
Pamela Harmon of Herculaneum was one of the more roguish Dollies.
“Apparently I didn’t behave,” she said. “My mother took a photo of me shortly after I got spanked by Della.”
Miss Della used her early dance training as well as her years on the vaudeville dance circuit as inspiration for the instruction she provided her pupils.
“She had a lot of dances all written out,” Blaha recalls. “She didn’t just dream them up as she went. LaDonna Ellis and I did an adagio together. I carried her in over my head and the whole bit. I was probably 13 or 14, somewhere around there.”
Pitching in
Sometimes teaching kids to dance was a community affair.
Helen and Janaan Mitchell served as accompanists. Lucille Boyer taught voice and piano and played for dance recitals. Ruth AuBuchon was a pianist for classes and recitals.
Dads took photos, and siblings helped haul equipment.
Costumes were often handmade, or at least hand-embellished.
“Mom and another lady made our costumes one year,” Kohler said. “They were sequined leotards, turquoise, with a little fringe around the waist. They made our caps out of a cottage cheese container covered with turquoise sequined material, with an elastic chin strap and a big old feather coming out the side of it.”
Recitals were held on the auditorium stage at the original Festus High School, where the Festus City Hall now stands.
Judy Null of Crystal City had a bit of drama on that stage in the 1940s.
“I was doing chest rolls and almost rolled off the stage,” Null said. “My father ran up and caught me before I could hit the concrete floor.”
As one of the only boys, Blaha recalls having to play specific roles.
“Miss Della would send off for these Hawaiian gourd drum things with feathers,” he said. “I had to stand there FOREVER as King Kamehameha while the girls danced around in front of me with those things.”
The big deal
Miss Della’s groups performed in many local and St. Louis area venues over the years.
“We did a lot of programs at the Masonic Hall in St. Louis,” Blaha said. “We performed in the Starlight Room at the Chase Park Plaza.
“But performing on the Admiral was the big deal. That would be a whole Saturday thing. We danced in a roped-off area in front of a live band.”
Kohler said even a serious injury couldn’t keep her away.
“One summer, just a few days before we were supposed to dance on the Admiral, I cut my foot on broken glass,” she said. “Doc Mayfield came and stitched it up and put a bandage on it and I danced on the Admiral with that bandage on.”
Donna Klable was 9 when she visited Miss Della, well into her 70s by then, in a Festus nursing home.
“She was a special lady. She had a large private room and listened to music a lot,” Klable said. “She had so many pictures on the wall and in her trunk, and loads of pictures of her students. She taught me to ‘step, step, shuffle.’
“She was very kind but she did let me know when I wasn’t doing it correctly.”
Della Weirschem died in 1996, but her legacy lives on, says former student and assistant instructor Elizabeth Janis Upchurch.
“I learned so much from her about discipline and perseverance within dance and in life.”