Joseph E. Howard

Joseph E. Howard hit the road as an eight-year-old runaway and landed in St. Louis, where he survived by singing in saloons and peddling newspapers. Vaudeville was where he obviously belonged, and at the age of 11, the boy soprano was back on the road as a performing member of a touring variety show. When he was 17, Joe met up with a young lady by the name of Ida Emerson who, in Howard's lifelong matrimonial progression, was destined to be wife number two. Touring the Midwestern vaudeville circuit, they livened up Chicago and then descended upon New York, where they enjoyed a ...