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Estrild Raymona Myers (March 11, 1909 – December 14, 1972), known professionally as Ramona, was an American cabaret and jazz singer and pianist during the 1930s.
Growing up
Ramona was born March 11, 1909, in Lockland, Ohio, to teenage parents – Raymond Pendery Myers (1891–1962), who was 17, and Rachel Margaret DeCamp (maiden; 1893–1963), who was 15.[1] Her parents' marriage was annulled before her birth by her paternal grandparents, Herman Jackson Myers (1859–1945) and Jessie Henrietta Pendery (1960–n.a.), though they were unaware that Rachel was pregnant. Rachel and Ramona, when she was still an infant, moved to Ashland, Kentucky, where Rachel met Charles Clifford Payne (1893–1933) and, around 1917, married him. The namesakes for Raymona Estrild were drawn from her father and her maternal grandmother, Estrild "Trillie" DeCamp (né Estrild Riggs; born 1860–1928).
Music career
When she was twelve, Ramona played piano at a hotel every weekend.[2] She was hired by a radio station in Kansas City as a staff pianist. Three years later moved to Pittsburgh and started singing.[2] Around 1929, she became singer and pianist with Don Bestor and His Orchestra – at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh and on tour, coast-to-coast. She later performed in vaudeville.[2]
Ramona became a vocalist and pianist for Paul Whiteman's Orchestra from 1932–37, succeeding Mildred Bailey. She performed on Whiteman's radio show in 1933, Al Jolson's radio show in 1933–34, and the Kraft Music Hall in late 1934 through early 1935 (before Bing Crosby took over the latter program in 1936). She was featured with the Whiteman band in the 20th Century-Fox 1935 film Thanks a Million. She left Whiteman's band in 1937 and worked as a solo act, recording for Liberty Music Shop Records. In the late 1930s, she led a male big band and recorded for Varsity Records.
Ramona was married three times. She first married in 1929 to Howard L. Davies. She then married 1936 to H. Kenyon Hopkins (1912–1983), an arranger for Andre Kostelanetz and Paul Whiteman. They divorced around June 1943. Ramona then married June 14, 1944, to baseball broadcaster Al Helfer, which whom, she had her only child, a daughter, Ramona Margaret Perry (née Ramona Margaret Helfer; 1945–2017), born in Manhattan, New York. Ramona, the mother, remained married to Al Helfer until her death.
Ramona Davies died of cancer in Sacramento, California on December 14, 1972.
