Chase, Lucia, 1897-1986

Lucia Hosmer Chase Ewing was born March 24, 1897 in Waterbury, Connecticut to Irving Hall Chase, President of Waterbury Clock Company, and Elizabeth Hosmer Kellogg Chase. Lucia was the middle child of five sisters: Marjorie, Eleanor (Mrs. Charles P. Taft), Elizabeth I. (Mrs. John Griffith Davies), and Dorothy (Mrs. Edward Carmody).

Lucia was educated at St. Margaret's School and Bryn Mawr College. She then moved to New York City to study theatre at the Theatre Guild School, and ballet with Mikhail Mordkin.

On December 28, 1926 she married Thomas Ewing, Jr., heir to the Alexander Smith & Sons Carpet Company fortune. They had two sons: Thomas III, and Alexander Cochran. Thomas, Jr. died of pneumonia in 1933; Thomas III died in a boating accident near Block Island, Rhode Island in 1963.

After her husband's death Lucia resumed her studies with Mordkin, making her dancing debut with his company in 1937. She rose to the rank of principal dancer and remained as such when the company became the Ballet Theatre in 1940.

Along with Oliver Smith, Lucia Chase was named co-director of Ballet Theatre (renamed American Ballet Theatre in 1957) in 1945, a position she held until 1980. She continued to perform well into the 1970s and was also one of the company's major financial supporters from its beginning as the Mordkin Ballet until her death on January 9, 1986.

From the guide to the Lucia Chase papers, circa 1899-1982, (The New York Public Library. Jerome Robbins Dance Division.)