Rosamonde (Rhody or Rody) Elsie Safier, mariée Marks: some highlights of a life
September 9, 1912: Born to Joseph and Sarah Goldberg Safier. (Youngest of five siblings.)
April 29, 1929 (age 16): record of copyrighted songs.
May 10, 1930 (age 17): Plays two songs (she wrote) for Helen Kane at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh. Has written 20 songs to date. Senior at Monessen (PA) High School.
Spring term 1931 through spring term 1932 (age 18-19): record of her studying at the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard School).
June 29, 1931 (age 18): Visits George Gershwin. (Ira, Arthur, and their mom also present, I believe.) Plays Blue Lady for him, and then he plays it.
August 20, 1931 (age 18): Contract with Harms to publish Blue Lady.
September 16, 1931 (age 19): First public performance of Blue Lady, by Nick Lucas on radio.
December 17, 1931 (age 19): Rudy Vallee sings Blue Lady on the Fleischmann Hour. (Sings it third time on the program on February 4, 1932.)
July 13 , 1932 (age 19): William Schuman invites Rhody to include her song The Beginning of the End in an "intimate revue" he is preparing with Frank Loesser and Edward B. Marks, Jr. (Apparently the revue was aborted by the death of the backer.)
April 18 , 1933 (age 20): Her Salute to Color debuts at Women's Graduate Club recital at Columbia University. Composer at the piano. Concert dancer: Pieter Dominick.
August 25, 1933 (age 20): Rudy Vallee sings Because I've Known Love (words by Estelle Safier, mariée McBride; orchestrated by [Sam?] Wooding) at the Willows in Pittsburgh, PA ... calling Rody (who was visiting home on vacation) onstage to play a chorus on the piano with the orchestra.
November 16, 1934 (age 22): Plays her Strange Fantasie at Carnegie Hall.
November 12, 1936 (age 24): Contract with Handy Brothers to publish Swing Low Sweet Harriet.
December 4, 1937 (age 25): Her father Joseph dies. (Sarah later joins her 3 daughters in NYC.)
1940: File and Forget copyrighted by Rosamonde Safier and Lenore Oppenheimer (lyricist; mariée Hershey).
October 18, 1943 (age 31): Begins career at WOR in Manhattan as auditions secretary and receptionist in the Program Department.
September 10, 1944 (age 32): Blue Lady performed on Music for an Hour (WOR, Sunday, 1:30-2:30).
December 21, 1947 (age 35): Married to architect Irving Philip Marks in Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.
March 18, 1949 (age 36): Last day at WOR.
October 13, 1949 (age 37). Her son Joel Howard* Marks born.
* after William Howard Schuman, an early collaborator.
October 29, 1972 (age 60) : Orphaned.
October 6, 1989 (age 77). Widowed.
December 7, 1992 (age 80): Dies in NYC.
December 10, 1992: Buried in the Temple B'nai Israel cemetery in Versailles, Pennsylvania.
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