Ada Roach

The Ada Roach Company, in "The Heart of the Immigrant" (1915).

In 1913 Roach performed with The Killarney Girls, a touring group presenting Irish songs and dances.[1][2] As head of the six-person Ada Roach and Company from 1915 to 1917, she starred in Charles F. Horner's The Heart of the Immigrant (1915),[3] "a stirring musical play which also abounds in histrionic and educational features", on the lyceum circuit.[4] The show toured for two years.[5] In Nebraska, the company's car broke down and they carried their luggage six miles on foot, rather than miss their curtain.[1]

She was called a "bundle of sunshine" guaranteed to "chase the shadows from the face of the sourest of the sour."[6] Her exuberant comedic talents were held to be especially welcome during wartime.[7] By April 1918 she was partnered with fellow Killarney Girls alumna Ruth Freeman in a two-woman act, the Roach-Freeman Duo. They performed as part of the Liberty Girls show in 1918.[8][9] Roach sang Irish songs, played accordion and banjo,[10] and told stories, while Freeman presented a Swedish persona and played violin.[11][12] The Roach-Freeman team moved to New York in 1922.[13] They were both in the cast of a touring musical comedy, Meet Cousin Mary, in 1923.[14] Roach and Freeman appeared together on the Chautauqua platforms in California and Montana in 1924.[15][16]

In 1926, Ada Roach toured with another partner, pianist Martha Trippeer.[17] She performed on radio in 1927,[18] as a humorist, storyteller, and impersonator, on WMAQ in Chicago.[19]

Ada Roach and her niece Jane McKenna were both injured in a car accident in 1917, in Chicago, and Roach was hospitalized for a month.[20][21]