Jacqueline Schumacher papers, 1934-2023

Jacqueline Schumacher (née Martin) was born in 1920 in Walla Walla, Washington, but came with her family to Portland, Oregon, when she was three years old. Her mother enrolled her in a dance class when she was nine, and she was inspired to become a professional dancer when William Christensen established a ballet school in Portland in 1932. In 1937, Christensen became ballet master for the San Francisco Opera and took selected students with him, including Schumacher. She performed as Odette the White Swan in Christensen's 1940 production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, the first evening-length production of that ballet in the United States.

When the United States entered World War II, the San Francisco Opera Ballet's performances were put on hold. Schumacher married Frederick Schumacher before he left for military service in the Pacific Theater. After the war, the couple moved back to Portland, where Jacqueline Schumacher taught ballet classes in her home. She later taught ballet in the Odd Fellows Building on SW 10th Avenue, where students knew her as "Mrs. S." In the 1950s and 1960s, she also choreographed Portland Civic Theatre productions and choreographed and directed Portland Junior League theatrical shows. In 1974, 20 of Schumacher's students and the Portland Junior Symphony (later the Portland Youth Philharmonic) developed a joint program called Dance Concert Group; in 1976, this group became the Portland Ballet Company.

Schumacher and her husband had two daughters, Gretchen Robinson and Heidi Horning. Schumacher retired in the mid-1980s, and died in 2019.

Source: "Jacqueline Schumacher (1920-2019)," by Carol Shults, Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/schumacher_jacqueline/; "A Ballet Company for Portland," Oregonian, October 17, 1976; vital records via Ancestry.com