I had hoped to use the name of the act to hunt down some actual information about this duo but the best I could find was the location of The Hotel Penn Alto. Philadelphia? Pittsburgh? Nope, Altoona, home of the horse shoe curve rail tracks. I've been to Altoona though it's been so long that I don't really have any memories of the place. I figured that this picture was probably from the 1950's so I did look up some census numbers. In 1950, 77,177. In 1960, 69,407. Basically, Altoona is one of those medium sized American cities that has been in a state of decline for a very long time. The fact that the act was playing the hotel lounge in a small city hotel helps explain why this duo left almost no record of their careers. Acts that headline in Altoona don't get a lot of recognition. Still, it's almost impossible to make it in show business. For every job, there are hundreds of talented performers capable of getting up on stage and entertaining people. It's why so many of them quite and get a regular job. Mary Reagan, or Ann Parker or whatever professional name she was using when this picture was taken actually made a living as a singer. That's admirable.
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