Siblings in the Early Recording Industry

In several articles I have written about performers whose siblings got into recording, this seemed to have been a more common pattern than expected. To some it appears that the phonograph was so attractive that other family members had to get involved. It is quite an interesting phenomenon. Here I will highlight three stories. While studying Frank P. Banta and his brother John, I was wondering about their sister. Frank and John had a younger sister named Katherine, who surprisingly, was also involved in recording. Katherine was born in 1880, so she was quite a bit younger than her brothers. Frank and John got into recording by 1893, and not long after Katherine followed them in an unusual way. While Frank and John were playing accompaniments, Katherine eloped with a small time engineer/repairman. Around 1896-97 she met a gentleman named Frank Remig. It is difficult to know exactly which company he was working for, but it was most likely Edison, as he was living in New Jersey when they married. By the end of 1897, Katherine and Frank were married. They had two children together, but by 1903 they were split. After this Katherine moved on to a man who hadn’t anything to do with recording. Her new husband was Arthur Mestrand, who was working as a press photographer at the time. This ma