Doris Eaton Travis - Second and Third Careers

Second and Third Careers

Travis performed in her final Broadway show, the play Merrily We Roll Along at the Music Box Theatre, in 1935. Her career, along with those of her siblings, declined in the 1930s. She returned to work in stock theatrical productions on Long Island and had a brief, albeit unsuccessful, foray into vaudeville with her brother Charlie.

In 1936, she was hired by the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in New York as a tap dance instructor. She remained with the Arthur Murray company for thirty-two years, advancing from teaching to owning her own school. Eventually Eaton Travis established and owned a total of eighteen Arthur Murray studios across Michigan. She authored a column of dance advice and commentary for the Detroit News entitled "On Your Toes" and hosted a local television program for seven years.

One of her pupils, inventor and engineer Paul Travis, became her husband after an 11-year courtship. Their marriage lasted over fifty years, until Paul's death in 2000; they had no children. After retiring from the dance studio business in 1968, Eaton Travis and her husband moved to Norman, Oklahoma, and established a ranch. The initial 220-acre (89 ha) plot grew to 880 acres (356 ha), and many of the quarter-horses bred and raised on the ranch had success in racing. The ranch operated largely as a boarding facility, managed by Eaton Travis, until 2008.