Eliza Doyle Smith

Eliza Ann Doyle was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the daughter of Michael Doyle and Elizabeth Doyle. Her parents were both born in Ireland. She studied music in Cologne.[1]

Sheet music cover, "Little Darling Marguerite" (1919)

Smith wrote operettas and poetry as a young woman. She owned and ran a sheet-music publishing company, based in Chicago.[1][2] She published her own songs, and works by other songwriters, including Harlan Tarbell[3][4] and John Loftus.[5][6] "When I decided to go into the popular song writing I decided that success would come if I wrote songs fit to enter American homes but with the pep that modern youth demands and then let the world know of my goods by insistent advertising," she explained in a 1922 interview.[1]

Unless otherwise specified, titles below are songs written and composed by Smith.

• "When Uncle Sam Caught the Kaiser" (1917, a broadside poem)[7]
• "United States Democracy March" (1918)[8]
• "In Candy Land With You" (1919)
• "My Days Remember" (1919)[9][10]
• "Sweet Norah Daly" (1919)[11]
• "Stop Looking at Me!" (1919) [12]
• "Little Darling Marguerite" (1919, arranged by Harry L. Alford)[13]
• "O Wonderful Son of Life" (1920)[14]
• "Dance Me On Your Knee" (1920)[15]
• "Tea Rose" (1922, with John Loftus)[16]
• "Love's Beautiful Song" (1922, with Charles Kovacs)[17]

Eliza Doyle married Edgar Poe Smith. They had two daughters, Pauline and Marguerite.[18][19] She died in 1932, in Oak Park, Illinois, at the age of 73.[20]