Grace Lavinia Poole Williams was born the second of six children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a family of west-indian descent.

[1] She grew up in Portsmouth, Virginia and Brooklyn, New York, and studied at Washington Irving High School and then the Art Students League of New York, where she joined the American Negro Ballet, beginning her career in a number of dance companies and stage productions.

She spent most of the last years of her life teaching in New York City, but left the United States for Haiti in February 1984.

[7] Diana Dunbar, Lavinia's friend and student, arranged her funeral service.

In 1938, Theremin suddenly returned to the Soviet Union,[4] where he was imprisoned and later sent to a labor camp.