[1] Her family relocated to Pocatello, Idaho, in the late 1880s and then Kansas City, Missouri, in the mid-1890s, where her father found employment at the Owl Drug Store.

Elsie Hite, originally from Illinois, would accompany her daughter throughout her early career which began at about age eleven in amateur theater as the 'Lord Chancellor' in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Iolanthe.

[5][6] In the late summer of 1900 Hite was a soloist with Boston's The Howard's Own Show Company before embarking on a two-season tour as 'Estelle Coocoo' in the Morton-Kerker musical comedy The Telephone Girl.

In 1905 it was rumored that she was to marry the athlete Arthur Duffey, and as she was a divorcee he would meet Pope Pius X in order to attain special dispensation to wed.

[4][12][13][14][15] For the following season Hite joined forces with vaudevillian Walter Jones to form an act that met with success at vaudeville venues in and around New York City.