Born in Oregon,[1]: 95 she spent her early years in the African American agricultural community of Allensworth, California, United States, in Tulare County.
Allensworth had problems with arsenic in the groundwater supply, and when promised new sources of water did not appear, the economic hopes of the community began to falter.
Virginia moved with her children (Midge, John Lewis Jr, Charles and Robert) to Oakland in 1925, and later Berkeley, California, where she attended college for Arts and Crafts.
Her grandfather Joshua had been a music teacher, her mother Virginia Louise was an artist, and her uncle Henry played the violin.
[citation needed] In April 1934, The Williams Four returned to California, but shortly thereafter Midge's brother Charles died from an accidental gunshot wound in their San Francisco home.
Her singing voice won her a position doing a series of twice-weekly, 15 minute sustaining programs of songs for the NBC Blue Network.
She also appeared with several other jazz musicians, including Lil Armstrong, Bunny Berigan, Harry James, John Kirby, Glenn Miller, Fats Waller, Ben Webster, and Teddy Wilson.
[2] Carrie Miller's syndicated Backstage Column reported that Midge was being "enticed to rejoin the band in the absence of Velma Middleton" and that she was booked to do Soundies.
She appeared at the Citizen's Christmas Cheer benefit performance on November 19, 1944, at the Renaissance Ballroom & Casino alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Savannah Churchill, June Hawkins and Mabel Hart.
[6] On December 16, 1950, The San Francisco Examiner reported that she had joined the revue at Shirley Corlett's Longbar Showboat and Breakfast Club on Fillmore Street.