Marie Celeste

Marie Celeste Martin Stranahan, who performed under the stage name Marie Celeste, was an American actress, soprano, socialite, and philanthropist born in New York City on November 6, 1875, to Bernard C. Martin and Marie C. Martin, née De LaMothe. She died in Toledo, Ohio, on December 17, 1954, of heart disease at Toledo Hospital. Active in light opera and musicals from the 1890s through the early 1900s, Celeste appeared on Broadway between 1899 and 1902 before retiring from the stage following her marriage.

Celeste began her performing career in 1890 with a stock theatre company in Halifax, Nova Scotia, led by actor William H. Lytell, making her stage debut in the role of the maid Fantile in Ben Teal's The Great Metopolis. She progressed from smaller parts to leading roles while touring with that organization, then returned to New York to train as a soprano at the National Conservatory of Music of America in Manhattan. In 1892 she portrayed Polly Hoss in the original cast of the farce Hoss and Hoss, which starred Charles Reed and William Collier Sr. and began its tour at the Hollis Street Theatre in Boston on January 12, 1892.

She subsequently joined the touring company of Lillian Russell for the 1893–1894 season, performing roles including Paquita in Giroflé-Girofla, Wanda in The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, and Petita in William Furst's Princess Nicotine. Her Broadway debut came in the latter operetta at the Casino Theatre on November 20, 1893. For the 1894–1895 season Celeste joined Della Fox's theatre troupe, performing the role of Octavie in William Furst's The Little Trooper, before returning to Lillian Russell's company for the 1895–1896 season in roles that included Duchess Blanche of Parthenay in Le petit duc, Guadalena in La Périchole, and Ninetta in La Tzigane.

Illness kept Celeste largely off the stage in 1896. In 1897 she toured as the Queen in Klaw and Erlanger's The Brownies, and subsequently appeared as Peone Burn in One Round of Pleasure, as Mistress Mary in Robert Barnet and Alfred Baldwin Sloane's Jack and the Beanstalk, and as Minutezza in John Philip Sousa's The Bride Elect. In 1898 she performed at the Boston Theatre in multiple roles, including Phoebe Fairleigh in Billee Taylor and Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore. During this period she also performed the role of Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana with the Castle Square Opera Company in Boston, her only appearance in the grand opera repertoire.

Celeste's Broadway career encompassed several productions between 1899 and 1902. In 1899 she portrayed Bo-Peep in Louis De Lange and Edgar Smith's musical Mother Goose at the Fourteenth Street Theatre in Manhattan. The following year she returned to Broadway as Winifred Grey in a revival of A Runaway Girl at Daly's Theatre, and she portrayed the title role in Sidney Jones and Edward Morton's San Toy in both its 1900 and 1902 Broadway productions.

Celeste met her future husband, Frank D. Stranahan, while performing in Boston in 1899. The couple married on June 2, 1902, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Prior to their marriage, Frank had managed the Tremont House hotel in Boston, a property his family owned from 1895 to 1900. In 1908 Frank and his brother Robert A. Stranahan co-founded the Champion spark plug manufacturing company in Boston; the company relocated to Toledo, Ohio, in 1910, and the couple settled there. Frank Stranahan, the American sportsman, was her nephew.

In Toledo, Celeste and her husband became known as philanthropists who largely gave anonymously. She served as president of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra Society in 1941, an organization dedicated to financially sustaining Toledo's orchestra, and as president of the Toledo Women's Club in 1940. She also provided financial support for a lecture series held at Toledo's city hall. The Stranahan family owned a property in Richmond, Virginia, known as Windsor Farms, where Celeste spent her winters, and she was an active member of the Woman's Club of Richmond.