Elsie Veronica Ewald

1909 - 2003  (~ 93 years)

• Name	Elsie Veronica Ewald
  Born	Jul 1909	Harrow, , Middlesex, England   [1, 2]
  Gender	Female
  Business	Elsie V. Ewald Academy of Dancing
  		Ewald-ElsieVeronica-001-SchoolofDance.JPG Kitchener-Waterloo Record Kitchener, Ontario, Canada · Saturday, May 30, 1987
  FindAGrave	https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/220741263
  Nationality	, Canada   [1]
  Immigration	1913	, Canada   [1]
  Residence	1921	292 Wellington St., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  Residence	1921	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  	Roman Catholic
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-308339
  Died	4 Jan 2003	Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  Buried	Woodland Cem., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2, 3]
  Person ID	I308339	Generations
  Last Modified	3 Mar 2025

  
  

  Father	Ernst Ewald,   b. 1866, , West Prussia, Germany ,   d. 10 Apr 1952, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 86 years)
  Mother	Anna Maria "Annie" Whalen,   b. 1 Jul 1877, , Prussia, Germany ,   d. 7 Jun 1935, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 57 years)
  Married	London, England
  Family ID	F240330	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos

  Ewald-ElsieVeronica-002.JPG Elsie Veronica Ewald - Facebook 2024

  
  

• Notes

  Dance instructor takes aim on figure skaters by PHILOMÅÍÁ RUTHERFORD Kitchener-Waterloo Record KITCHENER. Ont. (CP) Elsie Ewald has devoted 30 years to "turning out young ladies." Now the principal of the Academy of Dancing has undertaken another challenge. She plans to teach enough ballet to figure skaters to make them champions on ice. The idea, which came from skating-club professional Kerry Leitch, has been practised for years by Russian skaters. Miss Ewald said the ballet exercises are designed to develop "a better turnout. proper body alignment and placement of skaters. Stretching exercises are aimed at limbering the body. Good deportment, grace, style, power and stamina are important but "the first and foremost lesson is that proper posture be maintained at all times." "You try to get a flowing, rather than a jerky, separated movement on ice," she said. "It all has to flow together." Teaching people how not to be awkward has been Miss Ewald's life. "We're not trying to train people for professional work but for poise and grace, so that they can grow up and go into professional clubs, drama or whatever. "Anyone we feel is capable of professional work, we would send to audition at the National Ballet School. "But that isn't my work. Mine is to teach them grace, poise and personality to be nice young ladies. That is what we do up here." Miss Ewald said she enjoys the challenge of teaching little girls. "All they know is they want to dance. To take these and develop them as graceful little girls is the most important thing." She has approximately 250 students and a staff of 11 teachers. Minimum age for nursery ballet is three years. But it isn't just tiny tots who study at the academy. "I have married women, mothers, university students and business girls taking ballet and jazz. Only one boy, a four-year-old, has been enrolled this year. Miss Ewald has found a growing interest in ballet but jazz is becoming popular, too, and tap is coming back. She attributes this to "alot of tap-jazz on TV." She doesn't teach belly dancing but is swamped with calls from married women who want to learn the dance. Miss Ewald was born in England and came to Canada with her family while still a toddler. All her life, she wanted to dance. I always thought it was so beautiful." Two years ago she filled a life-long ambition by graduating from university. "Ever since I went into business, I wanted to have a degree," she said. "But time and many years passed before I had any time to do it. It took me about six years but finally I graduated in arts majoring in English." The Brandon Sun, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada Thu, Jan 22, 1976 Page 11 _________________ EWALD, Elsie V.. - Peacefully, after a brief illness, at Golden Years Nursing Home, Cambridge, Saturday, January 4, 2003, in her 94th year. Predeceased by her parents, Ernst and Anna (Whalen); by a sister, Ann and brothers, Stephen and John. Loved aunt to Dennis Ewald and his wife Wilma and Diane Duench and her husband James as well as nine great-nieces and great-nephews and 11 great-great-nieces and great-great-nephews. Cremation has taken place. A Memorial Mass will be held at St. Mary's RC Church (56 Duke St. W.) on Wednesday at 11 a.m. Contributions to St. Mary's RC Church building fund would be appreciated. Waterloo Region Record, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada Monday, January 06, 2003 _____________ Doyenne of dance remembered as pioneer BY CAROL GOODWIN RECORD STAFF KITCHENER Remembered as Kitchener's and an early arts pioneer in the cultural desert of a working town, Elsie Ewald died last Saturday at the age of 93. Miss Ewald, as she was known to thousands of dance students who passed through her studios since she opened her first one in 1936, remained active and mentally engaged almost to her last few weeks, spent at the Golden Years nursing home in Cambridge, her great-niece, Kimberly Green, said yesterday. "My aunt had her own apartment up to a couple of months ago. She had a valid driver's licence until age 91. When she was in her 60s, while still running the studio, she went back to university to get her degree, majoring in English. She was over 80 when she retired in 1990, but she never revealed her age," Green said yesterday in an interview. "But her first love was always ballet. When I bought the studio, Academy of Dance, in 1990, she said to me, 'I wouldn't have sold it to you if you didn't have the ballet. But you have the ballet," Green recalled. While Ewald also offered dance instruction in jazz, tap and Spanish, she believed passionately in the importance of classical ballet training as a basis for the other dance forms. Although without classical training herself, the young Ewald eventually decided to make dance her life. Before that, she had been working at a clerical job at Uniroyal after graduating from Kitchener Collegiate Institute. She started teaching part-time while attending courses in Toronto, Hamilton and New York. For six summers in a row she attended classes with the Dance Educators of America, then opened her first studio in Kitchener, with her sister, Ann, in 1936. The two would also travel to Guelph, Listowel and Preston to give lessons. Ann died in 1953, and Ewald continued on her own, never marrying and devoting six days a week to her school, whose final location was the upper floor of a building at Charles and Queen streets. Ewald's dedication inspired and sometimes exhausted her students and teachers. "She was demanding," recalled Cora Black, a former student who left the Ewald school to open her own studio, the Moree School of Dance, 23 years ago in downtown Kitchener. "But she was really interested in promoting dance. She would go to Toronto to look for costumes, and there were the recitals. She really kept going, she was an inspiration," Black said. Horst Kessler, a local ballroom dance instructor, knew Ewald for many years. "Elsie and I had an excellent professional relationship. She was a real, solid, old-style teacher," Kessler said. "She was a pioneer, really. When she started her studio in the 1930s, Kitchener was a working town, there was no cultural life. There was a choir at the German club, that's about it. Then Elsie came along and opened a ballet studio. What a shock that was." She went on to make a name for herself in the dance community, and was a founder of the Canadian Dance Teachers Association, Kessler said. "And she produced good quality kids." "She was straightforward, a no-nonsense lady." Dennis Ewald, Elsie Ewald's nephew, said yesterday that his aunt loved writing and became an active member of the Canadian Authors Association's Kitchener chapter, winning a couple of honourable mentions for her poetry. She was writing her autobiography at the time of her death, Dennis said, and parts of it will be read at a memorial service being held at St. Mary's Ro-man Catholic Church at 56 Duke St. W., tomorrow at 11 a.m. cgoodwin@therecord.com Waterloo Region Record, Tue, Jan 07, 2003 Page 11

  
  

• Sources

  [S2264] Census - ON, Waterloo, Kitchener - 1921, Sub Dist. 23 Page 5. [S3226] Woodland Cemetery, Kitchener. [Large stone] Anna/ 1877-1935/ Ernst/ 1866-1952/ Ewald/ Stephen/ 1900-1938/ Ann/ 1906-1954/ Elsie/ 1909-2003/ John/ 1901-1987 (Memory Gardens)/ "Hail Mary, Full Of Grace, The Lord Is With Thee." [S3231] Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/220741263.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - Jul 1909 - Harrow, , Middlesex, England Nationality - - , Canada Immigration - 1913 - , Canada Residence - 1921 - 292 Wellington St., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Roman Catholic - 1921 - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Died - 4 Jan 2003 - Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Buried - - Woodland Cem., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth