Bea Abbott - It Had To Be You 1958

Beatrice Ruby (1925-2007), a sultry singer from Rhode Island who got her break in New York at age 18, crooned to Chicago lounge audiences in the 1950s and '60s under the stage name Bea Abbott.

"She left Rhode Island at 18 to launch a singing career in New York City," said her cousin, Vincent Policelli. "This was a childhood wish."

She spent three years singing in popular places in New York before meeting a trumpeter from Chicago named Leon Ruby.

They married in 1948, Policelli said. "He was a well-known trumpeter, and he had his own Dixieland band." The couple were married for 50 years before Leon Ruby's death.

In the 1950s, Mrs. Ruby sang with the Hal Otis Orchestra, opening a new room at the Sheraton Blackstone Hotel called Cafe Bonaparte.

She also performed at the Melody Mill Ballroom in North Riverside. She sang with the Andy Powell Orchestra and the Vic Cesario Trio and performed with pianist Joe Vito and jazz violinist Johnny Frigo. In 1958, she released an album, "The Too, Too Marvelous Bea."

"She kind of sounds like Billie Holiday," Policelli said. "She was torchy, soft jazz, sultry."

Mrs. Ruby continued to perform into the 1980s, appearing with the Dixieland Jazz Band in Grant Park as part of the city's free summer entertainment.

For 15 years until she retired in 2006, she worked at Oak Bank in Chicago as a secretary to the vice president.

Ruth Tobias, a close friend, recalled the singer's popularity in the 1950s and 1960s.

"They were all very emotional songs," Tobias said. "That was a different era, a romantic atmosphere. And Bea was really suited to that. She was a beautiful girl."

"She was so pretty and she handled herself well," Tobias said. "She knew how to work a room, how to connect with an audience."