Career
Shoemaker acted with the Orpheum Players at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, initially appearing with that group in September 1909. After one season there, David Belasco engaged her for a supporting role in Nobody's Widow. In the summer of 1911, she acted with the Albee Stock Company in Providence, Rhode Island. By 1914, she was performing with the Baker Stock Company in Portland, Oregon. At that time, she was the youngest leading lady in American stock theater. In October 1914, she became the leading lady of the Baldwin Players in Duluth, Minnesota.
In 1917, Shoemaker left Omaha, Nebraska, after 12 weeks with the stock company there. She joined the Keith Stock Company in Union Hill, New Jersey, so that she could be closer to her year-old daughter, who was being kept by Shoemaker's mother and sister in New York.
In June 1921, Shoemaker signed a five-year contract to act at the Booth Theatre in New York City.
Shoemaker's Broadway credits include Half a Sixpence (1965), Sunrise at Campobello (1958), The Living Room (1954), Twilight Walk (1951), Dream Girl (1951), Woman Bites Dog (1946), The Rich Full Life (1945), Proof Thro' the Night (1942), Ah, Wilderness! (1941), Black Sheep (1932), The Silent Witness (1931), The Novice and the Duke (1929), Button, Button (1919), To-Night at 12 (1928), Speak Easy (1927), We All Do (1927), The Noose (1926), and The Great God Brown (1926).
Personal life
She had two marriages. On April 22, 1914, in Portland, Oregon, she married actor Louis Leon Hall, with whom she acted in the Baker Stock Company. Their daughter, Anne, became a song lyricist. After divorcing, she was later married to the actor Henry Stephenson from 1922 until his death in 1956.
