Bessie Hall Dempsey (1914-1971) moved to Seattle as a child, with her mother, seamstress Jessie Hall, and her older sister, Irma Beatrice Hall. The sisters attended Broadway High School and the Cornish School of Fine Arts. Bessie and Irma Hall studied classical ballet, folk dance, music theory, composition, and choreography. Bessie was an excellent student and also studied physics, mathematics, and foreign languages. In the late 1920s Bessie and Irma began performing as the Hall Sisters in northwest vaudeville theaters. Later, Bessie Hall pursued a solo career in San Francisco and Los Angeles performing in ballets, nightclubs, and movies under the stage name Yvonne St. Clair. In 1935 she married Lee Dempsey, former first baseman for the New York Giants. Their son Herbert Lee ( Mark) Dempsey was born in 1936. Bessie Dempsey later earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering, moved to Seattle and worked for Boeing as the company's first female engineer. Bessie Hall Dempsey worked at Boeing for nearly 24 years. During her Boeing career, she still enjoyed local amateur performing and lived on a Seattle houseboat with her son Mark.

This portrait of her was taken around 1930.