Melody Maids were an all-girl singing group from Beaumont, Texas that toured the world from 1942 to 1972. Dick Dowling Junior High School music teacher Eloise Rush Milam was asked to help arrange entertainment for a bond rally at the Jefferson Theatre in Beaumont. Milam also gave private voice lessons to junior high and high school-aged girls, so she presented her students as a choral group, all dressed in white. Since the newspaper insisted on having a name for the group, they decided to call themselves the Melody Maids. This first performance was on July 4, 1942. Touring Although they performed for many types of audiences, their decades of service to the military began that December, singing at Camp Polk (now Fort Polk), Louisiana. The Melody Maids began to travel from coast to coast singing for military bases, military hospitals, veterans and other civic organizations. They also recorded radio broadcasts. The group made four tours of Europe, several to England, three to the Far East, seven to the far North, four to the Caribbean, five to Mexico, seven to Hawaii, and four to Bermuda, Iceland, and the Azores. The girls financed some of the tours themselves by holding bake sales, silver teas, style shows and other fund-raisers. After 1956, all of the Melody Maid tours were financed by the Entertainment Branch of the Department of Defense (not to be confused with the United Service Organizations). Of all the performers who traveled with the Entertainment Branch, the Melody Maids were requested the most. Morals, manners and music The Melody Maids and Eloise Milam wore identical costumes. Their routines called for a variety of costume changes, depending on their location and the content of the show. The group had a book of rules for conduct and etiquette. This book, the Melody Maid "Bible," taught them how to act when presented to royalty and the correct way to present themselves at formal affairs. Milam always said she taught the girls morals, manners, and music, in that order. In addition to performing at the bases, their visits often included dances at the officers clubs, state dinners with foreign dignitaries, and seeing historical and cultural sites as their schedule allowed. As the decades passed and the Melody Maids got more popular, competition was fierce for acceptance into the group. In later years, not only did the girls have to audition for Milam to get in