 She honed her songwriting skills while working with, her brother, Otis McDaniel’s carnival company, a minstrel show.McDaniel and her sister Etta Goff launched an all-female minstrel show in 1914 called the McDaniel Sisters Company.After the death of her brother Otis in 1916, the troupe began to lose money, and Hattie did not get her next big break until 1920.