Opera Singer. A contralto, she was a star of light opera in the late 19th century. Born Hannah Joyce Maskell, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England and made her stage debut there at the Strand Theatre. She traveled to New York City, New York and made her first American appearance in 1872. She then appeared in W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” at Haverly’s Lyceum Theatre in New York in 1879. In 1882 she married comic baritone Digby Bell, becoming Laura Joyce Bell. She continued to perform regularly through the 1890s, often in her popular Gilbert and Sullivan roles. Her last Broadway performance was in “Mr. Pickwick” in 1903. (bio by: Barry Sharpe)  Family links:  Parents:  James H. Maskell (1823 – 1897)  Maria Dalton Maskell (1829 – 1917)  Spouses:  Digby Bell (1849 – 1917)  James Valentine Taylor (____ – 1882)*  Children:  Valentine Taylor (1874 – 1943)*  Herbert J. Taylor-Bell (1876 – 1950)*  Laura Seymour Bell Schlichting (1893 – ____)* *Calculated relationship