Wins healthy baby contest in Seattle

In September 1912, as an infant not yet two years old, Rose Louise Hovick won a "healthy baby" contest held in Seattle, an event connected to the legacy of the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition. While a minor footnote in the grand arc of her career, this early public recognition is frequently cited by biographers as the first documented instance of the public attention that would later define her life.

The contest itself was a common civic and promotional event of the era, meant to celebrate community health and family life in the rapidly growing Pacific Northwest city. For the Hovick family, however, even this small local triumph fed into a broader pattern: Rose Hovick, Louise's mother, was notably ambitious and image-conscious, and later channeled that same drive into pushing her daughters into show business at very young ages.

Though the contest had no direct bearing on Louise's later career as a burlesque star, it is emblematic of the performative and competitive environment that surrounded her from infancy. Biographers and historians researching her Seattle roots have used this anecdote to illustrate how thoroughly her mother orchestrated public presentation of her children from the earliest possible age, laying informal groundwork for the stage career that would follow within just a few years.