In the summer of 1893 Barrymore was in the company of her mother, Georgie, who had been ailing from tuberculosis and took a curative sabbatical to Santa Barbara, California, not far from where family friend Helena Modjeska had a retreat. Georgie did not recover and died in July 1893 a week before her 37th birthday. Essentially Ethel's and Lionel's childhood ended when Georgie died; they were forced to go to work in their teens with neither finishing high school. John, a few years younger, stayed with their grandmother and other relatives. Barrymore's first appearance on Broadway was in 1895, in a play called "The Imprudent Young Couple" which starred her uncle John Drew, Jr., and Maude Adams. She appeared with Drew and Adams again in 1896 in "Rosemary".