Ethel May Earnist was long thought to have been a pseudonym for prolific composer and publisher Charles L. Johnson. However, information uncovered in 2006 by Bill Edwards and verified by historian Nora Hulse indicates that she was very real, and the probable composer of Peanuts - A Nutty Rag. Earnist was the only surviving child of three born to Isabelle "Belle" La Gourgue and William H. Earnist in Odell, Nebraska. The Earnist family moved to Omaha early in her life, and they were shown living there for the 1900 census.

It appears that Ethel had at least some advanced musical training as a child, including private piano instruction. Even before she was 18 she was listed in the Omaha city directory as a pianist. The 1910 enumeration indicated that William was working as a painter with his own shop, and that Ethel was a staff pianist at an Omaha department store. She was, in fact, working for Bennett's Department Store as a music demonstrator in their sheet music department. A March, 1910, advertisement exclaimed that Ethel Earnest [sic], the "expert pianist," and tenor Carl Moritz were "permanently" located there. The music manager for the store was none other than ragtime composer Theron Catlan Bennett (Saint Louis Tickle), who was possibly related to the owner. An April 2, 1910, advertisement for the store reads as follows:

As a point of curiosity, a notice in the Falls City [Nebraska] Journal of October 10, 1910, stated that Carl Moritz was "married to Miss Ethel Earnist." No legal evidence of this claim has been found, and it may have been an assumption, rumor or error. However, at this time they embarked on a brief tour of the eastern United States before returning to Omaha in early 1911.

Given that ragtime was the most popular music form at this time, plus the added presence of publisher and composer Bennett in the same place, it is not only likely that Ethel knew both current popular songs and piano rags, but that she felt inclined to write something as well. That something was mentioned at the time Mortiz and Earnist returned from their tour and performed some songs at Bennett's, plus a rendition of her new rag.

Based on subsequent census records and other indicators, the Earnist family relocated to the Kansas City, Missouri area in mid-1911 to the eastern Jackson County suburb of Independence. William was shown in 1912 directories in Independence and in many subsequent listings. This would coincide with the publication of Peanuts by Charles L. Johnson's publishing company in the summer of 1911. Ethel would be just one of a handful of women composers who got a single-shot rag or song published by Johnson. A rare song was published in 1912 as well, but in Ohio by the lyricist, Carl Moritz. My Southern Gal with music by Ethel was entered into copyright on October 30, 1912, by the Moritz Publishing Company of Toledo, Ohio, late in the year. Nothing more by her has been located.

Ethel was still performing or plugging as of the 1920 census, now listed as working in the music department of a drug store in Kansas City in the employ of what had been a Charles L. Johnson Publishing Company rival, one of Kansas City's largest music firms, J.W. Jenkins Sons Music. She was also shown as working for them through at least 1923. That year, Ethel was married in Wichita, Kansas, to Ober "Obe" Gentry Hamilton (1/23/1888), who had been a wholesale coffee salesman in the late 1910s and now worked in extermination chemical sales.

The 1930 enumeration indicated that they continued to live in the Kansas City, Missouri area with Ethel's parents, but she is listed as having no occupation at that time (not even as a piano teacher, surprisingly). They were living in the same home for the 1940 census, along with Ethel's widowed mother. Ober was now working as a wholesale drug salesman, and Ethel again had no listed occupation.

Obe died from a heart attack in early 1948 at age 61. The 1950 census showed her still living in the same home with her mother, now in her nineties. Even though Ethel had not worked for many years, her 1957 death certificate listed her as a musician who was last in the employ of Jenkins Music, indicating that she perhaps had a longer career with them than the census records reveal. Given that her siblings died in infancy, and she had no children, there are literally no remaining relatives from which to extract a family history. Ethel (Earnist) Hamilton died at 69 of lung cancer after a brief hospitalization in Kansas City.