Balfour Ker attended Pyle’s Monday night lectures on composition in 1908 and shared on of Pyle’s with Gayle Hoskins.  He married Mary Ellen Sigsbee (who was to study with Pyle later) in 1907. In the same year Ker and his wife left to study painting in Paris.  The Kers returned to the United States in 1908 and were divorced in 1910.