My Musical Family

Sing, Sing, Sing!

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:53:00 +0000

I was only half-listening to the radio in the other room earlier this evening when my ears perked up at the name “Harry Anderson” and the words “community sing.”

Minnesota Public Radio’s Dan Olson was reporting a story about community sings in Minneapolis, a tradition that was popular between the 1920s and the 1950s and has been revived by a group called Minnesota Community Sings. The Minneapolis-based group has scheduled a community sing for tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. in Powderhorn Park. Four additional events are scheduled for this summer, three in Minnehaha Park and one in Rosemount.

Olson interviewed 95-year-old Harry Anderson Jr., who grew up attending community sing events led by his father, Harry Anderson Sr.

You can read or listen to the entire story if you click here.

This photo, taken before the 1925 sing in St. Cloud, shows the boys’ band in front, in white, and the adult municipal band in the bandstand.

The reason my ears perked up is because the elder Harry Anderson came to St. Cloud in 1925 to direct the city’s first big community sing. The event in Central (now Barden) Park also included music by the St. Cloud Municipal Band and the St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band, both directed by my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs.

The Aug. 20, 1925, event attracted 5,000 people, which is impressive in itself, but even more so when you consider that the city’s population at the time was about 16,000 — meaning that almost a third of the city’s residents came out for the event. According to newspaper accounts, cars lined the streets around the park’s perimeter, and police were on hand to handle the street congestion. People bought popcorn and Crackerjack from the popcorn wagon, and more than a dozen uniformed Boy Scouts walked through the crowd, distributing song pamphlets.

After numbers by the boys’ band and the municipal band, Anderson took the stage and led the crowd in songs including “America” and “My Old Kentucky Home,” and he divided the crowd to sing rounds of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,” and “Row, Row Your Boat.” Last on the program was the “Star Spangled Banner.”

At the event’s conclusion, the St. Cloud Daily Times noted, the crowd “applauded together with automobile horns until the din was deafening. The leader then led them in ‘rahs’ for the bands, the park and almost everything which came to his mind and they joined in with spirit.”

Sounds like great fun. I can’t make tomorrow evening’s event in Minneapolis, but I will have to see if I can attend one of the events later this summer. I wonder if they’ll sell Crackerjack?

Catch Vintage Band Fever

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:55:00 +0000

The countdown to Vintage Band Festival 2013 is at 77 days – it’s less than three months away! If you enjoy listening to world-class music, attending family-friendly summer festivals, and exploring cool small towns, make plans now to travel to Northfield, Minn., this summer – the town of Colleges, Cows and Cornets!

Thirty bands are scheduled to present 100 concerts during the four days of the international festival, showcasing a variety of genres, heritage influences and period-style performances. Some bands are making a return appearance, and others are new to the festival. Detailed information about the bands, links to their websites, samples of their music, and a searchable performance schedule are available on the festival website, vintagebandfestival.org.

New bands this year include Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Cowboy Band, from Texas (also known as the Frontier Brigade Band); the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, a New Orleans-style band composed of eight brothers from Chicago; and two bands from Sweden, Ehnstedt’s Octet and Medevi Brunnsorkester.

You can get a taste of the Swedish bands’ music by listening to this podcast, narrated by VBF artistic director Paul Niemisto.

Here’s another podcast, with samples of music from three heritage bands: the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Cowboy Band, the Independent Silver Band from Mt. Vernon, Illinois (directed by the esteemed William Reynolds, whom I befriended at the last VBF); and Amerikkan Poijat, a Finnish-American brass band founded by Niemisto.

Additional events planned for the festival include vintage base ball, a ballroom-style dance, vaudeville entertainment, and a Battle of the Bands on the banks of the Cannon River, commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War.

The Riverwalk Market Fair will be operating on the Saturday of the festival, and the Northfield Arts Guild will present Meredith Willson’s The Music Man on Aug. 2-4 (the second of three weekends of performances).

Independent Silver Band director William Reynolds meets vintage band director G. Oliver Riggs in August 2010.

The last two festivals, in 2006 and 2010, attracted audiences of 15,000 people, and we are expecting even more festival-goers this year because of the larger number of bands and the more extensive schedule. Events begin at noon each day, and performances will be on the hour and half hour at various venues throughout the city. Satellite concerts are scheduled in the surrounding communities of Dundas, Faribault, Owatonna, Cannon Falls, New Prague, Red Wing, Chatfield, New Ulm and Minneapolis.

All performances are free, but to cover expenses of the festival we encourage freewill donations. Those who donate a minimum of $25 will receive a handsome VBF 2013 pin. Donors at the $150 or $250 levels receive reservations to limited-seating events, invitations to special receptions, a T-shirt and a poster. For donation information, click here.

You can also buy cool VBF T-shirts and hats at the Northfield Historical Society gift shop, and they will soon be available for sale on the VBF website.

I serve on the VBF executive committee, so it’s exciting to see all the plans coming together for what I think will be the best festival yet. I am already trying to figure out how I can make it to as many concerts and events as possible!

Trombone Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:00:00 +0000

One of the enjoyable aspects of writing a blog is that it allows me to virtually meet people I likely would never otherwise encounter, and exchange information with them about a mutual topic of interest. I have made the acquaintance of several people that way in the last couple of months, including Ross Swanson, whose father, Arthur, played trombone in the St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band under the direction of my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs.

Art joined the boys’ band in 1929 when he was 12 years old. “He later taught me to play the trombone, and he never stopped telling me about the impact that G. Oliver Riggs had on him during the years that he played in the St. Cloud Boys Band,” Ross told me.

The St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band in 1930

Ross’s paternal grandfather, Solomon Swanson, emigrated from Sweden to Minnesota in 1903 and went to work for the Hilder Granite Company in St. Cloud as its chief blacksmith. Solomon and his wife Ida raised their family in Swede Hollow, a neighborhood located near the St. Cloud State Reformatory. Art was the youngest of their seven children (Ross writes about the history of the city’s granite industry in this account, St. Cloud Granite).

In an essay Ross wrote about his dad and his trombone playing, he explains that it was Art’s sister Lillian who gave Art the $10 he needed to buy his first trombone. She had a job working at Herberger’s department store. He was 11 at the time, and he joined the boys’ band the following year, in 1929.

Art continued to play the trombone through his teen years. When he was 16, he played on the weekends for the Stan Zontek Dance Band. And when he was 17, he played a gig one night with Lawrence Welk and His Hotsy Totsy Boys, filling in for their sick trombone player. He graduated from Technical High School in 1935 and received his elementary school teaching credentials in 1937 from the St. Cloud Teachers College.

Arthur E. Swanson, 1917-1996

Ross was born in St. Cloud, but his family moved to Duluth in 1950 and later to California, where his dad worked as a machine shop manager for Hughes Aircraft Company. When Ross turned 11, Art bought his son a used 1948 Olds Ambassador trombone and taught him to play it. Ross says his dad was a great teacher and encouraged him to continue playing throughout junior high, high school and junior college.

Now a resident of Redding, California, Ross writes regular “remembrances” about growing up in Minnesota and California for a website in Cook, Minn., that is owned by a friend of his. One recent essay, “The Music Man,” is about G. Oliver Riggs. You can read the entire essay if you click here and scroll down past his essays on Marshall-Wells and the Blue Laws.

In the “Music Man” essay, Ross writes that his father described G. Oliver as “a stern disciplinarian who demanded perfection from the boys. He would walk around the band room during rehearsal, and if he heard a wrong note he would rap the offender on his head or on the back of his neck with his baton. He would ask the boys how much practice time they were getting, and later he would contact the parents to see if the boys were being truthful. ... The boys may have feared him as a disciplinarian and task master, but they grew up to truly love and appreciate G. Oliver Riggs.’”

It’s always gratifying to hear that my great-grandfather made a lasting impression upon his young musicians, although I do feel bad for those who became better acquainted with G. Oliver’s baton. And it’s amazing to consider how a sister’s generous gift of $10 reaped rewards that can’t be calculated in dollar amounts.

G. Oliver! the Musical

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:46:00 +0000

I have occasionally joked with friends about the idea of making the G. Oliver Riggs story into a musical. Turns out, it’s not such a wild idea. The History Theatre in St. Paul has announced its 2013-14 season, and one of the shows is about the Minneapolis Working Boys Band, a contemporary of (and occasional competitor to) my great-grandfather’s St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band.

The theater’s press release describes the world premiere show as “a celebration of community, music, love, and patriotism.” Working Boys Band, with book and lyrics by Dominic Orlando and music by Hiram Titus, will be performed May 3-June 1, 2014.

The Minneapolis Working Boys Band/photo from the History Theatre website

The Minneapolis working boys band was organized in 1918 by Professor C. C. Heintzman as a way to give boys a positive activity that would keep them out of trouble. The band continued through at least the mid-1930s; I first became aware of its existence when I saw it mentioned in events connected to G. Oliver and his band. For example, in 1930, the Minneapolis Working Boys Band was one of 26 bands that competed in the second annual, two-day state band contest, organized by G. Oliver and held in St. Paul (The St. Cloud boys took second place in the marching contest, losing to the St. Paul Police Band. The Brainerd Women’s band and the Sleepy Eye high school band tied for third place).

The later director of the Minneapolis Working Boys Band, William Allen Abbott, was a friend of G. Oliver’s. He was one of the guest directors who filled in for G. Oliver in 1936 when G. Oliver was in the hospital (I wrote about it in this September 2011 blog post, Pinch-Hitting for G. Oliver).

In addition to Working Boys Band, the History Theatre’s new season includes other intriguing shows, like Tim O'Brien’s The Things They Carried, based on the Austin, Minnesota native’s book about his experiences in Vietnam; Lonely Soldiers: Women at War in Iraq; and Baby Case, about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

The theatre is selling subscriptions for the 2013-2014 season now through December 8, 2013. Single tickets for all shows will go on sale Tuesday, July 9, 2013.

Name that Face!

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:09:00 +0000

A common problem with old photos is that they lack names, dates and locations – crucial information when you’re conducting research decades later. But that’s not the problem facing me at the moment (yes, the pun is intentional). I have located a photo that clearly labels the first and last names of all the people in it. The problem is, I’m not convinced the young man identified as my great-uncle, Percy Riggs, is really him.

The photo is of the St. Cloud Cathedral high school basketball team from 1925. After I discovered that Percy was listed as being in the photo, according to the Stearns History Museum’s online collections directory, my dad went to the museum and made a copy of it. In addition to the photo, Dad and John Decker, museum archivist and chief sleuth, found other mentions in the Cathedral yearbook, the Cathedralite, of Percy playing forward on the 1924-25 basketball team. However, they were unable to find a record of him graduating from the school or find him in the 1924 or 1926 yearbooks.

The back of the photo lists the team members and coaches as follows:

• Back row, left to right: George Pung (guard), P.H. “Percy” Riggs (forward), Rev. T. Leo Keaneny, Virgil Skumautz (center), Raymond Hermanutz (guard)
• Front row, left to right: George Ladner (guard), Oswald Denne (captain, forward), Nick Lies (forward0, John Smuda (forward), Charles Tanner Jr. (coach)

So far, so good, right? But when I looked closely at the boy labeled as Percy, my instinct was to say, no, that must be the wrong guy – although none of the others looks any more like him.

It’s my opinion, based only on photos I have seen of Percy from different times in his life, that it is not Percy. Yet, I can’t completely rule it out, either, knowing that the faces of growing boys do change in the late teen years. Also, it’s clear from the yearbook that he did play on the team.

Blog readers, can you help me out? Look at the photos and let me know what you think.


St. Cloud Cathedral high school basketball team, 1925

Percy?

Percy, 1917

Percy as a college student, unknown date

Percy as a young band director, unknown date

Of course, if it’s not Percy, it raises the question – who else could it be? The yearbook notes that the team started out with 15 young men, and the coach took 10 to the first game of the season in Royalton. But only eight players are in the photo, and only eight names are listed in the yearbook roster, including Percy’s.

Although his name isn’t mentioned in the regular season game recaps, he apparently played well in the first two of the team’s three post-season tournament games. In the game against Superior, which Cathedral won 21-9, Percy replaced team captain Dunne, who was forced out by an attack of appendicitis. Percy’s “splendid floor work and accurate eye baffled the Superior defense,” according to the yearbook. And in the semi-final game against St. Mary’s, which Cathedral won 24-15, the yearbook notes that Percy was “good.” He must not have played much or well in the final game, a 10-27 loss to St. Thomas, because his name was not mentioned again.

It’s not vitally important, but it would be helpful to know whether it is Percy in the photo, for the sake of accuracy. I’m trying to verify more details about his young adult life for the book chapter I’m writing that covers the 1923-25 time period.

I remains a mystery for now – I will have to keep digging.

The dueling tales (and horns) of Louisa & Louise

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:02:00 +0000

My daughter, Louisa, is in Red Wing today – with her French horn – as one of 1,000 Minnesota high school students attending the 2013 Missota Conference fine arts festival. Her band will give a performance, attend a clinic, and participate in a grand finale concert tonight at the Red Wing High School with the other bands and choirs. Then, she and other members of the Northfield High School concert band will return to Northfield briefly before reloading the buses and hitting the road around 10:30 p.m. for an 18-hour bus trip to New York City!

No, I am not chaperoning. Just in case you were wondering.

Music-related features of the NYC tour will include dinner and entertainment at the Blue Note Jazz Club, a tour of Lincoln Center, a clinic with Michael L. Breux of New York University, and an exchange with the North Bergen (New Jersey) High School Band. The Northfield musicians will also attend a performance of the Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theater and will have time for other sightseeing.

Louisa won’t have much time for sightseeing today in Red Wing, which is too bad. Although the Minnesota town doesn’t compare to NYC in terms of excitement and ethnic cuisine, it does have a long history of high-quality music ensembles, and it is home to the beautifully restored Sheldon Theatre, which hosts year-round music, theater and other performances.

Historic photo of the Sheldon, from the theater website.

The Sheldon began its life in 1904 as the T.B. Sheldon Memorial Auditorium. Mr. Sheldon, who died in 1900, had given the city of Red Wing $83,000 in trust to be used to develop a public institution. Described as a “jewel box” because of its interior decorative elements, the auditorium was used for traveling shows and local concerts, including concerts in the early 1920s by the Red Wing Boys’ Band.

One of the band’s most notable musicians was not a boy at all; she was a girl named Louise. Born on Feb. 26, 1918, she was the youngest child of the band’s director, H. Ernest Schmidt.

Schmidt’s claim to fame, besides being the father of Louise, is that he is known as the father of the Minnesota Bandmasters Association. He organized the group in March of 1924 and was elected its first president. One topic of discussion at that first meeting in Red Wing was “Boys Bands.” The following year, the group scheduled its spring meeting in St. Cloud specifically because the members were eager to learn more about the success my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, was having with his St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band. And Louise came along on the trip with her dad.

The entertainment highlight of the convention in St. Cloud was supposed to be an evening concert by the Third U.S. Infantry Band of Fort Snelling, directed by Carl Dillon. But the surprise hit of the evening appears to have been the intermission performance by Louise Schmidt on the flugelhorn.

According to an May 22 article in the St. Cloud Daily Times, seven-year-old Louise “electrified” the audience with two solos, including “Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny,” and two encores. “It turned out to be no intermission at all because everyone stayed in the theatre to hear the little girl play,” the article noted.

I was curious to learn more about Louise. So when I was in Red Wing at the end of February on a writing retreat, I spent an hour in the public library doing some research on Schmidt and his daughter. I found a Red Wing Republican newspaper article from April 20, 1925, that mentioned the newly organized boys’ band. The article was complimentary of the band’s first concert, which was to be the first in a series of free concerts. It noted that hundreds of people were turned away because the Sheldon auditorium was filled to capacity to hear the band and its “assisting artists.” (Maybe that’s what the girls were called?)

The article also said: “Louise Schmidt, seven-year-old daughter of Director and Mrs. Schmidt, scored a tremendous hit with her flugelhorn solos, ‘Dreaming Alone in the Twilight’ and ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,’ the latter being played with jazz orchestra accompaniment. Louise’s horn is almost as big as she is but she plays it in faultless style.’”

Louise’s dad continued to serve on the Minnesota Bandmasters Association board for several years, and the family lived in Red Wing until 1930, when Schmidt took a job as a public school music teacher in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. According to the MBA archives, Schmidt organized and directed several bands in Wisconsin communities, working in a different city each day of the week. He left Minnesota in 1943, and from 1943-1960 he taught at the Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary, before retiring to Venice, California.

As for Louise? I don’t know where she ended up – maybe New York City? Wherever she went, I hope she kept playing. It sounds like she had a gift.

Out of Sync

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:52:00 +0000

I realized to my horror the other day that I haven’t been to yoga all month, and I’ve only blogged once. March has been filled with exciting events – like seeing Louisa perform in the Northfield High School’s Rock and Roll Revival extravaganza – but it’s been so crammed with activity that I haven’t been able to stick to my routine.

I hope to get back to more regular physical exercise (yoga and walking) and writing exercise (blogging) as April arrives. I find that everything goes better when I make sure to balance work and exercise. In fact, I get some of my best writing inspirations when I’m out walking the dog.

Louisa singing “Baby, Baby (I Still Love You)” by the Cinderellas

Louisa in her poodle skirt – one of three costumes she wore in the show.

Louisa with her proud dad.

My online book proposal class wraps up this week, and I am happy to report that it’s been a productive and inspiring experience. Through my work in the class, offered through the Loft Literary Center, I have now completed a draft of my first chapter and the other parts of the book proposal, like the annotated table of contents and the marketing/publicity section.

The key now will be to keep up the momentum and set some goals for myself, which is a much harder thing to do without the accountability of the class. I do have some accountability with you, my blog readers, so I will let you in on what I’m planning.

My goal for the next two months is to revise and polish the first chapter, and write and revise the second and third chapters. This will likely involve at least a few more trips to the Minnesota History Center’s library to fill in some research gaps, and some long overdue transcribing of interviews I conducted a few years ago. Once the chapters are as finely tuned as I can make them, I will be ready to approach a potential publisher.

It’s exciting to feel like all of the work I have done in the past six years is finally leading to a tangible product: a book that will tell the fascinating and little-known story of G. Oliver Riggs and his St. Cloud boys’ band.

The work continues. Happy Spring!

Longing to Retreat

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 23:40:00 +0000

Last week at this time I was in the midst of a lovely four-day writing retreat at the Anderson Center in Red Wing, working on the first chapter of my book. My only companions were my friends Myrna and Chris, also writers, and although we ate meals together and occasionally chatted about our writing projects, we spent hours in solitude, writing, reading and having complete thoughts. I didn’t need to be responsible for anyone except myself. Ah, the freedom!

The sunny sitting room where I spent my afternoons writing last weekend.

What a difference a week makes. As I write this, I am holed up in my bedroom with my canine companion, attempting to turn words into sentences as Elias and half a dozen of his friends race around the house making a movie. I am happy to hear the shouts and interjections because I know they’re having fun while also being creative, but it is a reminder of why I got away last week, and why I was tempted to stay longer! It’s difficult enough to write when you have no distractions, but then when kids are around, when there’s laundry to do, when the phone rings, when the dog needs to go out – the distractions can pile up, making it nearly impossible to stay on task.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to return to the Anderson Center, but I sure hope it’s soon. In the meantime, I’ll try to tune out all the noise and clutter and put myself back in that serene, retreat frame of mind as I move forward, chapter by chapter.

The Landmark Water Tower at the Anderson Center.

With Fire and Sword

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:10:00 +0000

My assignment last week for the online book proposal class I’m taking was to create a comparable titles section, listing half a dozen books that share some similarities to mine but are also different (this is to help demonstrate that there’s a market for a book on a particular topic). Needless to say, the bookshelves are not overflowing with popular titles about historic bands – Oprah has not yet given her stamp of approval to such a book – so finding comparable titles posed a bit of a challenge.

The exercise led me to a couple of interesting Minnesota history books that I would like to read, and through the search process, I also stumbled across an incredible account of the Civil War called With Fire and Sword by S.H.M. Byers.

I recognized the name Byers immediately because I had mentioned him in a blog post back in October 2010 (Vicksburg is the Key – Part 2: Iowa and G. Oliver).

Maj. Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers served in the Fifth Iowa Infantry, fought at Vicksburg, was taken prisoner at the Battle of Chattanooga, and was held as a prisoner of war at five different prison camps, including Andersonville. He later became famous for writing the poem “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” which he composed while in prison, and the official state song, “Song of Iowa.”

Byers died in 1933 at age 95.

Byers returned to the South in November 1906 with a delegation of Iowa veterans and officials who dedicated battlefield monuments to Iowa soldiers at Shiloh, Vicksburg, Andersonville and Chattanooga – a delegation that included G. Oliver Riggs, who was invited to play cornet with the 51st Iowa Regimental Band, directed by his friend George Landers (G. Oliver’s father, Jasper Riggs, fought with the 45th Illinois Infantry in some of the same places Byers fought).

Byers kept a daily diary during his four years of war experiences, and he incorporates vivid details and descriptions into this engaging tale of his adventures, including his interactions with Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. It’s difficult to summarize the book because it contains so many incredible and poignant moments. As it says in the preface, “The book is not a history of great army movements, it is simply a true tale of the thrilling experiences of a subordinate soldier in the midst of great events.”

With Fire and Sword was published in 1911 and was out-of-print, but it’s in the public domain now, so thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can read it online or even buy a new paperback copy through BibiloBazaar, an imprint of historical reprints publisher BiblioLife.

I don’t imagine Byers had to send a comparative titles list to his publisher to convince them of the need for his story; even today, with all that’s been written about the Civil War, books continue to be published on the topic, and authors continue to find new things to say about it.

My book, which seeks to tell the true tale of the incredible experiences of the St. Cloud boys’ band, does not share much in common with With Fire and Sword, but I am hopeful that it also will make for compelling reading decades after its publication.

Book Proposal Boot Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 00:48:00 +0000

I have a good excuse for not blogging lately: I’ve been at boot camp.

It’s not what you might think. Although it is pushing me to set challenging goals and achieve them, this particular boot camp does not require me to wear a uniform or complete an impossible number of sit-ups and push-ups. I have enrolled in Book Proposal Boot Camp, an online class taught through the Loft Literary Center.

The eight-week course is described in the catalog as: a high-intensity basic training for writers with a nonfiction book idea, the readiness to write sample chapters, and the desire to get their proposal in the hands of agents and editors. By the end of this class, you will have a completed book proposal, a sample chapter, a query letter, and insider knowledge of the publishing industry, including how to successfully query agents.

Although being in a virtual classroom takes a little getting used to – I can enter any time I like, but I could also choose to never leave – I’m enjoying it so far, and I feel like I’m making progress toward my goal: writing a book about G. Oliver Riggs and the St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band (for more on this goal, see my post from October, Every Day I Write the Book).

I’m one of 16 students taking the class, which is taught by Ashley Shelby, author of Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City (she is also the daughter of former WCCO-TV news anchor Don Shelby). Her book is about the 1997 flooding of Grand Forks and was published in 2003 by Borealis Books, an imprint of the Minnesota Historical Society Press. I checked it out from the library two days ago and plan to read it when I’m not working on class assignments.

The dramatic cover of my instructor’s nonfiction book

I remember reading great reviews of the book when it came out, but somehow it never made it onto my short list of must-reads. Now it’s at the top, not just because she’s my boot camp instructor, but because G. Oliver directed the city band in Grand Forks from 1910-11. Some of the historic downtown buildings that burned in the aftermath of the flooding were new when he lived there, including this one, the B.P.O.E. Elks Lodge at 12 North Fourth St.:

My parents and I saw this plaque where the Elks building once stood.

The house where G. Oliver and his family lived, at 708 Fourth St., is also gone; when my parents and I tried to find it during a June 2010 visit to Grand Forks, we discovered that homes in that area were replaced by a levee that protects the neighborhood from flooding. It is part of the Greenway, a 2,200-acre recreation and flood mitigation system built after the devastating flood of 1997.

Fortunately, the Metropolitan Theatre, where G. Oliver’s band played concerts, is still standing.

The exterior of the magnificent former Metropolitan Theatre.

So far, I’ve completed two assignments for boot camp: an elevator pitch or brief summary of my book idea, and a longer overview of the proposed project, with possible titles and subtitles. My assignment for week three is to create an annotated table of contents, which will include chapter titles and a summary of the events of each chapter. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but it’s important work that will help me immensely as the book begins to take shape.

Speaking of shaping up, my internal drill instructor is telling me that my blogging R&R is over; it’s time to get back to those literary calisthenics!

A Confusion of Oles

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:49:00 +0000

Family history research is fraught with misunderstandings, clues that lead to nowhere, and surprises that lead to illumination. I have sometimes encountered all three within an hour’s time spent on Ancestry.com! Inspired by a recent stint of detective work related to the Crookston Juvenile Band, I have coined a term describing a collection of these frustrating but ultimately rewarding research experiences: A Confusion of Oles.

I will explain. But first, if you are interested in the origins of collective nouns – terms like a gaggle of geese, and a murder of crows –I have a book recommendation: The Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton. The book contains hundreds of terms that English gentlemen in the 15th century were expected to know, plus modern ones that Lipton invented, like a slouch of models, and a lurch of buses. It’s a fun read and can inspire some creative wordplay, like the term I just made up.

OK, back to the Oles. In June 2010, I wrote a blog post about the Crookston Juvenile Band called Summer Concert Season Kick-Off and included a list of names of all of the members, on the chance that it might aid anyone researching their Crookston ancestors. To my surprise and delight, last March I heard from Marni Fylling, who found my blog post while searching her family name on Google. The band list included the names of Ole Fylling and Peter Fylling, which attracted Marni’s attention because she had a great-grandfather named Ole and a great-uncle named Pete.

The Crookston (Minn.) Juvenile Band in 1917.

I corresponded with Marni and learned more about her own musical family: her grandfather Oscar went to St. Olaf College, where he was a student conductor, and he became a teacher; her great-uncle Pete played with Anson Weeks and his famous San Francisco-based dance band in the 1920s and 30s; and her father, Robert, who grew up in Crookston, was a well-known composer and pianist in Sacramento, Calif.

Following our email conversation, I wrote another blog post called Band Boys and Genealogy Karma, and then put aside research on the Crookston Juvenile Band to focus on other G. Oliver Riggs-related topics. But strangely, I had just been thinking about Marni and her family two weeks ago when I heard from her again. She had read my second blog post and was confused by what she saw in the photo; she had expected to see her great-grandfather, Ole (perhaps as an adult helper to the band), but the Ole in the picture was a little boy. Who was this other Ole?

Pete Fylling, No. 45, is on the upper left; Ole M. Fylling, No. 68, is on the far right.

I went through my notes and realized I had made a mistake; I had misread the names and was thinking when I wrote the blog post that Ole was Marni’s grandfather, not her great-grandfather. Her great-grandfather Ole would have been in his 40s at the time of the photo, so he was clearly too old to be in the band, and her grandfather, Oscar, would have been about 19 years old and also too old for the boys’ band – although Oscar’s younger brother, Pete, is indeed in the photo.

Intrigued by this mysterious Ole, I searched census and city directory records on Ancestry.com for the Fyllings. What I learned was this: there were two Fylling families in Crookston in the early 1900s: brothers Ole and John had immigrated to Crookston from Norway within a few years of each other; their widowed father, Erick, also immigrated.

Ole Fylling (Marni’s great-grandfather) operated a hardware and furniture store at 123 Main St in the early 1900s; in 1930, he was the proprietor of a wallpaper store in Crookston. Ole’s older brother John E. Fylling held a few different jobs after moving to Crookston, including confectioner and carpenter. In 1930, he owned a grocery store.

John had a son named Ole Magnus Fylling, who was born in 1902. He must be the Ole in the band photo – he would have been the first cousin of Marni’s grandfather Oscar, and Oscar’s brother, Pete.

You can see now why this post is called a Confusion of Oles! If you have made it all the way through this without too much head-scratching, let me further complicate things: there are more than two Oles in the Fylling family if you expand the definition of Oles to include graduates of St. Olaf College. Counting that type of Ole, we also have Marni’s grandfather Oscar and Marni’s sister Catherine. Plus, during my Ancestry.com searching I found another Fylling who graduated from St. Olaf – a Carl J. Fylling who attended the college in 1902-03, then attended the United Church seminary in 1906 and became a Lutheran pastor in Bismarck, North Dakota.

I don’t know whether Carl Fylling is related to the Crookston Fyllings – I will leave that mystery for Marni or other Fylling relatives to solve. We can only hope that one of Carl’s descendants is also named Ole.

Farewell to a Crackerjack Band Supporter

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 17:00:00 +0000

It’s not my intention to write only about funerals in my 2013 blog posts, but I would be remiss if I didn’t note the recent passing of a good friend of the My Musical Family project: Dick Egerman.

Richard J. Egerman, 86, of St. Cloud, Minn., died Dec. 28 at the St. Cloud Hospital, and his funeral is scheduled for Monday at 12:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in St. Cloud (you can read his obituary here). His sister, Vonnie Rader, is a longtime family friend whom I’ve known since I was a baby, but I didn’t meet Dick until a couple of years ago at a St. Cloud Municipal Band Concert – not an unexpected place to find someone who had been a loyal band supporter since childhood.

“On Thursday nights, Dad would give up his garden and take all us kids to the band concert,” Dick told me and my parents in August 2010 over cups of coffee at the Perkins in St. Cloud. “Sometimes on a cold night we would take a blanket along.”

Dick (on the left and wearing a white shirt) at a band concert in Barden Park in summer 2010.

Dick was one of eight children, and his family used to run the popcorn wagon in Barden Park during band concerts. Dick said it was his older brother Bob who started the business; he bought a used wagon and Dick and his dad helped fix it up. The corn popper was operated by gas, and only two people could fit behind the counter (we have a similar popcorn wagon here in Northfield; the Northfield Senior Center operates it in Bridge Square during the summers).

They took the wagon to concerts every Thursday evening for about a dozen years; they also took it to Lake George Park in the winter months and sold lots of candy.

Although he had friends who played in the St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band under G. Oliver Riggs, Dick never played in it himself, or in the band at St. Cloud Tech, where he attended high school. “I told him horn players run in my family, and he said, ‘They should,’” Dick said, referring to Erwin Hertz, the Tech band director.

As you can probably tell, Dick had a great, self-deprecating sense of humor. This also was evident in the email he sent my dad in November 2011, in which he surprised us with a story we had never heard – and one that I still hope to pursue further – about how G. Oliver taught music to a group of nuns known as the Benevolent Beethoven Benedictines [I wrote about this in a December 2011 blog post, Sister Act: the G. Oliver Version].

Dick had a credible source for this story: his mother, Marie, who played tuba in the group but left the order after a short time, and later married and had a family.

“Family lore reports Mother left for three reasons: female tuba players were not respected on the same high level as trumpets and other horn players; Mother had no rhythm; and she did not look good in black,” he wrote.

Dick claimed to have inherited his mom’s lack of rhythm. “My first serious date said I had as much rhythm as an 18 dollar cow,” he joked. “The boys band told me to take up cribbage.”

At the Perkins meeting, Dick also was able to elaborate on the story that former boys’ band member Louis Dinndorf once told my dad. Eight-year-old Louis desperately wanted to join the band, even though he wasn’t old enough, so he asked G. Oliver and G. Oliver had said, “If you can carry your horn, you can play.”

What Dick added to the story was this: Louis was not much bigger than his tenor sax, so in warmer weather he would put it in a wagon and take it to band practice that way, and in the winters, he carried it on his sled.

I know Dick will be sorely missed by his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and siblings. As it says in his obituary, he was a generous person with a big heart who always willing to lend a helping hand. I am grateful to him for sharing his time and band memories with me.

A Texas Almost-Tall Tale

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:53:00 +0000

I’m not in the business of writing fiction. I just need to put that out there before I tell you a story about what happened yesterday in Texas. It may sound like a tall tale, but it’s absolutely true.

If you read my blog post from Wednesday, A Heart as Big as Texas, you know that my second cousin Chris recently died in a house fire (if you haven’t read the post, take the time now to click on the link, read it and and then come back to this). The funeral was set for yesterday afternoon in Friendswood, Texas, which is south of Houston. As I drove to St. Paul yesterday morning for a dentist appointment and a research stop at the Minnesota History Center, I thought about Chris and how nice it would be if I could have attended the service and given support to extended family members that I’ve never had the chance to meet.

Then, when I arrived at the history center, I checked my email on my phone. My uncle Bob, my dad’s brother, had sent me a message. He and his wife, Debbi, were driving to Florida and had spent Wednesday night in Beaumont, Texas, due to car trouble. He had read my blog, and they decided they’d try to make it to Chris’ funeral service if their car was fixed in time.

How incredible is that? I had to read the message a second time to make sure I had read it correctly. I knew Bob had left Minnesota before Christmas, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he would be passing through Texas – which is no quick feat – on the day of Chris’ funeral. And even if I had known, I wouldn’t have expected that he’d be reading my blog during a road trip.

As it turned out, their car wasn’t fixed in time (they had to wait on a part), so Bob and Debbi rented a car and drove about 90 miles to Friendswood, making it just in time for the service, where they heard friends and family members talk about their times with Chris and about his lifelong love of animals. Afterward, Bob and Debbi introduced themselves to Chris’ family, including his mom, Islea Duncan, whom Bob hadn’t seen since the late 1970s. Needless to say, she was quite surprised to see him, but also glad to reconnect with her cousin from Minnesota.

As my dad says, the Lord works in mysterious ways. And who knows, maybe Chris does, too.

A Heart as Big as Texas

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 21:35:00 +0000

When I started working on the G. Oliver Riggs project with my dad six years ago, connecting with extended family members I’d never met was not my main goal. But as we got deeper into the project, we made an effort to locate these seemingly long-lost cousins and second cousins so we could keep them informed and also exchange information, if they were interested.

I knew I had some second cousins who had lived in Houston, Texas, back in the 70s because my grandmother Eleanor Riggs had visited them (and had taken photos). So on a whim in spring 2008, I tried to find the youngest one on Facebook. It worked! Brian kindly responded to my inquiry, and through him I eventually connected with his sister Kae and his brother, Chris.

Chris, on left, opens an Evel Knievel toy in December 1973 as Brian watches.

Chris and I only conversed via email a handful of times, but I could tell he was a great guy. He was friendly, open, generous, and had a fun sense of humor. He told me in our first conversation that he had only seen a few pictures of his grandfather, Percy Riggs, and didn’t know his real name was Percy; he’d only heard him referred to as Pete. He was interested in learning more (Percy died about three years before Chris was born), so my dad and I both sent him some photos and information.

Almost exactly a year ago – on Jan. 5, 2012 – he surprised me with a research question of his own: did G. Oliver ever carry a pocket watch that he would have handed down to Percy? Chris wondered because his grandma (Percy’s wife, Patricia) had given him a watch that had belonged to Percy. Because the watch was manufactured in 1892, long before Percy was born, Chris thought perhaps the watch had been given to G. Oliver as a gift when he started his first job at the Iowa Wesleyan Conservatory of Music.

The pocket watch that had belonged to Grandpa Pete, aka Percy Riggs.

“I would be happy to see this watch somehow stay with someone in the Riggs family as it did belong to Pete, regardless of its origin,” he wrote. “It was working before it got packed away for around five years and now would need to be serviced ... If y’all would like to have it, just give me an address to send it to and I will do so.”

I told Chris I thought he was right about the watch, and I gratefully accepted it from him. [I wrote about the watch a year ago in this blog post, Time for a Pocket Watch Mystery.]

I hadn’t communicated much with Chris since that time, except for wishing him a happy birthday back in September – it was his 50th. So when I learned through his sister Kae that he died on Christmas Day in a fire at his home, I didn’t believe it at first. I didn’t want to believe it. How could this 6-foot, 3-inch Texan who was so full of life be gone, just like that?

I still don’t want to believe it, and I am so sorry for his family because I know they are hurting as they cope with the loss. In his obituary, which his sister Kae wrote, she describes him as someone who colored outside the lines as a kid and lived that way as an adult, “afraid of nothing and trying everything,” an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed cooking, loved animals and had “a heart as big as Texas.”

A celebration of Chris’ life is set for tomorrow afternoon at a funeral home in Friendsville, Texas. I can’t attend, but I will certainly be there in spirit.

Here is the full text of his obituary:

Christopher Riggs Duncan

9/28/1962 - 12/25/2012

Christopher Riggs Duncan, 50, of Needville, Texas passed away on Christmas day after spending the day with friends, doing what he loved. Chris was born in San Diego, California but spent his entire life in Texas and considered himself a native Texan. He graduated from Memorial High School in Houston and successfully owned and operated a microfiche business for many years before technology put him out of business. With an incredible work ethic, Chris worked for TTX Corporation as a Maintenance Specialist for over 16 years.

Chris colored outside the lines when he was young and this was exactly how he lived his life, afraid of nothing and trying everything. On a pretty day, he loved to disappear on his motorcycle for a long ride throughout the countryside. He developed a love of cooking at an early age and he found it hard to resist a cook-off of any kind and has the trophies to prove it. He was an avid outdoorsman, who loved to hunt and fish, especially with his dad. He was a card carrying member of the National Rifle Association, his mechanical prowess was admired by all, he never met a stranger, could not say no to any animal that happened to find their way to his home and had a heart as big as Texas.

He is survived by his mother, Islea Duncan of Appomattox, Virginia; his father, William Christopher Duncan and his wife, Evalyn of Lakeland, Florida; his brother Brian Duncan of San Diego, California; two sisters, Patrice Duncan and Kae Kessler of Appomattox, Virginia; two step sisters, Melynda Wasson of Lakeland, Florida, Valerie Wayman of Washington, DC; two step brothers, Will Wasson of New Orleans, Louisiana, Eric Wasson of Houston, Texas; one nephew, Bradley Winter of Appomattox, Virginia; one niece, Kaelyn Kessler of Richmond, Virginia; four German Shepards and a Labrador Retriever.

A Celebration of Chris’ life will take place on Thursday, January 3, 2013 at 2:00 P.M. at the Jeter Memorial Funeral Home Chapel, 311 N. Friendswood Drive, Friendswood, Texas 77546 (281) 992-7200 with Rev. Keith Massey officiating.

Condolences may be sent to the Duncan Family in care of Jeter Funeral Home at www.jeterfuneralhome.com.

Another Visit with Dr. Ted

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:11:00 +0000

The year 2012 contained many fulfilling moments relating to the My Musical Family project, but the most exciting development for me was finding and meeting Dr. Theodore Papermaster, a 98-year-old retired pediatrician who knew both G. Oliver and Islea Riggs, my great-grandparents. In 1923, Ted joined the first boys band G. Oliver organized in St. Cloud, and he also took piano lessons from Islea for many years [I first wrote about Ted in this Nov. 25 blog post, A House Call with Dr. Ted].

I couldn’t let the year end without squeezing in another visit to Ted, especially after hearing that he had a photo and a letter of recommendation to show me. So I went to see him last week at his nursing home in St. Louis Park, Minn.

The photo was of Ted and his younger brother Ralph in front of their house in 1927, wearing their St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band uniforms. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but Ted said the uniforms were a light blue with a red stripe down the side of the pants.

The Papermaster brothers: Ralph, on left, and Ted

The letter, dated Oct. 7, 1941, was written by G. Oliver and is addressed to the Adjutant General of the United States Army. Here’s what it said:

Dear Sir:

I have known Theodore Papermaster since April 1923. I have known his father since 1909 and his mother a great many years and can truthfully say that I know of no family that I would place on a higher level. I also knew his grandfather, who was a Rabbi, and certainly I never knew a finer man.

I am called on to give recommendations to young men very often on account, I presume, of the fact that I have worked among boys and young men for over fifty years. Some young men do not receive as good recommendations as Theodore Papermaster is entitled to.

I consider him one of the finest young men I have ever known, in every respect.

Yours truly,

G. Oliver Riggs

My first reaction to reading this was: Wow. Sincere, glowing praise from G. Oliver – this is no ordinary letter. Then my brain began to focus on something else: the year 1909. I was surprised to read that G. Oliver had known Ted’s father since 1909, and had also known his grandfather. How was this possible? Ted was born and raised in St. Cloud, and G. Oliver didn’t move to St. Cloud until April 1923, when he was hired to direct the municipal band and form a boys band.

But then it all began to make sense. I remembered what Ted had mentioned in our first visit: his grandfather Benjamin Papermaster was a rabbi who had immigrated to the United States from Lithuania. He ended up in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and that’s where he and his family – including Ted’s father, Herman (Bert) Papermaster – were living in 1909, the year G. Oliver moved to Grand Forks.

G. Oliver had been a band director in nearby Crookston, Minn., for about a decade when he decided to take a job in the larger city of Grand Forks, directing an adult municipal band known as the Grand Forks Military Band (called that because of the style of music played; it had no military affiliation). He stayed in the job for a year, then moved on to other directing opportunities, including a stint in Havre, Montana from 1911-1914.

I knew that Ted’s dad had taught himself to play clarinet, and that he had played in the adult municipal band in St. Cloud for many years after moving there in 1912 – had he also played in the Grand Forks Military Band under G. Oliver’s direction? Was that how the two men met?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a list of Grand Forks band members from 1909-10, or a photo of that band, so I couldn’t confirm my hunch that way. But when I went through my files this morning, I found proof in a June 24, 1909 Grand Forks Herald newspaper article I’d copied a few years ago. It previewed that evening’s scheduled band concert, which included a clarinet duet called “Polka de Concert” played by Carl Lukkason and Burt Papermaister (sic). Aha. Mystery solved.

The band concert preview from June 24, 1909

During our visit last week, Ted told me that he felt God had a hand in our meeting; I’m not about to dispute that idea. The musical connections between the Riggs and Papermaster families go back even further than I had imagined. And for me to meet Ted and untangle these connections 103 years later – well, it gives a person goosebumps.

You can look forward to more writing on this topic, and maybe more goosebumps, too, in the year ahead. Happy 2013!

The joy of family traditions

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 16:14:00 +0000

Snow is falling lightly outside today, while inside our cozy home people are making preparations. Cookie dough is chilling in the fridge; presents large and small are hidden in closets and bags, awaiting their wrappings; and plenty of secrets are being kept behind closed doors. “I need to use the oven – no one come in here.” “Has anyone seen the tape?”

Christmas Eve has a different energy now that my kids are older, and it’s a good different. Instead of trying so hard all day to contain their excitement about the gifts that await them in the hours ahead, Louisa, Seb and Elias have been occupied by thoughts about a gift for someone else (well, at least somewhat – I won’t pretend that they haven’t closely inspected the names on the gifts already under the tree). This focus on giving over receiving is due in part to the tradition of Kris Kringle gifts, one of my favorite holiday traditions from my youth that Steve and I have continued with our own kids.

This is me, eagerly anticipating Christmas in 1969 with my brother, Pete.

Every year around Thanksgiving, the five of us draw names and then agree to make that person a gift, to be opened on Christmas Eve. There are a few rules: you don’t tell anyone whose name you have; you can buy supplies for the gift but cannot simply buy the entire gift; it can be a gift of time, or of service; creativity is encouraged.

I’m always delighted by the thoughtfulness of the gifts, especially as the kids have grown. Last year, Louisa had my name; she remembered that my mom had made a couple of Wizard of Oz ornaments for me when I was a kid – the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion – but had never completed the set. So, to my complete surprise last year, Louisa made a Dorothy ornament for me, complete with ruby sequined slippers.

The handcrafted Dorothy ornament.

The other Christmas Eve tradition from my childhood that Steve and I have continued is the program, which comes after the pasta dinner. Everyone takes a turn doing something; it can be a reading, it can be a song – instrumental or vocal. Past years have even included puppet shows and a game of charades. Once the program has concluded, the Kris Kringle gifts are exchanged.

I could write more about my love of Christmas Eve traditions, but frankly, I don’t have the time. I have work to do on my Kris Kringle gift, and I have to prepare for my part in the program.

A Riggs family Christmas card from the 1950s

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all, and may you enjoy our own traditions with family and friends this holiday season!

A Musical Mélange

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:49:00 +0000

I have much to catch up on, after not blogging for two weeks. Here’s an encapsulated version of our recent musical family activity:

• White Christmas: I can’t go any longer without bragging about my husband, Steve, and the amazing job he did in the Northfield Arts Guild’s production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. He played the lead role of Bob Wallace (the Bing Crosby character, if you’re familiar with the movie). Steve was on stage in almost every scene, was singing and dancing most of the time, and if he hadn’t captivated my heart 26 years ago when we met in college, he surely would have melted it with his performance in this show.

Steve and company from the “Blue Skies” number.

A hearty congratulations to all who played a role in making the show such a success – especially director Rachel Haider, choreographer Mary Hahn, and the music direction team of Jordan Boucher, Dan Dressen and Ina Selvelieva, who are all affiliated with the music department at St. Olaf College. Also, a special shout-out to Sebastian and the rest of the scene-changing crew!

As great as it was to see the show, I can’t deny that I’m glad it’s done. After months of rehearsals and three weekends of shows, Steve will now be home more often in the evenings! ... at least until the next show.

• Field trips: I took time off from writing-related work for two days last week, on the 13th (my birthday) and the 14th to chaperone two field trips. The first one was Louisa’s art class trip to Minneapolis. The students visited the Michael Birawer Gallery and explored the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, with special attention to Impressionist works.

Artist Michael Birawer talks to Louisa about his artistic process.

Birawer’s painting of Millennium Park in Chicago.

The second field trip was with Elias – the sixth grade field trip to the State Capitol and the Minnesota History Center. Obviously, I could not miss this one! The History Center is one of my favorite places, and I was excited to see the new exhibit, Then, Now, Wow, which did not disappoint.

Elias in the rotunda of the Minnesota State Capitol.

Cranking up the Model T at the Then, Now, Wow exhibit.

• Concerts and performances: Four of our five family members performed at Northfield’s Winter Walk on the evening of Dec. 6. Louisa and Sebastian played in a brass quintet, Louisa played in a French horn duo, Elias sang with the Northfield Middle School choir, and Steve was involved in a couple of performances at the Northfield Arts Guild.

The combined choirs at the Northfield Youth Choirs concert at Carleton’s Skinner Chapel.

Louisa and Sebastian, who both performed in the NYC concert.

Other big concerts were the Northfield Youth Choirs winter concert on Dec. 8 and the middle school and high school orchestra concert on Dec. 13. At that concert, Sebastian played in two groups, the symphony orchestra and a chamber group. And Louisa and some other high school band members joined the combined high school symphony and concert orchestras for the final number, “Selections from the Polar Express.”

To conclude this musical mélange, I leave you with a video of that lovely piece. Enjoy!

Son of a Music Man: the Ronald edition

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 22:02:00 +0000

My great-grandfather G. Oliver Riggs has been called “St. Cloud’s Music Man,” and I sometimes use that phrase as a way of explaining his career (with the caveat that, unlike the fictional Prof. Harold Hill, G. Oliver really was a talented musician and director). But the “music man” description also fits my grandfather Ronald.

Ronald Graham Riggs, 1901-1968

After Ronald graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1924 with a bachelor of arts degree (he had an economics major and a political science minor), he spent several years working for the Holton instrument company as a traveling salesman, organizing school bands in other states.

Ronald was, according to the Holton literature, the youngster on the sales force. But he knew what he was doing. He and his younger brother Percy had grown up in the band business. From an early age, they accompanied G. Oliver to band rehearsals until they were old enough to play in the bands themselves.

Ronald’s photo is at the bottom left.

What Ronald did for Holton was this: he’d travel to a town, meet with school officials and parents about organizing a band, then return to sell instruments and offer the students free instruction for three months – implementing Holton’s guaranteed plan for “A Playing Band in 12 weeks.”

I don’t know how many bands Ronald organized, or exactly when he started the job and when he quit. But evidence in the family files indicates that he started sometime in 1926 and spent a lot of time in Ohio in 1928, forming bands in Oak Hill, Gallipolis, Jackson, Wellston, Middleport and Pomeroy.

Photos of Ohio school bands Ronald organized.

Other bands he organized included one in Shelby, Michigan in 1929. In 1930, the job took him to schools in Freehold and Newark, New Jersey; Martinsville, Virginia; and Leepertown Township, Bureau, Illinois.

By the fall of 1933 Ronald was no longer working for Holton; he was back in Minnesota, where he had taken a permanent job at Farmington High School, directing the band and teaching history.

I will expand on his career as a high school band director in a future post!

A New Page for My Musical Family

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:40:00 +0000

I had planned to do some work this morning on my book project, picking up from where I left off yesterday, writing about the spring of 1925. That’s when G. Oliver’s St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band was preparing to make a splash at the International Kiwanis Convention in St. Paul.

I somehow got diverted. Ah, procrastination. But like many of my diversions, it was still related to G. Oliver. I got it in my head that now was a good time to create a separate Facebook page for the My Musical Family blog. So that’s how I spent my writing time this morning. Instead of new paragraphs about 1925, I have a new page.

My hope is that the new MMF page will make it easier for people to follow the blog and also will allow me to do some fun things, like post related picture albums. I’m still trying to figure out details, like how to make sure my blog posts automatically show up on the page, like they do on my personal Facebook page. It’s a little confusing to manage two different pages, but I think in the end it will be a helpful change. It’s good to keep things fresh, even when writing about the career of my 142-year-old great-grandfather!

You Say It's G’s Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 03:56:00 +0000

What do you get a vintage bandmaster on his 142nd birthday?

It sounds like the opening line of a joke, but it’s really just a rhetorical question. Because I don’t know what my great-grandfather G. Oliver’s favorite kind of cake was, I went to CakeWalk in Northfield today and brought home a delicious-looking fruit tart. The dessert wasn’t quite large enough to accommodate 142 candles, so I went with four, and we sang a heartfelt rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” in honor of the birthday bandmaster.

And that got me wondering ... I know the song has been around for a long time, and is said to be the most well-known song in the English-speaking world, but was it around when G. Oliver was growing up?

My Internet sources tell me that the tune has been around since 1893; at that time, 23-year-old G. Oliver was teaching violin and directing a band at the Iowa Wesleyan University Conservatory of Music. But the tune would not have been sung for his birthday that year. The song was originally known as “Good Morning to All.” Sisters Patty Smith Hill and Mildred Hill of Louisville Kentucky wrote it for kindergarten teachers to use as a greeting song.

It’s unclear exactly how or when the words changed to the ones we sing today. The “Happy Birthday” lyrics first appeared in a songbook in 1924 as a second stanza to “Good Morning to All.” Uncredited uses of the song in the mid-1930s – like its appearance in the Broadway musical The Band Wagon – led a third sister, Jessica Hill, to pursue copyright protection in 1934 (you can read more about the song history and its copyright protections here and here).

Although I can’t say for sure whether “Happy Birthday to You” was sung on the occasion of any of G. Oliver’s later birthdays, before he died in early 1946, I do know this: he never heard anyone sing the Beatles’ “Birthday” song. That song was released a few weeks before my first birthday, and four days before what would have been G. Oliver's 98th birthday.

That’s a good song, too. Maybe we’ll do it next year.

A House Call with Dr. Ted

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:34:00 +0000

An unexpected development has both slowed and advanced my progress this month in writing the book about G. Oliver Riggs and the St. Cloud Municipal Band: I found a delightful, 98-year-old source of information!

While studying a list of members of the first boys’ band G. Oliver organized in St. Cloud in 1923, I noticed the name Theodore Papermaster. Cool name! I thought, and filed it away in my brain. An hour later, I was looking at a newspaper article about a piano recital given by G. Oliver’s wife, Islea, in 1924 and noticed the name of one of her students was – you guessed it – Theodore Papermaster. I then checked the list of members from the 1930 boys’ band: yes, there again was Theodore Papermaster.

Who is this Theodore Papermaster, I wondered? He would have to be almost 100 years old – is there any chance he’s still alive? Through an online search, I discovered that he’d been a pediatrician in the Twin Cities for many years, he’d served in World War II, and he had a daughter living in the Twin Cities. I contacted her at work, and the next evening, I heard a strong, clear voice on the other end of the telephone saying:

“I was very well acquainted with G. Oliver Riggs. He came to St. Cloud in 1923, when I was 9 years old, and I was the No. 5 clarinet player in a band of 240. ... The two bandmasters – no, three – that followed him, they were not very satisfactory, so they hired him back. He directed another generation of the band, and I was among that, too.”

St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band, 1924

If I were to create the character of Dr. Theodore C. “Ted” Papermaster for a novel, he would be no match for the real thing (that’s why I am a journalist and not a fiction writer; I find real people so wonderfully fascinating). I knew, based on our brief phone conversation, that I couldn’t have found a more perfect source – someone who not only was in the band from the time G. Oliver formed it in 1923 through 1931, the year of the big trip to Des Moines, but who also knew G. Oliver’s wife and sons (my grandfather Ronald and my great-uncle Percy, who helped direct the bands).

I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to learn more, so on the day before Thanksgiving I visited Ted at his nursing home in the Twin Cities.

He told me he joined the boys’ band with the support of his father, Herman, who played clarinet in the adult municipal band. Herman was a tailor and had a dry cleaning business at 20 Sixth Ave. in downtown St. Cloud (the site is now part of Herberger’s); for a time, Herman rented the building’s upper floor to the city for use as a band rehearsal hall. Ted’s younger brother, Ralph (who died in 2001), later played in the band, too.

G. Oliver was a disciplinarian, Ted said, but he liked him because he was a great director. The only criticism he offered was that G. Oliver occasionally took time during rehearsals to lecture the boys about topics like the importance of staying both physically and mentally fit; Ted said he’d have preferred to spend that time playing music.

From left to right: Dick Strobel, Ted Papermaster, and Ted’s buddy Sidney Kaufman, in 1925.

Ted was in the 150-member band that went to St. Paul in June 1925 to perform at the International Kiwanis Convention. Several months after that event, G. Oliver got in a dispute with the city band committee and resigned. Ted stayed in the band under its next two directors, Albert Koehler (who became ill and died of prostate cancer) and Theodore Steinmetz (a military man who was more of a showman than a director, Ted said), and during the two months or so of direction by J.E. Racicot in early 1928. By the time G. Oliver returned as director, Ted was in high school.

In this 1930 photo, Ted is in the front row, the first clarinet to the right of the drums.

Ted remembers traveling by train to Des Moines in 1931 for the National Junior Chamber of Commerce convention, and the difficulty of trying to sleep in a train full of boys and instruments. He also remembers, on one of the train trips, that the boys were given ham sandwiches to eat. Ted doesn’t eat ham because he’s Jewish; he said his dad, who was a chaperone on that trip, told him to give the ham to one of the other boys and just eat the bread.

Music was an important part of Ted’s boyhood. He took piano lessons for many years from G. Oliver’s wife, Islea, although he never knew her first name. “She was a lovely, lovely lady, a good performer and a wonderful teacher,” he said.

Islea Graham Riggs, an accomplished pianist and teacher

When I showed Ted a 1924 newspaper clipping about a piano recital that lists him as playing a duet with his good friend Sidney Kaufman, and a solo, Beethoven’s “Minuet in G,” he immediately began to hum the Beethoven tune.

Ted graduated from St. Cloud Tech and went on to school at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He graduated from medical school in 1938 and was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Army Air Force Medical Corps in 1942. During World War II, he served in the Mediterranean, rose to the rank of captain and received the Soldier’s Medal.

A photo of Ted as a flight surgeon in World War II

The last time he saw G. Oliver was in 1945, when Ted came home from the war and stopped in to see his old bandmaster. After the war, Ted was an instructor in pediatrics at Louisiana State University and the University of Minnesota, and he began his own practice in 1948 in the Twin Cities.

Although he lost track of Percy after he left St. Cloud, Ted knew that my grandfather Ronald had twin grandsons – my cousins Scott and Brent Riggs – because he was their doctor for a short time after they were born. I was so surprised to learn this – it is indeed a small world! I told Ted that Scott has twin boys of his own now, and that Brent named his younger son Griffin Oliver after G. Oliver (the G. stood for George). Ted was delighted.

I had to end our visit because Ted was getting tired, but I hope to see him again. It’s hard to put into words how meaningful it was to meet him and hear him say, “The happiest days of my life were when I was playing in the band.”

I came away from the interview feeling more convinced than ever of the need to tell the story of the St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ band in a book. So, this week, I’ll be back at the writing desk!

The Fine Art of Giving

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:47:00 +0000

It’s Give to the Max Day in Minnesota, which means it’s a great day to consider giving to any number of worthy nonprofit organizations throughout the state. Of course, you can donate to these groups any day of the year. But there’s something fun about a day dedicated to giving, and in many cases, depending on the organization, a gift given today will be matched.

Arts and cultural organizations rate high on the list of our family’s donations. If you’re looking for ways to support the arts in Northfield, I know these groups would greatly appreciate a financial contribution:

• Northfield Arts Guild
• Northfield Fine Arts Boosters
• Northfield Youth Choirs
• Vintage Band Festival 2013
• I Cantanti Chamber Choirs

Other local groups I am proud to support include the Friends of the Northfield Public Library, the Friends of Way Park, the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative, the Save the Northfield Depot ... the list goes on and on. For stories about these and other organizations, check out Northfield Patch’s great summary here.

If you can’t afford a financial gift, remember there are many ways you can help nonprofits through the gift of your volunteer time.

Have a wonderful, philanthropic day!

Rockin’ the 125th in the Granite City

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 22:40:00 +0000

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of attending the St. Cloud Municipal Band’s 125th anniversary concert with my parents.

Me, with Dad (and Mini G) outside the Paramount Theatre in St. Cloud

The 57-member band sounded fantastic as it led the audience back in time, decade by decade, with songs that evoked the band’s 125-year history. Four guest former conductors – Dave Haedt, Mel Hauck, Marv Pearson and Lowell Larson – took turns directing 14 pieces.

The cover of the concert program.

A screen at the back of the stage displayed photos of previous incarnations of the city band, including the St. Cloud Bicycle Band from the turn of the last century, the G. Oliver-directed St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band, and photos of the modern band’s trips to China (1999), Mexico and Germany (2010). The slide presentation also noted important or interesting historical events that occurred during each decade.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of Mini G in front of this “Rock On” award presented to the band by Mayor Dave Kleis.

Mini G. Oliver (the Flat Stanley of bandmasters) attended the concert with me, too, and his presence was a reminder that the beautifully restored Paramount Theatre was a new concert venue when my flesh-and-blood great-grandparents, G. Oliver and Islea Riggs, moved to St. Cloud in 1923.

Known as the Sherman Theatre when it opened in 1921 (it was renamed in 1930), the venue had a majestic organ that my great-grandmother played to accompany the showing of silent movies. It’s difficult not to feel a sense of awe when I gaze at the ornamental light fixtures and architectural details and think about how my great-grandparents both used to perform in that majestic space.

A glimpse of the theatre’s stage and interior decor.

The theatre has held many notes, and many people, over the years. The renovated main floor seats 498 people (according to the sign), and I was pleased to see that most of those seats were filled on Monday evening, plus many more up in the balcony that I wasn’t able to count. It was wonderful to see such support and appreciation for the band. I hope it continues – I’d love to go back for the band’s sesquicentennial concert in 2037!

A Musical Family Circus

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:07:00 +0000

The past week has been hectic but fun. I attended three school concerts within a five-day period (plus a performance of the musical Meshuggah Nuns at the Paradise Theater in Faribault, starring my friend Myrna). So it seemed only fitting, considering all the schedule-juggling, that the district band concert last night had a circus theme.

The Northfield district band concert is a great one – every fall, all the band students in grades 5 through 12 gather on the floor of the high school gymnasium and take turns performing for a standing-room only crowd of family and friends in the bleachers. It’s noisy and crowded, but it’s worth it to see the progression of musicianship, from youngest to oldest.

Last year the concert had a Civil War theme, and this year, we went “Under the Big Top.” A seventh-grade teacher played the role of ringmaster, some students contributed their talents in clowning and unicycling, and there was even popcorn and candy for sale. The Schell’s Hobo Band from New Ulm was the guest band (man, those guys can play!) The band plans to return to Northfield in early August for the Vintage Band Festival 2013, so mark that on your calendar.

Louisa and Sebastian both performed in their respective high school bands, the Concert Band and the Symphonic Band. Here’s Louisa’s band playing “Entrance of the Gladiators” by Julius Fucik:

And here’s Sebastian’s band playing “The Grand Entry”:

The concert concluded with all of the musicians (minus the fifth graders) playing several measures of the classic circus song “Barnum and Bailey's favorite” by Iowa bandmaster Karl King.

Friday evening I attended the high school orchestra and choir concert at the middle school auditorium. There was no circus theme, but it was an impressive program of music. Sebastian performed in the ninth-grade concert orchestra. Here is his orchestra performing “Ellis Island” by Alan Lee Silva:

I was in that same middle school auditorium on Thursday evening (with many of the same parents), this time to hear the middle school orchestras and choirs perform. It was Elias’ first concert as a middle school student. His sixth-grade choir sang two pieces. Since Halloween is tomorrow, it seems appropriate to post the second piece, “Ezekiel and Dry Bones.”

That takes care of school concerts for a while. However, I will be at the Paramount Theatre in St. Cloud next Monday for a concert celebrating the 125th anniversary of the St. Cloud Municipal Band.

The big top may be down, but the schedule-juggling continues.

Every Day I Write the Book

noreply@blogger.com (Joy Riggs) — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 19:38:00 +0000

Six years ago this month, I launched into a project to learn more about the life and career of my great-grandfather, pioneer Minnesota bandmaster G. Oliver Riggs. It all started with a comment my dad made about his “music man” grandfather – and a realization on my part that I knew next to nothing about this ancestor of mine.

My intention at first was simply to help my dad with a timeline of G. Oliver’s career that he could pass on to the St. Cloud Municipal Band, which planned to mark its 120th anniversary that spring with a concert at the historic Paramount Theatre.

Me, with Dad, after the May 2007 band concert at the Paramount

I figured it would take a month or so to go through family files, confirm details about G. Oliver’s 20-plus years as a director in St. Cloud, and determine whether there was any truth to the Mr. Riggs legends, like the one that he’d played with John Philip Sousa. Before I knew it, several months had passed, and I had already learned way more than I’d anticipated – not just about all the places G. Oliver had worked as a musician and band leader, and the influential musicians he had collaborated with, but about how G. Oliver influenced the development of music education in Minnesota and the upper Midwest.

As the months and years passed, I planned G. Oliver-related research trips, gave talks and became well acquainted with the microfilm machines at the Minnesota History Center’s top-notch research library. And I conducted interviews with people who could tell me from personal experience what it had been like to play for G. Oliver Riggs. Meeting some of these former “band boys” and hearing how their lives were shaped by their band experience has been one of the most gratifying aspects of this ongoing project.

Me with Leonard Jung, a former “band boy” and U.S. Navy Band veteran, in 2008.

As I learned about G. Oliver’s career, I also gained a greater appreciation of the role bands played in forming the social fabric of communities throughout the state – big, small and in-between – and in shaping the quality of life we enjoy today. This aspect of community life gets scant attention in the telling of Minnesota’s history, however. Even in towns with well-regarded band programs and proud traditions, the musicians remain in the background – heard but not seen – marching in parades, performing summer concerts at the bandstand, but rarely receiving a mention in local, regional or state history books.

When I started writing this blog in January 2010, I sought to change that by focusing attention on this neglected aspect of Minnesota history – not only because I find it fascinating, but because I think it’s necessary to understand that history if we value the arts and want to pass that appreciation on to future generations.

I also hoped that the process of writing a regular blog would help me figure out how I could best tell the story of my great-grandfather and other musicians who have made our communities a better, richer place with their music. After nearly 170 posts, I still don’t have the perfect answer to that question, although I’ve tossed around plenty of ideas – how about an exhaustive history of community bands in Minnesota! Or a book about Midwestern bandstands? Maybe a children’s book, or a play? The possibilities have seemed exciting, but also overwhelming and confusing.

As I have continued to write and research, hoping an answer would reveal itself, the My Musical Family blog has led to developments I hadn’t anticipated; it’s become a great way to share news and family history with my relatives and connect with extended family I’d never met. And, it has led to much personal reflection about why music is important in my life, why my husband and I have tried to make it an important part of our kids’ lives, and why I feel passionately that music education should be available to all children.

It’s funny how things seem to come full circle, if you wait long enough. As I said at the beginning of this post, my original goal six years ago was to provide the St. Cloud Municipal Band with an accurate timeline of events during G. Oliver’s stint as director. The municipal band is now celebrating its 125th season and has scheduled a big concert for Nov. 5 at the Paramount Theatre.

When The St. Cloud Times ran a story in July about the band’s anniversary, my dad and I were distressed to discover that it included inaccurate details about the history of the band during G. Oliver’s career. We are again trying to correct history, and it’s extremely frustrating to learn that, despite our exhaustive efforts to gather and disseminate a factual historical account of those years – efforts that have gone way beyond a simple timeline – we apparently did not reach everyone in our intended audience.

I’m not a particularly vain person, but I think it’s fair to say that I now know more about G. Oliver and the history of the St. Cloud band during his career there than anybody. I may be an expert on a relatively obscure topic, but I am an expert! And that has made me realize that as much as I enjoy writing this blog, these entries alone aren’t enough to ensure that the accomplishments of G. Oliver and his band boys are remembered after I’m gone. I need to tell the story to a wider audience in a format that will be recognized as a permanent resource for people studying or writing about St. Cloud, or about Minnesota band history. I need to take the plunge and write a book – a book that I’m uniquely qualified to write.

A portion of my G. Oliver files, accumulated during six years of research.

Next month will mark the 142nd anniversary of G. Oliver’s birth, and my goal is to spend a good portion of the month working on a book about G. Oliver and the Band Boys of St. Cloud. I do plan to keep up with the blog, and I hope to provide some updates on my progress as I delve into this latest phase of the G. Oliver Riggs project. As always, I welcome reader suggestions and comments, and I sincerely appreciate your interest and support!