Mad about Main Street

If our family schedule wasn’t so complicated next week – it’s the first week of summer vacation for my kids, and tech week/opening weekend of Steve’s show, A Year with Frog and Toad – I’d plan to be in St. Cloud Tuesday through Saturday, enjoying all the events relating to the “Main Street to Eighth Street” celebration, which will honor the Lewis family’s connections to St. Cloud.  I’m glad we’ll at least be able to squeeze in an appearance on the final day of the celebration.

By Lewis family I mean Sinclair Lewis, Nobel Prize-winning author of Main Street and 22 other novels, and his older brother Claude Lewis, a doctor who lived next door to my dad’s family in the South Side neighborhood of St. Cloud, in the shadow of St. Cloud State University.

I know I’d enjoy the “Wit and Wisdom of Sinclair Lewis” reading at the St. Cloud public library on June 5 and the Sinclair Lewis Film Festival at the Paramount Theatre on June 7; and I’m especially sorry to miss the “Lewis Family in St. Cloud Lecture and Discussion” on June 8 at the Stearns History Museum, which will explore how Sinclair’s family and Minnesota upbringing influenced his books.

I started reading Main Street last summer when I was working on a travel story about Sauk Centre for the Star Tribune( you can read it here).  After visiting the interpretive center in Sauk Centre and learning more about Lewis’ life and career, I was inspired to finally read the novel that is based on his hometown, which is only 26 from my hometown of Alexandria.  Main Street was published in 1920, and I was surprised at how funny it was, and also how contemporary it felt – it was almost as though he was observing the conversations and foibles of people in modern day Northfield, or any other small Minnesota town.  I was also captivated by his language.  I found myself rereading his descriptive phrases and even reading a few sentences out loud, admiring their beauty.  I’m sorry to say that writing obligations pulled me away from the book, and then it was due at the library, so I returned it, vowing to finish it later.  Steve recently bought me a used copy, so I hope to put it on the top of the summer reading list.

This is not my copy, but I like the art.

Steve is listening to an audio version of the book, and he, too, has been captivated by it.  He said he’s laughed out loud several times and was also surprised at how well Lewis’ take on people in small towns back in the 1910s still rings true, 100 years later.

Our appreciation for Sinclair’s writing will make it all the more meaningful when we stop in next week at the SCSU library to view the Claude and Sinclair Lewis Exhibit, a collection of Lewis family memorabilia including autographed first editions of Sinclair’s novels, family photographs and letters, and video presentations on Sauk Centre and Lewis family history.

We also plan to attend the garden party in Barden Park, near Claude’s former house and the site of the house where my dad, his brother Bob and sister Dana grew up (their house, sadly, is no longer there; it was moved many years ago to make way for a parking lot expansion).  Several of my Riggs relatives plan to attend, and we’re making a family picnic of it, which will be great fun.

I’d love to stay for the concluding event of the afternoon, a performance by the St. Cloud Municipal Band, which is celebrating its 125-year anniversary, but we will probably have to skedaddle by then, to get back to our own small town for a trio of graduation parties, and Steve’s community theater performance – just the type of true life moments that gave Sinclair such rich material.

Trolling for Bemidji band stories

My friend Laurel says she can always tell when my life gets hectic – I stop blogging.  It’s true, I have not had much chance to blog lately.  My other (paid) writing gigs and all the end-of-the-school year concerts and events have filled my schedule.  But I did have the chance yesterday to spend an hour and a half at the Minnesota History Center library, and it felt great to be back amid the microfilm machines.

There are so many loose ends to the G. Oliver Riggs project, it’s difficult to decide which one to pick up and follow when I have an opportunity to do more research.  I knew I didn’t have enough time to glean the Louis Hill files for more Montana Cowboy Band information – a mission for this summer – so I decided to troll for newspaper stories from the early days of G. Oliver’s stint in Bemidji, Minnesota.

The Bemidji Boys’ Band, September 1922

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you might recall that my great-grandfather's Bemidji Boys’ Band played at the Minnesota State Fair in 1922 and was declared “The World’s Most Famous Boys’ Band.”  The band’s state fair success came three years after G. Oliver formed the band upon moving to Bemidji from Crookston in 1919.

I spent some time two years ago researching the boys’ band and the state fair trip, but I had never done any research on the adult band G. Oliver directed in that city.  In the short amount of time I had yesterday to look through newspaper articles from June and July of 1919, I learned that the band was called the Bemijdi Military Band.  The use of the word military here is deceiving; it doesn’t indicate an affiliation with a military organization but instead means that the band was made up of both woodwind and brass instruments, as well as percussion.

The band gave its first open air concert of the summer at the city’s Library Park on Thursday, June 12 (a great day – it’s my son Sebastian’s birthday), and the program was composed of eight songs:
• “America”
• March “Hail to Old Glory” by Fred Jewell
• Overture “Greeting” by Franz Mahl
• “Sons of Australia” by Alex Lithgow
• Waltz “Vera” by Alex Lithgow
• Selection from “Fiddlers Three” by Alexander Johnstone
• March “Pozieres” by Alex Lithgow
• “The Star Spangled Banner”

An article from the Bemidji Daily Pioneer

Judging from the list of songs, I’d say G. Oliver was on a Lithgow kick.  I’d never heard of Lithgow, so I looked him up.  According to the National Library of Australia, Alexander Frame Lithgow was a famous composer and bandmaster who was born in Scotland in 1870 (the same year as G. Oliver) and moved to New Zealand when he was 6.  A musical prodigy, he joined the Invercargill Garrison Band at age 11; by age 16 he was its principal cornet soloist, and by age 20 he had become its bandmaster. 

I can see why G. Oliver took a liking to him. 

(If you’re interested, you can read more about Lithgow’s career here.)

Music from the operetta “Fiddlers Three” (which was not by Lithgow)

In addition to its regular weekly concerts in June and July, the Bemijdi Military Band also played for the opening of Bemidji’s Diamond Point Park; it played at the train station to welcome the 2,000 Northern Pacific Railroad employees and spouses who came to Bemidji for their annual outing; it played a concert at the Birchmont Hotel (now known as Ruttger’s Birchmont Lodge) to welcome the attendees of the Northern Minnesota Editorial Association conference; and it played for the city’s Fourth of July celebration.  As was typical, G. Oliver kept his band busy with appearances at community events.

Another thing I learned from scanning the Bemidji Daily Pioneer on microfilm yesterday is that G. Oliver formed an additional band that summer, the United Community Band, which was made up of 32 farmer boys from the townships around Bemidji.

The members were: Charles Hoffer, Ed Niemeyer, Clarence Travis, Herman Gregg, Roy Travis, Percy Maule, Bernhardt Hass, Clarence Wild, Erwin Krohn, Harry Falls, Clifford Travis, Martin Ketchum, Alfred Hass, Martin Hass, Eldin Niemeyer, Arthur Niemeyer, Clarence Pfeile, Herbert Swenson, George Hofer, Gotfred Hofer, George Lundergreen, Alfred Wild, Leonard Wild, Alvin Green, Laval Pfeile, Harry Fox, Roy Runick, Sidney Kruger, Roy Gregg, Tilman Gregg, Charles Bryant and Frank Sydow.

(It appears that Clarence and Roy were the Jacob and Ethan of popular names in 1919 – at least in rural northern Minnesota.)

I don’t know where G. Oliver found the time to form all these bands, instruct the boys, direct rehearsals and plan the concerts.  If blogging had existed in 1919, I suppose he would have fit that in, too!  What an overachiever.

Look to this Mother’s Day

Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I’ll be celebrating it in a most delightful way – hearing two of my three kids (Louisa and Sebastian) perform in the Northfield Youth Choirs spring concert.

The poster for the May 13 concert (designed by Kari Alberg).

The concert features special guests – the St. Olaf Choir, directed by Dr. Anton Armstrong – and a commissioned piece by Carolyn Jennings.  It begins at 7:30 p.m. and is in St. Olaf’s Boe Chapel.  Bring your mom, your kids, your friends – anyone who would appreciate an evening of beautiful music!

The concert is the concluding event of NYC’s 25th anniversary season.  As a parent of two singers and as secretary of the NYC board, I have enjoyed participating in events over the past 12 months that have celebrated the organization’s growth and success.  The milestone season kicked off last summer with the exciting trip to the Pacific International Children’s Choir Festival in Eugene, Oregon (Louisa participated and had a fabulous time).  It also included memorable events like Sebastian’s choir singing at the Twins game on Star Wars night in September; and the alumni singalong in December honoring NYC co-founder Cora Scholz, who was named Northfield's Living Treasure for 2012.

I know NYC Artistic Director Liz Shepley has exciting plans for the 26th season and beyond – stay tuned!

Happy National Park Week

It’s National Park Week – which means that all of our nation’s 397 national parks are offering free admission April 21-29.  The purpose of the week, according to the National Park Foundation, is to “celebrate what we all have inherited as Americans – 84 million acres of the world’s most spectacular scenery, historic landmarks and cultural treasures.”

The National Park Service says it’s a time to “engage families and communities in America’s Great Outdoors, reconnecting them with nature and creating close to home opportunities for people to get outside, be active, and have fun.”

Our June 2008 trip to Yellowstone National Park.

It’s a worthy mission.  We aren’t able to get away to any of the parks this week, so I will have to visit virtually by looking back at some of our family vacation photos.  Steve and I have made a point over the past several years to include national parks on our list of places to take our kids before they graduate from high school.  We started this even before Ken Burns’ PBS series, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, aired in 2009.

We are more museum-goers than campers – except for Sebastian, the Boy Scout, who likes both history and camping – but we do enjoy hiking the trails and staying in historic lodges in or near the parks.  Our family has been to the Grand Canyon, to Yellowstone and Grand Teton, to Yosemite and Glacier; we’ve been to several historic sites and historical parks, like the one in Boston; and we’ve been to a couple of national military parks, Shiloh and Vicksburg.

It’s hard to pick a favorite of the places we have visited because they all have unique characteristics, but I have to admit that I have a special place in my heart for the rugged, remote beauty of Glacier National Park in Montana.

Our family at Glacer's Iceberg Lake in August 2009.

My dad’s brother Bob and sister Dana both worked at Glacier during college, a fact I didn’t know until a few years ago.  But the Riggs family’s connection to the park actually goes all the way back to the early years of the park, which was established in 1910 as the country’s 10th national park.

My great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, moved to Havre, Montana in 1911; the town is east of Glacier and is a stop on Amtrak’s Empire Builder route.  The original Empire Builder was the flagship train of James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railroad, and Hill’s son Louis W. Hill was a huge promoter and developer of Glacier National Park.

G. Oliver got to know Louis Hill through his involvement in the Montana Cowboy Band, which Hill hired in November and December of 1912 to help publicize Montana as a destination for travelers (and later brought to St. Paul for the Winter Carnival).  G. Oliver also may have known Hill through his involvement in the Kalispell Elks Band.  Marion Riffo, an architect who designed many buildings in Havre and Kalispell, formed the Kalispell Elks Band in March 1912, and G. Oliver was one of about 35 members.  It was this Elks band that played for the opening of the Glacier Park Lodge (then called the Glacier Park Hotel) on June 22, 1913.

The Minnesota Historical Society has a great photo of the band members in their white uniforms, standing in front of the hotel’s former entrance arch (it’s from the Louis Hill photo collection).  I couldn’t find G. Oliver in the photo, so I’m not sure if he was present that day; I need to do more research.  I do know that G. Oliver played with the Elks band two weeks later at the State Elks Convention in Kalispell.

The historical society library has a few other photos of the band in its collection, and the band is also mentioned briefly in the book, A View with a Room: Glacier’s Historic Hotels and Chalets by Ray Djuff and Chris Morrison. If G. Oliver was there that day, I’d be curious to know what he thought of the event.  And if he wasn’t there, I wonder if he regretted not going?

When we visited Glacier in 2009, we stayed at the park’s slightly younger hotel, Many Glacier, which opened to guests in 1917 and has an amazing view.

Many Glacier Hotel at Glacier National Park

The view from the other side of the Many Glacier Hotel.

The next time we visit – and I do hope there’s a next time – I’d like to try out the Glacier Park Lodge.  Its 100-year history is fascinating and worth appreciating, during National Park Week or any other time of the year.

The Magic of Massed Performance

I’m sure most of the 800-plus band and choral students involved in last night’s 2012 Missota Conference Music Festival – including my daughter, Louisa – weren’t aware of how impressive it was to see them all gathered in the Northfield High School gymnasium before the finale concert.  After a long day of practicing, performing, listening and waiting, they were ready to go home. 

I’m sure not every parent in attendance appreciated the coolness of the event, either.  Some might have preferred to stay home – it was a Friday evening after a long, busy week, the school was crowded, and – gasp – they had to pay to attend (note: the cost was the same as any high school sporting event – I’m just sayin’).

Music students from eight schools, including Northfield, assemble for the concert.

Where’s Louisa? She’s in the center of the massed band, warming up on her French horn.

But I loved it, from the moment the massed band played the opening notes of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” until the closing notes of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”  performed by the combined ensembles of the massed choir, the select choir and the select band. 



Sure, the trumpets in the massed band weren’t spot-on (there were 14 students on the trumpet 1 part and 44 trumpets in all), the clapping by the massed choir in the gospel song wasn’t uniform, and a couple of the select choir’s songs sounded similar to my untrained ears, but hey – there were 800 student musicians from eight schools gathered in the gymnasium!  That’s 800 students who share a passion for music – what’s not to love about that?  What about that doesn’t deserve accolades and inspire optimism for our future?

Participating schools were Academy of Holy Angels, Chanhassen, Chaska, Farmington, New Prague, Northfield, Red Wing and Shakopee

It inspired me because it shows that the teaching of music and art in the schools continues to be valued and continues to make a difference in kids’ lives.  The students may not remember this concert as the No. 1 highlight of their high school career, but the encouragement and dedicated effort by teachers and staff that made the event possible will surely have a lasting impact, regardless of whether the students continue to pursue the arts after high school.

I know this because I know my history – my personal history as a former high school and college band member, but also my family’s music history.  I have met elderly men who once played for my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, in the St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band, and they’ve told me with emotion in their voices how much that experience they had as young boys influenced their character and their approach to life. 

So when I saw those student musicians in the gym, I also saw all those students who came before them, and when I saw those guest directors step up on the podium – including Timothy Diem, director of the University of Minnesota marching band and assistant director of the U of M bands; and Timothy Mahr, director of the St. Olaf College Band – I saw my great-grandfather, and I saw my grandfather Ronald, and I saw my great-uncle, Percy.

It was easy to make the connection to my grandfather, Ronald, because some of the students who participated last night were from Farmington High School.  Ronald was the band director in Farmington from 1933-36, and 76 years ago, on April 17, 1936, Farmington High School hosted a similar festival.

Five hundred band and choral students from six schools participated in the Mississippi Valley League Music Festival that day: Cannon Falls, Farmington, Hastings, Lake City, Wabasha and Zumbrota.  Ronald directed the Farmington band in its afternoon performance, and G. Oliver directed one of the massed band pieces in the evening finale concert.  Another guest conductor was James Robert Gillette, director of the Carleton College Symphony Band.

A St. Paul Dispatch photo and article previewing the festival.

One of the massed band pieces was directed by my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs.

Afterward, an editorial in the Farmington newspaper called it a glorious event, and the description could just as easily apply to the event I attended last night:

“Performing before a jammed auditorium, the massed glee clubs and massed band, made up of six schools, sang and played with rare skill and splendor ... there was no competition between schools, no prizes; hence all the schools went home feeling they had gained – and not lost – something.  We who attended the grand festival caught the spirit of cooperation from the young artists, and we came away with a feeling that it was fine and good to have been there.”

I would conclude there, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of the Farmington students in that 250-member massed band at the 1936 festival was a flute player named Eleanor Johnson.  I’m grateful that she had a positive experience in the band.  You see, Eleanor was my paternal grandmother; she married Ronald 1 1/2 years later, after he had moved to Thief River Falls to direct the high school band in that northern Minnesota town.

Eleanor Johnson Riggs, 1919-1980

You just never know where the music will lead you.

April is for the Arts

April has been a busy arts month so far, with no signs of slowing down.

Last week, I attended the Evening of the Arts at Elias’ elementary school.  He sang a song with the fifth grade choir in the Bistro Cafe (also known as the media center), and then we wandered around and found his pieces of art on display.

Here is one:

The title of Elias’ painting is Bluebane.

And here is Elias with Tim the Evil Dictator.  Elias made the snowman and wrote an entertaining story told from Tim’s point of view.

I especially like Tim’s evil eyebrows.

 Click here to see more photos of the event on Northfield Patch.

Louisa also has art on display this month; hers is at the 2012 Northfield All-School Art Show at the Northfield Arts Guild Gallery.  She and I stopped in Monday after her voice lesson to see her self-portrait and her letter “L” painting.  The inspiring show is filled with artwork by kids as young as kindergarten up through high school.  It runs through April 28.  You can find more information about it and the NAG’s Imagination Celebration here.

Tuesday night, Sebastian performed a solo on his viola for the 25th Annual Northfield Middle School Solo and Ensemble Festival.  All eighth grade orchestra students were required to perform; it was optional for the sixth and seventh graders.  Seb said he received positive and helpful comments from the judge, including the suggestion that he try playing with a metronome.

He told me this in the car, as I drove him home.

“Well, I suppose we could buy one,” I said.

“Mom, you don’t need to buy one,” Seb said. “You can just use the computer.”

Shows how old-fashioned I am.  It never occurred to me that you could use an online metronome. There’s even an app for it!  I tried one version and found it annoying.  But, like I said, I’m old-fashioned.

Louisa participates Friday in the 26th Annual Missota Arts Festival, which is hosted this year by Northfield High School.  The all-day event involves bands and choirs from eight schools and concludes with a 7 p.m. grand finale concert in the high school gymnasium.  The concert is open to the public; tickets cost $6 for adults and $4 for students.  As a member of the Northfield Fine Arts Boosters, I plan to help out for a few hours in the hospitality room, where directors and clinicians can get lunch and coffee.

No one in the family is in a play or musical this month, but Louisa and Seb are helping backstage at Paper Daddy, which opens this weekend at the Northfield Arts Guild theater.  We plan to see it next weekend; this weekend we’re going to The Last Five Years, a Merlin Players production at the Paradise Theater in Faribault.  The show was written and composed by Jason Robert Brown (the same guy who wrote 13, which Seb performed in last summer at the NAG).  The Last Five Years is directed by Juliana Skluzacek, who will soon direct Steve in the Merlin Players’ next production, A Year with Frog and Toad.  That show runs in June; rehearsals start next week.

The month will conclude with three music events featuring three different family members: the Northfield High School/Northfield Middle School jazz band concert on April 26 (Seb), the I Cantanti concert on April 29 (Steve), and the Northfield High School band concert on April 30 (Louisa).

It’s a good thing April only has 30 days, or we’d surely cram in another arts event or two before May begins.

Origins of a Music Man Tour: Days 4 and 5

I know you’ve all been patiently waiting to find out – how did the Origins of a Music Man Tour end?  Did G. Oliver ever give his credentials to the barbershop quartet that was stalking him?  Did the women of the town join Marian the librarian’s Balzac book club?  Did Wells Fargo jack up its fees for its wagon service?

Ah, I’m just joking with you.  If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that Meredith Willson’s The Music Man is not based on the life of my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs.  But, if you keep reading, you will learn how I connect the two men at the end of the tour.

Let’s pick up where I left off: Day 4 of the tour was Tuesday, the day I gave my presentation at Iowa Wesleyan College.  The previous night, my parents and I had stayed in the home where Warren Beckwith grew up – the same Warren Beckwith who played in G. Oliver’s Iowa Wesleyan Cadet Band and later eloped with Abraham Lincoln’s younger granddaughter, Jessie.

The house where Warren Beckwith grew up, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.

We arrived on campus Tuesday morning with plenty of time to get ready for the noon presentation.  The talk lasted an hour and drew a crowd of about 30 people, including members of the college music faculty.  It seemed to go quite well – people had some good questions, and there were no technical glitches with my Keynote/iMovie presentation, to my great relief.

G. Oliver and I pose before the presentation.

After the talk, Lynn Ellsworth took us to lunch – she’s the IWC archivist and executive director of the Friends of the Harlan-Lincoln House – and we toured The Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana, which is also located in Mount Pleasant.  The museum has a fascinating collection of memorabilia and artifacts from theater companies that performed in opera houses during the same time period that G. Oliver’s bands performed.  The collection includes 40 original, hand-painted opera house curtains and more than 4,000 scripts.

This is a display of the museum’s music-related artifacts.

We returned to campus for a tour of the Harlan-Lincoln House, and Lynn showed us the alcove where she thought G. Oliver’s orchestra played during parties for the Lincoln granddaughters, Mary and Jessie, in 1895 (I first blogged about these parties in the post, Party Like It’s 1895).

G. Oliver revisits the Harlan-Lincoln House.

My parents, G. Oliver and Lynn on the front porch of the Harlan-Lincoln House.

We also toured the chapel where G. Oliver performed during his time at Iowa Wesleyan.  It was renovated a few years ago and is a beautiful space with excellent acoustics.

The exterior of the chapel at Iowa Wesleyan College.

We left Mount Pleasant late in the afternoon and drove to Iowa City.  The next day, Day 5 of the tour, we spent the morning at the State Historical Society library going through the files of George Landers, G. Oliver’s mentor and longtime friend.  We found a few items of interest, including a program from a talk G. Oliver gave in 1927 at the C.G. Conn convention in Elkhart, Indiana.  His topic? How to Create More Bands.

After a picnic lunch at Coralville Lake and a visit with friends in Cedar Rapids, we stopped briefly in Cedar Falls to take a photo of the bandshell there.  G. Oliver did not direct a band in that town, but I thought he’d enjoy the visit, since the town is home of the oldest municipal band in Iowa.  The Cedar Falls Municipal Band gives free weekly outdoor concerts at the bandshell in June and July.

The Cedar Falls Bandshell was built in 1996.

We made a slightly longer stop at Music Man Square in Mason City to take a picture of G. Oliver in front of the Meredith Willson boyhood home and statue.

Willson was 30 years younger than G. Oliver; he grew up in Mason City and began playing the flute at age 10 in the Mason City Municipal Band.  He later played flute in John Philip Sousa’s Band and for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra before moving on to radio work and fame in Hollywood.  His show The Music Man opened on Broadway in 1957, 11 years after G. Oliver died.  I’m not sure that Willson and G. Oliver ever met, but they did know some of the same musicians and no doubt had some things in common.

I had a great time on my five-day tour of Iowa.  As the song from The Music Man says (altered slightly to reflect my itinerary):

“You really ought to give Iowa 
Hawkeye Iowa
Des Moines, Albia, Centerville, Mount Pleasant, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Cedar Falls, Mason City 
Ought to give Iowa a try!”