Memorabilia Moment – Page 26

Symphony Stories: Remembering the NC Symphony Children’s Concerts

The real Carnegie Hall audience was in the schools. On Symphony Day the children knew what they were hearing, singing and playing. They had read about the music in Adeline McCall’s Symphony Stories, their teachers had attended her workshops where she not only demonstrated children’s instruments to blow, tap and shake, but got the teachers on their toes to sway with free movement to the music. As supervisor in Chapel Hill’s elementary schools, Adeline filled her music room with crafts and drums from other lands and wore colorful earrings and Mexican patterns in her clothing; they danced and finger-painted to the recordings; they created puppets and plays, and used hand-made xylophones, auto harps, and bells as they sang folk tunes thousands of other children would know on Symphony Day.

Our Children’s Concert Division was a working triangle with Ben, Adeline, the children’s division director and I, coordinator with the schools….Year after year, Adeline and I went through a laborious search of music for the Little and Full Symphony programs. We ‘borrowed’ the latest Boston Pops recordings from the Intimate Bookstore, and listened far into the night at her house.I judged selections for their mass appeal and effect in a large hall, and Adeline considered the teaching and learning possibilities….

Ben studied our proposed programs. Later he pointed out instrumentation too large for the size of the orchestra, a wind part too stressful for a player with two concerts a day, or music rental beyond our budget….Together our working trio created a 59 minute program geared to a child’s attention span that was just right for the orchestra. The full symphony played large scores with high rentals so that children could hear selections from Copland’s Rodeo and Billy the Kid, Grofe’s Hudson River and Mississippi Suites, Stravinsky’s Firebird, and Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite as well as the basics: Haydn, Handel, Mozart, earlier composers, and the three B’s. Children and adults were captivated by arrangements of ‘Old Joe Clark,’ ‘Cripple Creek,’ ‘Old Gray Mule,’ ‘Dixie,’ and ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.’

-Maxine Swalin, in her book An Ear to Myself, recalling the long-running children’s music programs of the North Carolina Symphony. Swalin and her husband, Benjamin, were instrumental in leading the North Carolina Symphony through its early days. Benjamin Swalin served as the Symphony’s conductor from 1939-1972 and Maxine served as coordinator of programs for many of those years. The two collaborated with Adeline McCall to provide N.C. Symphony concerts for school children around the state. One staple of the concerts was Symphony Stories, a booklet that provided young attendees with background on the musical pieces they would hear and the individuals who composed them. The publications were rich with information and often had beautiful covers.

The children’s concerts were still going strong in the early 1970s when I was in elementary school. Each year we learned a new song and a new instrument so that we could accompany the Symphony on one piece. Tonettes, recorders and auto-harps were some of the instruments we used. To this day I can’t hear “Old Joe Clark” without recalling a spring afternoon in 1972 when my 2nd grade classmates and I sang the folk classic while accompanied by the N.C. Symphony in UNC’s Memorial Hall. For some unknown reason I was struck by a vision of Symphony Stories yesterday (February 15). I was thrilled to discover that we’ve got a collection of the booklets (Seasons 1945/46-1981/82) in the North Carolina Collection. In an odd coincidence, it turns out that Adeline McCall died on February 15, 1989.

Did the Symphony visit your town?

Photos of Historic North Carolina Schools

The photo above is one of 66 images of historic schools in North Carolina that the State Library of North Carolina added to its Flickr site. Our colleagues are trying to determine where each of these schools stood. The photos were included in the Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina for various years in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The photo of the Chapel Hill school is from the 1896-1898 report.

As a Chapel Hill native and a proud graduate of its school system, I thought I’d take a stab at finding the location of this school. It took an hour or so. But I can now state with reasonable certainty (always a dangerous position to stake) that the building stood at (or very near) the southwest corner of Columbia and Franklin streets. It’s the current site of University Baptist Church.

The school opened in September 1896 under the supervision of John W. Canada, a Summerfield native who had graduated from UNC the previous spring. Although a young school master, Canada was not new to teaching. A farm boy, he arrived at UNC as a sophomore in fall 1893, having earned money to attend the university by teaching school in Guilford County and in South Carolina. While a student at UNC, Canada earned extra money by tutoring the older children of faculty. As Canada later wrote in his autobiography, Life at Eighty, Chapel Hill lacked schools, especially those for older students.

Funds for a very few months of public schools were available. There was no building adequate for such as might come to one. There was no special tax and no law whereby one might be levied. Through county funds, only a very limited amount was available. A lady, Miss Herndon, had a limited number of primary and kindergarten grades come to her home for a small but very good school. Mrs. Sallie Wilson, a most capable and experienced teacher, had come to town and expected to start a school. The would also be a one-room school and could not possibly cover a wide range of teaching. This would leave such work as I had done in preparing boys and girls in higher classes to such an extent that they might be ready for college not provided for.

As Canada prepared to graduate, several UNC faculty members urged him to start a school. And that he did. The Canada School, as it would become known, opened in an old hotel. Canada brought in others to help with teaching, including his younger brother, Charles, a student at UNC. Canada wrote in his autobiography:

The people of the town took the school to their hearts and soon the enrollment was almost two hundred boys and girls of various ages. Also there were many pupils from places outside Chapel Hill. With the second year the school began to make a showing, through its pupils going on to the University. The Alumni Record of the University, 1895-1924, shows some fifty boys and girls who went from Chapel Hill school to the University.

First graduating class at Canada school in Chapel Hill — First graduating class of Canada school, 1898.

The Canada school’s first graduating class included Louis Graves (second row, second from right),who would become the first professor of journalism at UNC in 1921 and then start the Chapel Hill Weekly two years later. Charles Maddry (second row, third from right) became a Baptist minister and played a part in the construction of the Baptist church that would later occupy the site of the Canada school. Later graduates of the school included the children of such UNC notables as Presidents George T. Winston and Francis P. Venable and Professor Eben Alexander.

Within several years of opening, the Canada school was seeking a new home. Industrialist Julian Carr helped finance the building of a new 10-room schoolhouse on Pittsboro Street across from the Carolina Inn. But in May 1901, with construction of the new school still underway, Canada left Chapel Hill for Denver, Colorado, where he and a friend tried their hands at writing and publishing textbooks. Two years later, having met little success in Colorado, Canada headed to Texas, where in short order he established a weekly newspaper in Kingsville, a cattle ranching town between Corpus Christi, Laredo and Brownsville. Canada spent the remainder of his life in south Texas, eventually moving from publishing to banking and the development of agricultural cooperatives. Canada was 86 when he died on February 1, 1958.

The Canada school lasted for a few years at its Pittsboro Street location, but eventually folded for lack of financial support. In 1906 the first school in Chapel Hill financed with public money opened in the Pittsboro Street schoolhouse. The first teachers included Blanche Pickard (1898 photo, first row, second from left) and Canada school graduate Nellie Roberson.

Artifact of the Month: Bags for North Carolina mill products

Reminders of North Carolina’s agricultural roots are spread throughout the North Carolina Collection. One such example serves as the Gallery’s Artifact of the Month for January. A donor recently brought over several bags for different meal products from various mills across the state, and we have selected a few to highlight.

This 11.5” x 4.5” bag for Winkler Gingerbread mix comes from the Old Mill of Guilford. Located in Oak Ridge, North Carolina near the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Guilford County, the Old Mill of Guilford pre-dates the United States. Originally built in 1767, the mill has been through several transformations. The small tub mill for grinding grain into meal was moved 500 feet in 1819 for better access to the nearby dammed pond. It was also converted to an overshot waterwheel mill, which was then converted into a roller mill with a turbine in 1913. The owner brought back the overshot waterwheel in 1954, and the Old Mill of Guilford continues to operate and sell different types of water ground meal.

The Boonville Flour & Feed Mill located in Yadkin County dates to circa 1880 and has also witnessed several transformations. Originally powered by a steam engine and boiler, the mill converted to diesel engine power in the 1920s before adopting electricity as its source of energy. This 15” x 8” bag for Boonville’s Choice Flour features a colorful image of a natural scene while the Old Mill of Guilford’s Winkler Gingerbread mix bag shows the mill itself.

The China Grove Roller Mills in Rowan County was founded in 1896. The building currently in use for the mill operations dates to 1903 and also serves as a general store. The mill uses roller mills that date to 1906 to produce flour, wheat germ, wheat bran, cornmeal, and livestock feed. These 11.5” x 8.5” bags for different types of corn meal provide additional examples of the images common to twentieth century bags for various meal products.

Both the Old Mill of Guilford and the China Grove Roller Mills are on the National Register of Historic Places. Along with the Boonville Flour & Feed Mill, these historic institutions preserve the experience of the local businesses within the agriculture industry that dominated the North Carolina economy for centuries.

Early American humor, courtesy of Henderson’s 1812 Almanack for North Carolina

A person about to open a dram shop asked another what he should put on his sign. “Beggars made here” was the reply.

Two men happening to jostle each other in the streets. Says one,”I never permit a blackguard to take the wall.” “I do,” said the other, and instantly made way.

From Henderson’s Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1812….Calculated for the State of North Carolina. The almanac, whose predictions included a hard frost on February 22 and thunder on July 23, marks the 10,000th book digitized from the University Library’s collections using a high-speed scanner and software application known as the “Scribe.”

The North Carolina Collection is especially proud to have a book from its collection selected for the honor. As NCC curator Bob Anthony points out,”Two centuries ago, an almanac was often the only book in many North Carolina homes, along with a Bible. Selecting this work for digitization gives a very direct glimpse into daily life in the Tar Heel State.” It’s also proof that, over the past 200 years, Americans may not have changed as much as we would like to think.

P.S. Wondering what a blackguard is? Try 2a.

Peeling and sticking with the Grateful Dead

Between 1971 at Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium and 1995 at the Charlotte Coliseum, the Grateful Dead by one count played 27 shows in North Carolina. For at least 19 of these shows, peel-and-stick backstage passes (not to be confused with the laminated security passes issued to band members and crew) were distributed among friends, fans and camp followers.

Like so much Dead memorabilia these strikingly designed passes drew from an iconography developed over the decades. Here’s a long strange slideshow from a sampling of their North Carolina performances.

Charlotte slow to warm to Rolling Stones

On this day in 1965: The Rolling Stones make their first appearance in Charlotte, drawing less than a half-full house at the original Coliseum (and failing to rate a review in the Observer).

Reports the Charlotte News: “What it was wasn’t music, but it was harmless. Promoter Jim Crockett had hired 40 policemen to hold back the mob, but there wasn’t any mob. [Mick] Jagger looks like a teenage miss who’s just washed her hair and can’t find her curlers. His straggly brown locks swishing around his shoulders, Jagger wrestles with the microphone, does some fancy strutting and spinning and sings.”

Pictured: Media pass for the Rolling Stones’ much better attended 1997 concert, the first in Charlotte’s new NFL stadium. The show sold out 54,436 tickets and grossed a reported $3,126,945.

Unfortunately for the Carolina Panthers, the stage set-up required resodding 25 yards at one end of the field. Heavy rains made the next game an embarrassing mudfest, including no fewer than nine fumbles.

Northampton County — now THAT’S south Philly

On this day in 1983: Wilson Goode, one of eight children of Northampton County sharecroppers, is elected the first black mayor of Philadelphia. His family moved from North Carolina to Philadelphia when he was 15.

The low point of Goode’s eight years in office will come in 1985, when police trying to evict the radical group MOVE from its rowhouse headquarters drop a bomb on the roof. The resulting fire kills 11 people, including five children, and destroys more than 60 houses.

Pictured: Pinback from 1983. The slogan “Still Goode for Philadelphia” was seen in later campaigns.

Backstage with the Charlie Daniels Band

Today is the 75th birthday of Wilmington (Leland) native Charlie Daniels, whose long country-musical career accelerated with the release of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in 1979.

Especially in its early years, promoters of appearances by the Charlie Daniels Band often created their own backstage passes. Here’s a sampling.

Glitter of gold once pulled Cabarrus together

In 1949 the 150th anniversary of Conrad Reed’s discovery of a 17-pound nugget in Little Meadow Creek — which predated the California gold rush by half a century — was celebrated locally with pride and enthusiasm. Events in Concord included an outdoor drama, a beard-growing contest, a Miss Cabarrus Gold pageant, an air show, a midway, a performance by massed choirs and a visit by Gov. Kerr Scott.

In 1977 Reed Gold Mine opened as a state historic site — an idea envisioned and advocated by H. G. Jones during his tenure as state archivist.

By the gold bicentennial in 1999, however, Cabarrus County had more than doubled in size. Age and emigration had diminished the pool of those who claimed deep roots, and newcomers lacked their sense of place. Though spirited, celebration at Reed Gold Mine paled beside the ambitious community undertaking of 1949.

Pictured: From the collection a silk (I think) ribbon from the Sesquicentennial.

What’s in a burger name? Potential for confusion

No date on this 3-inch pinback button, but the typography and the vaguely Space Age rendering of a pickle-topped hamburger suggest 1960 or so. (Is that cheese or lettuce squashed beneath the patty? Regardless, doesn’t it belong on top?)

Surprisingly, this cluster of Concord-based What-A-Burger stores (not all of which survive) is unrelated to either the Texas-based Whataburger chain or the Virginia-based What-A-Burger chain — though all three date back to the 1950s and specialize in jumbo burgers that compared with Big Macs might qualify as artisanal.