Eureka Band – Bess Bartling
8-19-99
The following is a transcript of an audio recording made on August 19, 1999 at the home of Bess Bartling. In this transcript, W stands for Judy Tonges, the woman who was conducting the interview, and M stands for Mr. Bartling.
*000 W: Today is August 19, 1999 and I’m at Bess Bartling’s house and we are going to talk
about his musical career and especially the Eureka Band. All right, now you can go on.
M: Your question would be what?
W: Well, I have a number of questions. One of them is. First of all, tell me uh, like, just your personal life. What your birth date is, where you were born.
M: Well, I was born in Morris, Indiana in 1910.
W: And your parents were?
M: Herman and Mary Bartling.
W: Were they musical at all?
M: Musical?
W: Uh, huh.
M: My father played the, the trumpet. Well they called it coronet those days and of course that’s where I got my start. On playing the coronet.
W: Did he teach you?
M: Was I a teacher?
W: No, did he teach you, your father?
M: No, no, I mean well he helped me with my playing, you know. But uh, he was never a teacher. But, in somewhat he was. He helped me a lot, see.
W: Who taught him?
M: Did I teach him?
W: No, who taught him?
M: I have no idea. I don’t know where he got his start.
W: Maybe he was self-taught you think?
M: Well, he was musically inclined, see and… He played the coronet, but he didn’t get to practice much. He had to work, you know.
W: Uh, huh. Did he play in a band at all?
M: Yes, he had, Morris had a band those days.
W: What was it called? Was that the Shoemaker band?
M: Morris brass band.
W: Morris brass band.
M: Yes, that’s what my father was in and then I started playing when I was just a little fellow and I would have to sit on a high chair or a chair so I could see the music to play.
(Laughter)
M: I mean they had to put a little something on the chair so I got high enough so I could see the…
W: How old were you?
M: Oh, I was only about maybe 6, 7, 8 years old.
W: Oh, a little guy.
M: Just a little tot, see I was too short to see something, they had to set me up a little bit.
W: So you could already read music then?
M: I didn’t. I taught myself more or less. See my dad wasn’t around to teach. And I’d, He’d show me how to play a particular strain, you know. I’d see it and finally I decided it was played this way and the music looked this way and finally I got myself so I could read it.
W: So you always played by notes though, you never played by ear?
M: Well, somewhat, somewhat by ear, yes, but mostly by notes.
W: Well I’m finding a lot of these older folks especially, just played by ear. They never used music.
M: Well, I had to play by notes because… See I played in the Eureka Band. I forget the gentleman came down to get me. I was, oh, just a kid yet. I was working in a garage down there in Morris and he came down. They needed a trumpet player and he found out I could play and then he wanted me to play in the Eureka band. They needed more trumpet players so I was only about, oh, I guess about a Sophomore in high school when they came and got me.
W: Were you the youngest one then?
M: Oh, yes.
W: Yes. For a long time, huh?
M: And then I played until I went to college then. I went to college in 1928 and in ‘32 I graduated from college.
W: What school did you go to?
M: IU
W: IU? Did you play in the band there?
M: Please?
W: Did you play in the band there?
M: Oh yes, yes.
W: Did you?
M: Yes, see by playing in the band there I got my tuition for free. And my folks were very…
W: Very happy.
M: Didn’t have to pay too much to send me to school and uh, then when I got back from college then uh, they asked me to direct the Eureka Band. That was in ‘32.
W: So you were only about 22 years old or so?
M: I was about 22, yeah.
W: And how long did you, did you direct the band?
*050 M: Gosh, I forget. I directed until in the ‘80s someplace. Oh I, I don’t know.
W: Don’t know?
M: Maybe someone else would know. I forget now. It wasn’t too long ago that I quit directing it…
W: Okay.
M: …and they turned it over to someone else. See before I went in there, Henry Shoemaker directed the band. That’s this gentleman right here next to me.
W: Okay is that Zola and Edith Shoemaker’s father?
M: Uh, gosh I don’t know his children.
W: Okay.
M: I, I don’t recall his children.
W: ‘Cause there…
M: Shoemaker, George Shoemaker played in the band too and his son Owen Shoemaker
played in the band.
W: Okay, Owen was married to Matilda.
M: Yeah.
W: Pleasencamp.
M: Okay that’s right.
W: Alright.
M: And uh, he played in the band, oh until he got, well, health didn’t hold him in anymore, you know, he finally passed away. And uh, Henry Shoemaker, I forget just when he quit, but he played until he couldn’t play anymore, you know.
W: So these sound like a lot of family affairs.
M: Oh yeah.
W: There were a lot of brothers and fathers and sons.
M: Shoemakers were in the band. Now well, his son, Owen Shoemaker’s son, he played too,
but he got interested in athletics and, and he quit playing in the High School band and he used to play in the High School band and then we lost a Shoemaker and then he was about the last of the Shoemakers. In this group here there’s, well there’s three of them living yet.
W: Okay, you don’t know what date this is approximately do you?
M: That’s in the early ‘30’s.
W: 1930’s?
M: Yeah.
W: Okay.
M: See I know I was directing by that time because they had me up here in the front, see.
(Laughter)
M: I started directing in ’32.
W: Okay.
M: When I come back from graduation why they wanted me to take over the band, see. ‘Cause I went to music school, see and they figured I would be…
W: Did you direct and play or just direct?
M: Oh, play and direct.
W: You did both?
*086 M: Well first, for some part of the time, I directed some when they had plenty trumpets, see
and _________work from a drum roll off, see.
W: I see, I see.
M: We’d get by with that.
W: How many people were in the band, like in its heyday?
M: I’d say roughly the band all the time run around 16.
W: 16.
M: About 16 players. Uh, that’s just, sometimes a little more, maybe sometimes a little less, see, but normally it was in the 16 neighborhood.
W: Okay, ‘cause there, for a while, the band was kind of, there weren’t many people anymore to play and I was wondering how many you really needed for a band?
M: Well it’s according to how many people you need.
W: What instruments.
M: And how good they are, see I mean, you can half a dozen of certain kind and their not too good a player, don’t do you any good, but you can have one good guy in that bunch.
W: That’s all you need.
M: Yeah.
W: I see. Do you know about when um, the Eureka band was organized? I’ve got…
M: Was organized?
W: Yeah, I’ve got several dates.
*100 M: We tried to figure it out. It was in the 18’s.
W: 1800’s?
M: The latter part of the 1800’s in say ,18, one of them thought 1894 roughly, I mean that’s an estimate.
W: That’s a figure that if, 1893 actually I found twice, but I looked at Minnie Wycoff’s history of Batesville and she was talking about other bands that existed early on and that there is some question about whether those bands got together and eventually became the Eureka band. It wasn’t called the Eureka band at that time. There was a mister um, I’m trying to think what his name now. Dahlman. There was a Dahlman band.
M: Yeah.
W: That may have eventually been the very beginnings. And that was back in the time of the Civil War.
M: Yeah. I really don’t know.
W: Don’t know.
M: I couldn’t give you an answer on that. I don’t know.
W: Were there ever any records kept of the band? You know, like minutes or anything like that or its just people that got together and played.
M: Let’s see, what’s... I think at one time in the band if somebody didn’t come to rehearsal it cost them a dime or something.
W: So there were rules, huh?
M: I think, as I recall they had something like that. They finally they dropped that again, you know, but that was on the list for a while.
W: Where’s this list?
M: I don’t know.
W: You don’t know. You followed the rules so you didn’t have to worry about it, huh? When did you folks practice? Often or once a month or?
M: We practiced every Monday night.
W: Every Monday night?
M: Yeah.
W: All the while you were director?
M: Yeah, every Monday night.
W: That’s amazing.
M: And when uh, before I was director, before 1932, Henry Shoemaker, he had it. And when I first started to playing with them. Oh, about a year or two after I was playing. Then they had a man, the music man from Cincinnati come out to direct for a while and he directed them for, oh I don’t know, several months I believe, but they didn’t like him.
W: What was his name? Do you remember?
M: No.
W: No?
M: No, no I don’t, but I was in there while he was directing see, but uh, there was a couple of ‘em that didn’t like him. Well, he was a little bit, they liked the, we had a drummer that liked to play a piece and light up a cigarette.
W: Uh, huh.
M: Well he lit up a cigarette and he stopped him. He didn’t want any smoking see.
W: Oh, he was really strict.
M: And uh, he got sick of him, you know. He was tired, he didn’t want any more of him anymore. He’d start crabbing about him being there. Well they finally let him go then see, but he was only there, oh I don’t know, couple months maybe.
W: Is that right?
M: And he’d come out every, well, we’d practice every night. Now I don’t know if he came every night or not or did we back it off to once a week? Maybe it was once a week.
W: That he would come out.
M: Maybe it was once a week except maybe if we needed a little more work on something. Well we could call back so and so and well, people didn’t seem to be that busy that they couldn’t come in those days. Now today they always got this and that and the other, you know.
W: Yes, I understand.
M: And they couldn’t, don’t come as much.
*150 W: I understand. Where did you all play?
M: What?
W: Where, where.
M: Where?
W: Yeah.
M: Well, we always played for um, concerts in the spring, you know like we do yet.
W: Okay, and that was in the spring then?
M: And then we’d have a special time at the park to come to have a little kind of outing there and up in the evening we’d have playing and have a little something going on. Oh, I don’t know if there was anything else. Well we always had a march in the, you know, for parades and stuff. Like Memorial Day and everything, Eureka Band would…
W: Always played.
M: I had, that was a busy day, 4th of July we’d, you know we’d do a lot of that. I would have to have the, I’d be in the Eureka Band playing, got them going. I had the High School band come running through there. Then I got down there. Then I had the chorus had to sing…
(Laughter)
M: I was busy, I was glad when 4th of July was over.
W: You were tired. Well that’s amazing that you did all that.
M: Oh yea, well, today they don’t do that no more.
W: Right, right, everybody has its own group, yeah. When you played, what did you play?
M: The music?
W: Uh, huh.
M: We played mostly marches.
W: Mostly marches.
M: Yeah.
W: I notice now that the, when I see the list of the music that their playing at the park they play different kinds of things too.
M: We played oh, once we played something besides a march occasionally, but mostly marches, but we’d usually have an overture in there too to mix it up a little bit there too see, to mix it up a little bit, see.
W: Who chose the music?
M: Well, I was in control of that.
W: You did? You decided what they were gonna do?
M: Yeah, I had, that was my job.
W: And you enjoyed that, I’m sure.
M: Oh yeah.
W: Yeah, yeah. That’s amazing. What did you do for funding?
M: For what?
W: For funding? For money?
M: Funding? Well the city pays the band every, still pays them. I think they pay them $300 for every year for the concerts and so we could buy music and stuff like that.
W: When did that start?
M: When did that start? I have no idea.
W: All the while you were directing that was true?
M: Yes, I believe it was. Yeah.
W: Okay.
M: I think it was. The city would give them a little bit so they’d keep it going, you know.
W: I notice this one picture you’ve got it seems like there was a drive going on to get uniforms. Now I notice they don’t wear uniforms anymore. Was that ever an issue?
M: Well they don’t wear uniforms, they do dress, not in a uniform you know, but they all wear blue pants and a white shirt.
W: Uh, huh.
M: I mean, that was always my favorite color and I had, we’d school the girls on a white blouse and a blue skirt.
W: Navy skirt.
M: Little skirt with it, you know. And of course the high school band, they had uniforms. But I’d have that. To me that always looked nice and neat.
*200 W: And since you were the director you could do what you wanted, right?
*202 M: Yeah and we had. Well the girls, always had good girls _____ ensemble choir, you
know. They’d get a first every year in a contest, you know. They were good, well dressed neat and then you know like some children like to be dressed with maybe
*207 earrings and a big thing on their arm you know and all that _______ well when we’d go out on the stage to perform they’d hand me that and I’d put it in a pot then after it was over I’d give it back to them.
(Laughter)
M: I didn’t want to see that. I wanted them all looking alike.
W: Uh, huh, yeah. I remember pictures of the high school choruses and your right, they were all, they all looked very nice because there were all dressed alike.
M: Yeah, that’s what I thought, neatness looked good.
W: It counted.
M: To me.
W: Yeah.
M: Now today they, well, they like to look different. You know, I don’t know. You see men with hair and wrapped up you know, like that long hair and everything. I don’t go for that.
W: They start to look like the girls don’t they?
M: Yeah.
(Laughter)
W: Can’t tell the difference.
M: I just don’t like that.
(Laughter)
M: I guess I’m old fashioned.
W: Well, and you know, there’s a lot to be said for that, yeah. Some of the new stuff is okay. Now you told me there were about 16 instruments in the band most of the time. What instruments were they?
M: To playing, like trumpets?
W: Right.
M: Well, we’d have a piccolo.
W: A piccolo.
M: Clarinet, trumpet, and horns, that’s E flat horns, trombones, baritone, bass, snare drum, bass drum. That was normally the band that sound full. Now right before I quit we lost
*238 our horn player. We had two good horn players. Clyde Flutter and _________ passed away. Now they haven’t fulfilled that and that leaves a little hole that I don’t like.
W: Uh, huh, the sound isn’t quite as mellow as it should be.
M: It just leaves a hole in it then.
W: Uh, huh.
M: ‘Cause you expect that and then it don’t work.
W: Have you been out to hear the band? Recently?
M: Oh yeah.
W: Yeah and they aren’t sounding quite as good when they did when you were there huh?
M: Well I wouldn’t say that, it’s hard.
W: Just a little different.
M: I mean, I’m out hear listening to it when I used to be right near by them. That wouldn’t be a fair estimation.
W: I see, I see. Well they seem to do very well and I’ve noticed they’ve been getting younger people in now too, which is…
M: Yeah they got, they’re getting a nice bunch together and I’m glad to see them do that.
W: Uh, huh.
*250 M: Ed Crouse seems to be work pretty hard to try to keep getting more of them in. I don’t
know if the rest of them are trying it. Course they lost a good player, Bill Switzer. Uh, he got, well his wife died and I always recall the day before, two days before she did. I was out to see Bill Switzer about something. Stopped in, his wife came on out and we was talking awhile and finally she says, “You know uh, yesterday I had a heart attack.” And I said, “You did?” “Yeah.” It was in Columbus. She was driving a car.
W: Oh my.
M: And she said, “I just got up to a stop light and stopped and I passed out.” She said, “I finally come to,” and she thought, “oh boy, I better go back home.” She turned around and come back home. And uh, she told me that see.
W: Uh, huh.
M: And my gosh, she looked as healthy as you did when I was talking to her see and uh. Well, it was two days after that in the morning about 11:00, telephone rang and Bill Switzer called me and said, “Susie died this morning 9:30.”
W: Oh my.
M: And I found out the next day, that was on Tuesday when I talked to her, Wednesday she went to Krogers. She’d passed on Krogers and they called 911 and they picked her up and took her to Cincinnatti on an airplane, you know to a hospital up there and the next morning she died.
W: It’s amazing that she was able to drive home from Columbus.
M: Yeah.
W: After that first one.
M: You bet, well I guess a heart attack acts that way. Bing (clap), you gone, see.
W: That’s amazing.
M: Yeah.
W: Wow.
M: I mean you could stand here good now…
W: Yeah.
M: And all of the sudden (clap) you’re gone.
W: Just not…
M: So we never know.
W: You’re right, got to be ready no matter what right?
M: You bet.
W: Uh, huh. Well, now tell me about your career as a teacher and a conductor and whatever at the schools. I know all my school years, Bess Bartling was always the music person.
M: Yeah.
W: When did you start teaching in the schools?
M: I started in a high school up here at uh, Batesville in ’36.
W: In 1936. How long did you do that?
M: You know I can’t think. ‘36, ‘46, ‘56, ‘66 and uh, I don’t know, thirty something years, thirty, thirty-two years maybe.
W: Is that right?
M: Something like that.
OW: Didn’t you teach at Sunland?
M: Please?
OW: Didn’t you teach at Sunland?
M: Well I taught at Sunland before I went there, yeah.
W: Before you taught at Batesville you taught at Sunland?
*300 M: I taught at Sunland when I first…
W: Began?
M: And then Batesville opened up and they told me and then I went there.
W: What do you mean Batesville opened up? They didn’t have a band or they didn’t have a music…
M: Yes, they had, yeah they had, they had a music too. Well, the same teacher quit that taught me when I was in there.
W: Oh, okay.
M: I think it was, darn what was her name. I can’t think of her name now. Then I played in the orchestra, see they had an orchestra those days. And then they’d have something, the
*312 orchestra had to play and I lived in Morris and ___________ would drive down to Morris and get me.
W: They really wanted you.
M: Yeah.
W: And brought you in so you could play. And when she quit you started teaching there?
M: Please?
W: When she quit you started teaching there then?
M: When I quit?
W: When she quit.
M: Oh yeah.
W: yeah.
M: She quit.
W: Uh, huh.
M: In the middle of the year.
W: Oh.
M: And I went in, see.
W: And you were there forever.
M: I been there for a while, yeah.
W: Yeah, yeah. Well when you were in college what did you study? Did you study music?
M: Yeah.
W: Primarily.
M: Yeah, I studied music. I got a well, a Bachelor’s of Music Education and then I got a Masters in Music too. Masters in Music Education.
W: At IU?
M: IU.
W: Uh, huh, Uh, huh.
M: I’m not, oh I went to a number of other places in the summertime just to see what they looked like. You know we were supposed to go every three years to college, you see.
W: Uh, huh.
M: And I would go, I went to Miami and Chicago, different places see.
W: Try something different.
M: See what’s, how they worked, you know?
W: Uh, huh.
M: For summer course you know, for a couple weeks.
W: Uh, huh. Did you play any instruments besides the coronet?
M: No not, I could play them a little bit, but nothing good, you know. I knew about how to play them and I could sound them and things like that.
W: Well, who taught your students then how to play the instrument? I mean you directed the band but who taught the students? You know what I mean, like who taught the drummer how to drum? Who taught the coronet player, well you knew how to do that, but…
M: Yeah, it was my job, but some of them took private lessons, see.
W: I see.
M: Some of them.
W: Okay, okay.
M: Like Hubert Poskeet he took lessons from somebody. I don’t know if was from
Cincinnati or someplace like that, Hubert did and uh, he was one of my first players, you know in the high school.
W: How long did he play?
M: How long?
*350 W: In the Eureka Band.
M: Hubert’s still playing.
W: He’s still playing. When did he start?
M: Oh he started right out of school.
W: Did he?
M: Yeah.
W: He been playing ever since.
M: I could have put him in there while he was in school yet I don’t remember now, but I know we got him right after school.
W: Okay.
M: Yeah, he’s a good player.
W: What about Fritz Turner?
M: Who?
W: Fritz Turner.
M: Fritz? Oh yeah.
W: Yeah.
M: He was a good boy in school.
W: He’s still playing?
M: Yeah.
W: Did you get him to start too?
M: Yeah.
W: So you were instrumental in keeping that Eureka Band going using the boys from the high school band?
M: Yeah.
W: Yeah that’s amazing. Now what about boys now? Are they doing that so much anymore?
M: Not as much. Some of them, some of them, but I don’t know. Kids are different today. They don’t like these old guys, you know. They’d rather have their young fellows see.
W: Uh, huh.
M: That’s the way I look at it, maybe I’m wrong, but uh, I think of it that way.
W: There are some young people. They had a jazz band started at the high school.
M: Yeah.
W: And they were very good.
M: Yeah.
W: They really were doing and excellent job. And I understand one or two of them has played with Eureka Band now on occasion.
M: I don’t know what they got right now.
W: Uh, huh.
M: I don’t know, but uh they seem to have a little trouble to pick up the new kids now. They did have, maybe they’re having better luck now.
W: They only play those four weeks in August right? Do they play for anything else?
M: Well occasionally yeah, see they played at Sunland for the nursing home and then at the
*384 end of the band concert they always go to uh, ___________ (OSGOOD) to that nursing home over there for them once.
W: Okay.
M: And then they play for the fireman’s festival
W: Oh do they?
M: Something like that, they used to. I don’t know.
W: Still do.
M: If they still do or not.
W: Okay.
M: Fireman’s festival and then if the town had something else going on the Eureka Band played and like I said, years ago it would be for 4th of July and they’d play a concert and everything else for 4th of July in the park, see.
W: Were you the director when they went to the Indianapolis 500 four years in a row?
M: No, uh, I played with them.
W: Did you?
M: Yeah.
W: But you weren’t the director then?
*400 M: I wasn’t director then, no I was still in school, in high school then.
W: Oh you were still in high school. Okay. So Mr. Shoemaker was the director then I guess.
M: Yeah probably, yeah he was probably the director. We used to go there in a truck.
W: Yes, I have a photograph.
M: Cab truck.
W: I have a photograph here actually. If I can find it. Betty Custer brought this for me.
M: Yeah.
W: That was it?
*409 M: Yeah, that was _________(SEABIRD’S) truck.
W: It’s kind of hard to see. It says Eureka Band on the side.
M: Oh yeah.
W: Big sign.
M: Eureka Band yeah that’s pretty good.
(Laughter)
M: Who gave you that?
W: Betty Custer.
M: Oh Betty.
W: Yeah I’m going to have a copy made and give it back to her, but she brought that to me this morning, yesterday morning.
OW: Oh how nice.
W: And she said, “You’re going to be talking to Bess Bartling, now ask him if he remembers any of this.”
M: Oh yeah.
W: So yeah.
M: Oh we had a canvas you know to go over the top in case it rained see.
W: Uh, huh.
M: And we’d go there and we’d come in there and it had Eureka Band on and oh there’d be a lot of people that would be coming to the races, you know and a lot of cars in there like that. And we’d come in with a truck with Band in there and the police would come around and see it. They’d move them over and get the truck off, they’d let the truck go on through and the rest of them had to wait.
(Laughter)
M: Of course we had to get in the park, you know.
W: Uh, huh.
M: And then we had a special place to play and it was our business to play an hour, take off an hour and then play another hour. And they had other bands around all the whole park, see.
W: This was while a race was going on?
M: Oh yeah.
W: Okay, so there’s always entertainment going on. Wow, I didn’t know that.
M: Yeah.
W: ‘Cause now you just sit there and you watch the race, you know?
M: Yeah, all some things you remember. Uh, there was a guy shooting craps. There was a bunch of them around, you know shooting craps and uh, they were playing there, working around, I was watching them. First thing you know a policeman come around. One guy of them said, “Hey here comes somebody,” and then they quick covered up everything they could but they caught this one guy and he had a bottle of beer you know with him and the policeman made him take it and pour it out.
W: Is that right? There was no beer at the 500?
*450 M: I’ll never forget that.
W: I can’t imagine there was no beer at the 500 because now that’s what they do, you know.
M: Yeah.
W: That’s…
M: I think he probably had that hidden you know, some place.
W: Uh, huh.
M: And I could see him, he had him, policeman come here and he grabbed his bottle and he said, “Pour that out.” And he poured it out and I couldn’t pick it up.
W: Well of course not. Well you were too young to drink probably, you were still in high school. Well, they went like four years in a row, did you, from what I understand they would come home and they’d go back.
M: Well from the race?
W: Yeah.
M: We’d get there and the race would be finished and why we’d all get back in the truck and come home.
W: You’d come on home.
M: Yeah, yeah.
W: And a great time was had by all.
M: Yeah.
W: I was reading an article that Fritz Turner had done and he said that they would come back very jolly.
M: Yeah.
W: I guess you did too, huh?
M: Yeah.
(Laughter)
M: Well it was something different, you know?
W: Uh, huh.
M: It was a long business. I know we started about 2:30 in the morning to get there see, with that truck that we drove in went slowly those days.
W: Uh, huh.
M: And we’d get there and supposed to be at the race a certain time, you know, maybe 9:00 or something, I forget and then we’d there. Took a lot of time once you got to Indianapolis it got crowded, you know?
W: Sure, sure, and the race took a lot longer to run too.
M: Yeah.
W: I can remember as a child that it took all day, you know? Now it’s over with in a couple of hours.
M: Yeah I played at the races quite often, see I played, Eureka Band went twice that I remember.
W: Okay.
*490 TURN TAPE OVER
M: We’d go in and uh, where was I?
W: The college band would go.
M: Oh, we’d have to go in and march, you know first. And there were a lot of bands there. Oh there’d be bands from here to that house.
W: Oh gosh, way across the street, yeah.
M: Just one right after the other like that and uh, we’d march past the grand stand and get down to the other end and we’d turn around and come back again, see.
W: This was all before the race or during the race or what?
M: Before the race.
W: Before the race even started.
M: Right before the race we’d have to make that march and then we’d come back and go in our places then the race would start, see. That had to be done at a certain time.
*500 W: Right. Were you all playing at that time? I mean, did you play while you marched?
M: Oh yeah.
W: All the bands played the same thing or different things?
M: Yeah but, that never was too hot, too good because here’s a band playing that number and here’s a band way on the other end playing that number and that sound, you know, that takes a while for that sound to come through.
W: Kind of like an echo.
M: So it would be, I’d say this guy hit a note here, but that guy way on the other end take a little while before he ever hit that note, see because…
W: He couldn’t hear it.
M: You wouldn’t hear it, I mean he’d hit it, but you’d never hear it here, see.
W: Uh, huh.
M: You’d hear this one, but you’d never hear that one down there. They’d all come through like that. I think they kind of quit that I believe.
W: I think you’re right. I don’t remember seeing anything like that recently.
M: In the high school, or when I was in college, that was on of the features of it all. To have all the bands would march, but see me I haven’t been to one since college.
W: Uh, huh.
M: I got enough by then.
W: Got your fill. You saw the guy pour out his beer, that’s enough.
(Laughter)
W: Um, I want to show you a couple of photographs that I have also. This one looks like it was taken at the park as near as I can tell and when I look at the ladies dresses it looks like it may have been in the 19, in the early 1900’s. This lady and this lady? And I was just wondering, they’re all kids. Why they would be photographed with the Eureka Band?
M: And when was that supposed to happen?
W: I have no idea.
M: I’m just thinking it may have been around the early 1900’s because the ladies still have long dresses, long skirts.
W: Yeah, well you still see that, don’t you?
M: Well yeah, not quite the same, but yeah you’re right.
*522 OW: INAUDIBLE
W: Looks like its taken in front of the park pavilion. That big pavilion they used to have there for dances?
M: I don’t know. I couldn’t answer that how the child, well maybe they borrowed the drum you know, from the Eureka Band for some reason or other so they’d have something to look at. I really don’t know.
W: Have you ever seen that photograph before?
M: Huh, uh.
W: Huh, uh.
M: No I haven’t. It don’t look like this was taken yesterday either.
W: No that’s been a few days.
*530 OW: INAUDIBLE
W: But with these, these little flaps up here I think that looks like the park pavilion you know, they used to put those up to let the air go through.
M: Yeah.
M: Yeah, that’s an old one.
W: What about this one? This was taken inside a building.
*534 OW: Oh __________ the children.
W: Yeah.
OW: Even Grandma was here.
W: Everybody was there. It must have been a big day.
OW: You bet.
W: But this was taken in some building and I don’t know what building it might have been. Do you recognize anyone there?
M: Yeah, Henry Shoemaker right here.
W: He’s the one, two, three, four, fifth from the right? Henry Shoemaker.
M: Yeah, that’s Henry.
W: Okay.
OW: Is there someone else now to go around in another band you know?
W: What do you mean?
OW: Well like the Eureka band. They had this…
W: Uh, huh, I don’t know.
M: I know Henry Shoemaker was with them a long time.
W: This was before your time I take it huh?
M: Yeah.
W: Mm, hmm.
M: Well I was in there.
W: So before the 1920’s.
*550 M: But I do kind of recognize Henry.
W: Okay, I was just wondering. I had gotten these and I’m trying to date them to figure out, you know, approximately when they were taken and the only thing I can go by are the people who were in the band if anybody recognizes them or the clothing that they’re wearing we can kind of pin-point an era.
M: Yeah.
OW: <