ONE OLD PHOTO – A WINDOW INTO BASEBALL AND BARNSTORMING IN THE 1930s

“Take me out to the ball game.
Take me out with the crowd….
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out.
At the old ball game!”

It all began when I saw again a blurry photo labeled “Park Day 1933” among my mother’s photos. The photo was of a Black baseball team, some doffing their caps for the photographer.  The photo had intrigued me before but this time I pursued more information.

It was taken in Cambria, Wisconsin where the population was 671 in 1930, a white farming community of mostly Welsh and German heritage – almost certainly all white. It is 46 miles from Madison and 85 miles from Milwaukee: a pretty isolated area. What was the story behind this photo? How did the residents receive this team? I was so curious!

I contacted the Cambria-Friesland Historical Society via Facebook messaging and asked what they knew about this day. Mary Jane helpfully tracked down a newspaper description about that Park Day in 1933:

 “On Tuesday, August 22, 1933 the House of David of Benton Harbor, Michigan played the Giant Collegians of Piney Woods, Mississippi.” The article states the Collegians also played at Park Day the year before, and on August 21, 1934 the Collegians returned and played “Happy” Felsch’s Wilkes Dairy team of Milwaukee.

The Giant Collegians

Aha! Zooming in I could see “Giant Collegians” on the baseball shirts. A starting point! Piney Woods at that time was a junior college. It was one of many historically Black colleges and universities around the country who fielded baseball teams that traveled around playing all over the United States in the 1920s and 1930s to raise money for their colleges.

It turns out that not only those teams but other teams, Black and white, were organized into leagues and traveled around from town to town – particularly small towns in rural areas to entertain. It was called Barnstorming and it started in about 1860 on a small level but grew massively during the 1920s and 1930s with poor economic conditions (the Great Depression of the 1930s). It provided entertainment for the communities and income for the players or their organizations. Baseball was the number one sport in the country during these years, so crowds always showed up.

I learned that in 1932 135 players tried out for the Piney Woods team and they sponsored three teams – the Giant Collegians, the Brown Cubs, and the Little Brown Cubs. Together they played  169 games in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, winning 148 games, losing or tying 21. They played against professional squads as well as semi-professional and amateur teams. In 1933, the Giant Collegians team headed to the Midwest to play 20 games in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The total number of games played that season is unclear.

Piney Woods added a twist by surprising the fans who stood expecting to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch. Instead, a quartet sang a couple of Negro spirituals, told the story of their school, and solicited donations. The music and the story served to expand the awareness of the audience to a culture they knew little to nothing about.  A definite bonus!

The House of David

The Collegians’ 1933 opponent at Cambria Park Day – the day the photo was taken – was House of David of Benton Harbor, Michigan. They turned out to be a unique piece of barnstorming history! The House of David, established in 1903, was a sect that lived communally and considered themselves Christian Israelites. They got into the barnstorming circuits in about 1915.

Photo credit: Chris Siriano’s House of David Baseball Museum

They couldn’t cut their hair, so their appearance was distinctive among the baseball teams. They followed a strict moral code and were strict vegetarians. That moral code included egalitarian beliefs so they played against teams of all kinds including Negro League and historically Black college teams like the Piney Woods Giant Collegians. Apparently an example of this happened on that Park Day in Cambria, Wisconsin on August 22, 1933.

The team even traveled for a few weeks some summers with the Kansas City Monarchs in the depth of the Depression for financial reasons. The Monarchs were known as the greatest Negro team of them all. In an interview House of David player Lloyd Dalagar said, “We didn’t care what color they were. To us they were just gifted athletes who weren’t allowed to play in the big leagues.”

In 1934, before their largest crowd to date, they defeated the first Negro team invited to the famed Denver Post Tournament, their traveling companions the great Kansas City Monarchs, for the championship.

This book provides rich information about the barnstorming teams and specifically the House of David and its teams. (They had up to three teams at some times.)

Baseball and the House of David: The Legendary Barnstorming Teams, 1915-1956  by P.J. Dragseth.

“Happy” Felsch’s Wilkes Dairy Team of Milwaukee

I was unable to find information about this team that apparently played the Giant Collegians on Park Day 1934. Perhaps it only played locally and sporadically. But “Happy” Felsch was a renowned baseball player from Milwaukee who rose to fame in the Chicago White Sox team beginning in the 1915 season. The scandal about the fixing of the 1919 World Series (the Black Sox scandal) derailed his promising major league career. Although there is detailed information available about his activities after that, I could not find a barnstormer team of that name, or even just connected with Wilkes Dairy. The Society for American Baseball Research is the creator of the detailed account of Felsch’s life: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/happy-felsch/

The Life of Barnstormers

Life on the road was tough for barnstormers and even more so for the Black teams. For all of them, the drought that extended through the decade of the 1930s caused dust storms in the Midwest and southern Great Plains which impacted travel and availability of food and water. They traveled by bus mostly, with automobiles in some cases. Extreme heat, vehicles without air conditioning and travel on backroads to reach small towns made for tough travel. Black players weren’t allowed in hotels in these years of segregation and Jim Crow laws. But still they played.

Reflections

This fascinating journey of exploration began with one blurry photograph from 1933.  I am grateful to learn more about the time, the town and the sport – including the examples of breaks in the segregation of the time. I would love to learn about reactions of the people of Cambria to these (at least 3) visits of the Giant Collegians and their opponents. What kind of welcome did they receive? Was there apprehension or fear? Any backlash? Perhaps I can learn more. And I will be looking for other opportunities to explore stories behind photos from the past. Stories expand our awareness in profound ways. The path from generalized facts and knowledge to more specifics is a rich one.

I’m Carol Brusegar, author, photographer and curator of information. My focus is on gathering and writing on topics that enhance all our lives – regardless of our age. Topics include health and wellness, personal development, innovation and creativity, and a variety of helpful, practical tools and practices. I have a special interest in helping people over 50 years of age to create their 3rd Age – the next stage of their lives – to be the best it can be.

 

 

Band Concert in the Park – When an Experience Elicits Memories and Exploration

Hundreds of people in lawn chairs and on blankets at El Dorado Park West waited for the music to begin. Many had brought picnic dinners and were enjoying them with family and friends. A traditional band concert in the park had brought them there on this beautiful July evening to relax and enjoy.

The Long Beach Municipal Band played Broadway music – Gershwin, Oscar and Hammerstein, Meredith Willson, Jerry Bock and more – with skill and enthusiasm. The second half of the concert featured a jazz ensemble from the band with vocalist Crystal Lewis. An accomplished musician with 20 albums to her credit as well as two Grammy nominations, she performed a combination of standards and original compositions which were enthusiastically received.

Music, Memories and Legacy

After 2-1/2 years of attending only a couple of such public events, I felt peace and delight. As I sat back and listened, often nodding or tapping to the rhythm, memories of past band concerts in other places were triggered.

I thought of band concerts in my hometown that featured the community band led by a past high school band director of mine. And a variety of concerts in the band shell at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis with the community bands and orchestras being my favorites. I remembered taking my two toddler grandchildren to their first band concert in a Nashville park, and another time attending an orchestra concert with a group from my church there. And most poignant for me, I recalled the quintessential small town band concerts in Friesland, Wisconsin that featured the local band for many decades. And that memory led me on a journey.

I attended a few of those concerts in Friesland with my mother and cousin as an adult. They were always like stepping into the past with pie and ice cream for sale (2019 prices: $1.75 for pie, $0.75 for ice cream). Thinking of them launched me back to thoughts of my Mom who played in that band for years when she was in her twenties. The Cambria-Friesland Band was a huge thing back in the 1920s and 1930s Mom played clarinet and saxophone and her sister played trombone.

During intermission at the concert, I googled the band and found an article on the Cambria-Friesland Historical Society’s Facebook page! The article was published in the Mid-County Times on February 23, 1961 and included historical information including the debut of new – very fancy – uniforms donated to the band in 1929. The best part was a photo of the band at that time, including my Mom and my Aunt!

This was a busy band. They performed concerts of semi-classical music and lots of marches in concerts, 3 times a week in the summer at 3 different locations, and events like county and state fairs.

I realized through these memories and research that my enduring love of band music and concerts came from my Mom. Her deep affection for them were shared with me and she supported my participation in bands from junior high school through two years of college. I played clarinet as she had. And beyond my own participation, the love of the music and the experience of attending these unique community events persisted.

The Long History of Band Concerts in Parks

Band concerts such as this have been staple summer activities in towns and neighborhoods across the country for a century or more, in some cases nearly 200 years!

The New York City Parks Department notes that Castle Garden Park was the site of regular military band concerts from 1824 to 1855. The first free Saturday afternoon concerts in Central Park were in 1859. The tradition grew from there at various sites and continues to this day.

The State Capital Band of Helena, Montana is celebrating its 120th continuous year of presenting weekly outdoor free summer concerts in 2022, debuting in 1903.

In fact, this is the Long Beach Municipal Band’s 113th season! These are not isolated examples. There are hundreds – probably thousands –  more across the country.

These days, a wide variety of music is featured in free outdoor concerts, attracting different demographics. My favorite will always be the community bands with their unique mix of music and instrumentation. There’s nothing quite like a band concert in the park! They are enjoyable in the moment, elicit precious memories and connect me to the legacy left by my Mom.

 

I’m Carol Brusegar, author, photographer and curator of information. My focus is on gathering and writing on topics that enhance all our lives – regardless of our age. Topics include health and wellness, personal development, innovation and creativity, and a variety of helpful, practical tools and practices. I have a special interest in helping people over 50 years of age to create their 3rd Age – the next stage of their lives – to be the best it can be.

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Between What WAS and What WILL BE…. Reflections on Pandemic Liminal Space

Between What Was & What Will Be...It’s amazing to me that we are STILL in pandemic liminal space!! No amount of mental gymnastics or fact avoidance can change the reality that we still have well over 1,000 people dying each day (mid-January, 2022) and total deaths are well over 850,000.

COVID fatigue affects everyone in one way or another. For many it is avoidance of the current facts and not reflecting to make some sense for oneself of personal experiences.

I continue my practice of journaling about each week of the experience. It’s now Week 97 since I began. In the middle of 2021, I put together an ebook about my experiences and some tangents and learnings from those experiences. I’m sharing it here in flipbook format if you’d like to read it. Perhaps you’d like to compile something about your personal journey!

Use the “toggle fullscreen” below the flipbook to make it large enough to read.

Reflections on Pandemic Liminal Space, Between Past and Future

Between What Was & What Will Be...

It’s been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit us. We’ve all experienced things we couldn’t have imagined. For those who have lost family members or friends or suffered from the virus themselves, it has been devastating. For all of us, life-changing.

As we are moving out of the pandemic – I sincerely hope slowly and carefully – the insights of the past months are important to capture and use. There is value now as we formulate post-pandemic life, and in the future as we look back. Imagine 10 or 20 years from now, reading what you write now. And those who come after us will have a treasure we left behind.

I have a journal entry for each of the weeks since the end of March 2020 and using that as a base, I have written a short ebook. Besides looking back, I recorded questions and things to consider as I move forward. An important element of my particular story is that I also made a cross-country move, from Tennessee to California, during the year. Within the book you can also access a free journal that I designed just for this period of time as we progress.

I invite you to check out my Kindle book here: http://carolbrusegar.com/between-what-was-what-will-be  It will take you directly to Amazon.com. The book is just $0.99. If you are not a Kindle user, a PDF version for download is available on Gumroad for the same price: BWWAWWB on Gumroad

Here’s a more complete description:

Between What WAS and What WILL BE reflects on my experiences during the initial year of the COVID-19 pandemic which included a cross-country move. I share the insights and struggles of the months leading up to and following the actual physical transplant of my life from Tennessee to California. And I reflect on the decade I spent in Tennessee: experiences, insights, and connections to the past.

During the process I experienced:

+ Letting go of possessions

+ Transitioning relationships

+ Leaving and settling with great restrictions

+ Putting my experiences into a larger context

+ Considering what I want to be different in the future

I hope it will inspire you to embrace big endeavors regardless of the situation. May you take the opportunity of this unique time in our common history to reflect and create a post-pandemic life based on what you have experienced and learned.

 

 

When Leaving Things Behind Provides Unexpected Gifts

moving

Photo by HiveBoxx on Unsplash

Moving is a momentous event in almost everyone’s life. It may be to another part of the town or city, to another part of the state, or another state – near or far. Regardless, it is stressful. And the question of what particular THINGS mean to us is inevitably raised. We are always leaving things behind.

The value of the THINGS is joined in the struggle with other attitudes about using and reusing rather than disposing, of waste, etc. What we learned as children about all this is deep in our psyches. Given these factors, it’s no wonder we struggle with these decisions when on a tight timeline and stress is at a high level.

In my recent move from Nashville, Tennessee to Southern California, I went through all of this. I wrote about some aspects of it here: https://carolbrusegar.com/personal-liminal-space-a-cross-county-move-in-the-space-between/

Now that I have arrived, although what I shipped has not, I look at the process of leaving things behind  with a sense of wonder and gratitude. In unexpected ways possessions that didn’t go with me have been welcomed and will be enjoyed by a wide range of people. Some of them I knew, some I had just met and some were handed on to people I don’t know at all. I had not expected the re-connections and new acquaintances made in this process to be so pleasant and meaningful.

Things That Were Left Behind

A piano that had been used for practice by my daughter and by me in my role of church musician in past years, but which had not been used for quite some time, went to friends of mine. They had just decided they wanted to get a piano so that the partner newly retired – who had played in performance groups extensively in the past – could play. Their excitement soothed my conflicted thoughts about releasing this gift from my mother and warmed my heart.

A desk and matching file cabinet that I used extensively in the past couple of years but just didn’t fit into the truck went to a young teacher now teaching virtually. He had no desk and was making due with a table and subsequent crooks in his neck and shoulders. His joy in having a serviceable desk was palpable. He also took an elliptical that had been in my garage since I moved in – something I never used and he was glad to have.

This same teacher notified a couple with two sons learning virtually but without actual desks about my two additional desks. When they arrived to pick them up, she brought me a gift – a candle and and infinity scarf – in gratitude for the gift of the desks. I had a collection of crochet and latch hook projects my mother had made laying out at the time, and she was very interested in them. I had taken photos of them and was ready to let them go but didn’t know where or to whom. I offered her any items she would like and she took them all, saying she and her family would enjoy and use them. In a subsequent text she assured me she would take good care of them. She has invited me to visit their home and enjoy some Egyptian food when I visit back in Nashville.

A small white wicker nightstand was a treasure to someone I previously attended church with. Her first baby is due in January and she had been unable to find a similar item of the right size because things are backordered and out of stock these days.

Two file cabinets and a nightstand to be assembled were claimed by young people in the neighborhood looking for such items.

I learned in this process that entertainment centers aren’t in much demand these days! This was a tough one. I finally found a friend with a large enough vehicle to deliver it to a resale place, and his employee who came along to help was eyeing the piece with great interest. I asked if he wanted it and he affirmed that he did. So it went to a family connected to a friend.

I sold a nearly-new bunk bed to a couple who turned out to live just a couple of blocks away and are just beginning to serve as foster parents. The bed will be for them – children in difficult situations needing a caring space, caring people and a cozy bed.

And finally, a buffet that belonged to my parents for many years. It was not up to being shipped again and I determined I could let it go. A friend who needs more storage for materials for her home sewing  business (currently focused on beautiful face masks) was delighted to get it and pledged to take special care of it as a family treasure. She generously gave me five of her beautiful masks as a thank you for the buffet.

Beyond these meaningful re-homed items, a friend who is a genius re-distributer moved out additional miscellaneous items and got them to people who needed and appreciated them. They went to individuals and to a resale store. Knowing that so many of my things will be used by others is a great feeling.

Leaving things behind provided emotional and psychic rewards.  Sharing with others minimized the sadness of letting go of things I had used and enjoyed and even things with special meaning. I am grateful for these gifts in the midst of a busy and stressful time leading into the beginning of a new era of my life.