Vigo County Historical Society

Calvin Head helps to strike up the band

It was the mid-1920s. The Parent Teacher Club of Greenwood School at Harding Avenue and Voorhees Street was having its regular meeting.

But this turned out to be more than an ordinary meeting. A decision was made to form a school band--the first in a Terre Haute elementary school.

Gertrude Allen Shower remembers being at the meeting with her mother. Excitement ran high as plans were made. It was decided that the mothers would make the uniforms of white duck, while the navy blue hats, ties and capes with gold satin lining and gold buttons would be purchased.

Calvin Head, who later directed the Ringo Band popular locally in the 1930s, was to be the director. Gertrude remembers him as a man of much patience and talent. Though money was not plentiful, he found a way to obtain an instrument for each child who wanted to play. Though many were borrowed and some secondhand, this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the group.

Most of the band members were in the fourth and fifth grades.

When practice first started in the basement kindergarten room, the children held their ears as screeching sounds filled the air. But things improved.

The Greenwood Band played some summer concerts in Fairbanks Park and were rewarded with a piece of candy or Cracker Jacks. They even played in parades. John Philip Sousa marches were their favorites.

Gertrude Shower recalls the challenge of marching down Wabash Avenue in 1927, trying to miss the street car tracks, the horse droppings, navigate the rough street and still read music and play an instrument.

The widow of Calvin Head gave a picture of the band to Gertrude Shower, who identified some of the members. In the front row are Mary Margaret Myers Bird, Marie Wolf (third from left), George Osburne (second from right), and Bill Bays (far right).

Jack King and Gertrude Allen Shower are directly behind the drum major and Tommy Whittacker is in the back row.