The Rochester Park Band At the Opening of Ellison Park in 1927

On October 1, 1927, the Rochester Park Band played for the Dedication and Opening of Ellison Park.  Excited visitors arrived from towns throughout the county.  People like Mr. and Mrs. O.L. Shult, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ginegawa and their daughter, Freda, all from Webster, joyfully attended that day.  

1931 Ellison Park, photographer Charles Zoller, courtesy of GEM

Picnickers spread their lunches on the tables and cooked their meats on the fireplaces, scattered thoughtfully along the banks of Irondequoit Creek.  As the smell of burning charcoal wafted through the air, children frolicked, shrieking and laughing on this wonderful Opening Day.  Though a threat of rain had hovered the previous week, in fact, the day was splendid, with temperatures in the 70s, the rain waiting to fall a couple of days later.  

At 2:15pm, Hermann Dossenbach, Director, picked up his baton, held it in mid air, hesitated for just a few moments, and then — woosh! — the Rochester Park Band, in their handsome cream-colored suits, commenced with the magnificent sounds of the brass instruments - the cornets, trumpets, trombones, tubas filling the air.

1916 Rochester Park Band at Durand-Eastman Opening Day

Though we don’t know the actual list of selections for this day’s events, the Park Band may have played a piece from Victor Herbert’s well-loved operetta, The Wizard of the Nile, with its signature phrase, “Am I a wiz?”  Or the ever popular “Londonderry Air”  with the Ellison Park crowd singing along to the “Oh, Danny boy” lyrics.    These pieces had been performed by the Park Band earlier in the year at Ontario Beach and for the Lilac Festival at Highland Park. 

Rochester Park Band

The Park Band excelled at presenting a mix of classical and popular tunes, and so they may have serenaded the crowd with the Minuet from Mozart’s Don Juan, and then brought a smile to their audience’s faces as they entertained with, “Sam, the Accordion Man” and “After I Say I’m Sorry” — they played all of these tunes the previous August at a street dance on Alexander Street in Rochester, between South and Mount Hope Avenues.  

The Rochester Park Band, begun in 1904, was famous during the early decades of the twentieth century, and not just in Rochester - they played all over the western part of New York State, in Buffalo’s Delaware Park, and to crowds of 10,000-20,000 people in Syracuse’s Burnet Park, and also in Geneva’s Lakeside Park, where the evening event was lit by hundreds of Japanese

Theodore Dossenbach

lanterns.  Theodore Dossenbach, my great-grandfather, was its first director and was loved by all.  Handsome and charming, he was often said to be generous with his encores.  

On many Christmas Eves, Theodore and his Park Band, accompanied by Rochester’s Santa Claus (Frank G. Newell) and other dignitaries, drove in trucks (offered for use by the Rochester Stamping Company) throughout the neighborhoods, playing Christmas carols, pausing at Mr. Eastman’s and Mayor Edgerton’s house and others, visiting the Home for the Friendless and and the Rescue Mission and the hospitals, and delivering presents to the special children at St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum.  

Theodore continued as Director of the Park Band until his death, too soon at age 53, in 1924, at which point his brother, Hermann, took over.  Hermann was quite famous in his own right, having founded and conducted the Rochester Orchestra, a precursor to today’s Rochester Philharmonic; he also co-founded a little school called the DKG Institute of Musical Art, which George Eastman eventually purchased and made into the Eastman School of Music.  Both Hermann and Theodore Dossenbach, children of poor German immigrants, were members of the Dossenbach Quartet/Quintet which played at Mr. Eastman’s East Avenue home for his twice-weekly musicales and big parties from 1905-1919.  

Ellison Park Opening Day,
Albert Stone, courtesy RMSC

The crowd at Ellison Park, on this magical Opening Day, would have been thrilled to hear the Rochester Park Band!  The concert concluded with a rousing rendition of The National Air (The Star Spangled Banner), during which everyone proudly stood together. Now buoyed up by the music, they listened to remarks by Frank T. Ellison, donor of the Park Lands - can you imagine the applause given him for his generosity?  Also, Dr. Arthur T. Parker, former state archaeologist and director of the Rochester Municipal Museum (eventually to become the Rochester Museum and Science Center) gave an address entitled, “The Red Man’s Gateway to the Genesee Country.”  

Historical pageants then dominated the day.  The Boy Scouts presented a picture of La Salle’s first visit to Indian Landing in 1669 - and they were able to do this on the exact spot where it occurred all those years ago.  Also near the historic Indian Landing, the Girl Scouts demonstrated pioneering skills in three stone fireplaces.  

Chief Freeman Johnson,
Photographer Charles Zoller, courtesy GEM

The Seneca Indians, members of the Tonawanda Reservation, and descendants of the Seneca Iroquois, who once owned all of the Genesee country, proudly took part in the dedication ceremonies.   Chief Freeman Johnson was there, as well as his great-aunt 

Go-wat-ha (Nancy Black Squirrel), who was 110 years old.  

It was a great day, to be sure.  It had been well-advertised in all the surrounding papers, such as Fairport’s Herald-Mail, the Medina Daily Journal, Rochester’s The Daily Record (covering “Law, Real Estate, Finance and General Intelligence”) and The Democrat and Chronicle, The Troy Times, the Niagara Falls Gazette, and also in the Long Island Nassau Daily Review (even though it was printed a week after the event). 

Next time you visit Ellison Park, think back to this event of the past.  As you walk the nature trails, remember Frank Ellison, whose generosity we benefit from to this very day.  And, in your imagination, hear the magnificent music of the Rochester Park Band and let their proud strains lift you higher, and then step taller and appreciate all that we have had and still have.   

Green Trance: Searching for the Dossenbachs

Photo Courtesy Polly Smith

In a Green Trance,

I know this —

They are here,

Chattering,

Clamoring for my attention.

“We are here!  See us!

Find us!”  (“Find me!” shouts Nellie.)

In the Riverside Blue,

Mind quieted, ready to receive,

I walk the shores of Lake Ontario,

the paths of the Er-i-e Canal,

the banks of the Genesee.

They whisper to me,

“We walked here too,

Long before you.

We were glorious, you know.

Keep looking, keep searching,

we are here with you now.”

In the once formal garden on Prince Street

   where Hermann taught Emily’s first-born son,

On the green grass of Webster’s Forest Lawn,

Photo left courtesy GEM; Photo right courtesy Alma Faroo

   Hazel and Elsa and Alma frolic.

The Song of Summer resounds,

   Theodore’s Park Band offering the soundtrack.

And I walk - in a Green Trance.  

My Last Day with Elizabeth Brayer

[NOTE:  Occasionally, I will write about my research experiences — this is a personal reminiscence 

of my relationship with the George Eastman biographer, Elizabeth Brayer.]

It was Thursday, October 26th, 2017, my second day that week to work for Elizabeth (Betsy) Brayer, helping her with her current writing, and organizing her historical archives.  

Betsy was an accomplished and successful Rochester writer and historian, with a long list of published books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and essays, including:  150 Years Young: The Story of the Friendly Home; East Avenue Memories; The Eastman Theatre: Fulfilling George Eastman’s Dream; Leading the Way: Eastman and Oral Health; MAGnum Opus, The Story of the Memorial Art Gallery; Margaret Woodbury Strong and the Origin of the Strong Museum; Of Town & the River: A Rochester Guide (with Jean France); Our Spirit Shows; A Story of the Chatterbox; The Story of the Genesee Valley Club; The Warner Legacy in Western New York; many years of Brighton-Pittsford Post feature articles; and last but definitely not least, her mighty tome, George Eastman: A Biography.  

I was excited to see her that morning because she had received the proof copy of her newly-finished booklet, Kodak Girls and Eastman Ladies. She was thrilled, especially with its glossy pages once again showcasing the glory of the Kodak Girl. 

When I first met Betsy, early in 2014, I was amazed at the various booklets strewn around her living room, which she was continuously working on: The George Eastman Story; Grande Dames of Rochester; Boomtown Echoes; George Eastman: In His Own Words; Hiram Sibley in Dits, Dots, and Dashes; Fanny Johnston: Kodak Girl Extraordinaire; Mr. Eastman Builds That House; “My Dear Josephine”; Transformative Technologies in Nineteenth Century Rochester; Eight Portraits and a Glass Eye; George Eastman’s Art Collection; Margaret Woodbury Strong: A Doll Who Would Collect Dolls; Memory Art Gallery: In Nine Volumes; On the Go with George Eastman; the George Eastman Calendar; Snapshots of Diversity.  

In that year — 2014, I was still new to Rochester, having come here the previous year to research and write a book on my relatives, the Dossenbachs, who were locally-famous musicians and conductors, and who played for George Eastman’s twice-weekly musicales and parties from 1905-1919.  Betsy discussed them in both her Eastman biography and her Eastman Theatre book. 

Thus, one of the first things I did after arriving in Rochester was to purchase and read her biography.   It  was a moving experience.  Betsy made George Eastman come alive; she made readers love him, and miss him, a man we never knew.  When I finished the book, I wrote to her and, shortly thereafter, we met for coffee and conversation in her living room.   Towards the end of our afternoon, I said, “Mrs. Brayer, please, if there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know.”  And she quietly replied, “Well, if you could visit with me regularly, I would like that.”  Music to my heart!  

And so began our every-two-weeks get-together at her house, where we discussed local history.  I asked questions; she told me stories of people she’d known, funny stories — Betsy had a dry, wry humor.   And Mr. Eastman was always there in spirit — we talked mostly about him, hashing out theories about why he quit school in his teens (was it to help his mother? or simply because he was bored and already driven to accomplish something?), his relationship with Josephine Dickman (was she his lifelong love?), why he didn’t offer Hermann Dossenbach the conductorship of the new orchestra in 1919, what happened when he fired Henry Myrick in 1931, or what led to his fateful decision in March of 1932.  

Truthfully, we loved loving George Eastman together.  

At each of my visits, Betsy asked me to take home one of her booklets, and “look it over,” tell her what I thought, let her know of changes or edits that should be made.  I took this to mean “proofreading” and “editing,” which I did, leaving yellow stick-it notes on many of the pages, all of which she ignored — Betsy was by nature a creative person, and was not a fan of the editing and revising phases of writing.  

In fact, Betsy was a much more dedicated writer than anyone else I’ve known.  Every morning, after breakfast, she was in her office, writing; every afternoon, after lunch, she was in her office, writing.  Every day.  

  Her life was not easy as she had many health problems, which others might not have overcome, but Betsy didn’t want to give up.  She had stories still to tell, books still to write and share.  

In 2017, Betsy asked me to work for her, two days per week, to help her with current writing/researching activities, and to prepare her archives for eventual donation to local research libraries/museums.  The office that she had used throughout most of her career was upstairs, where she hadn’t been for a few years.  But she remembered what was there (if not where it was exactly), so I was able to find stuff for her, files, information, photos she wanted to re-scan.  We discussed what she was working on, and searched the internet for new info, or read together from the Rochester books which I had found all around her house and gathered together on her shelves.  

********************************************

And so there we were on October 26th, with the Kodak Girls and Eastman Ladies booklet finished — a triumph!  When I arrived that morning, Betsy was finishing breakfast at the dining room table.

Sitting with Betsy that morning was fun — the air was filled with excitement and enthusiasm.  But, like so many other times, the ideas and facts and questions poured out nonstop, and soon I had to rush for a pen and scrap paper, lest I forget anything.  We started with a question about an Archer Gibson organ recital at Mr. Eastman’s house in 1918 — did we have the program for that event?  This led us to talk about the musicale programs and invitations, how GE often didn’t save them, but that many of them exist here and there in people’s scrapbooks and papers, archived by the area libraries.  

And one thing led to another.  Archer Gibson in 1918 led to Hermann Dossenbach (maybe the program was in his scrapbooks or papers at Rush Rhees or Rundel?).  Dossenbach led to GE’s organists — George Fisher and Harold Gleason, which, of course led to Marion Gleason and the Gleasons’ divorce.

Next, Betsy asked me to find a photo of Red Cross nurses sitting around the lily pond in Mr. Eastman’s garden.  And GE had given a party to celebrate the Red Cross work — maybe there existed somewhere a program for that event.  She remembered how Mr. Eastman had coerced the Home For the Friendless (today it is the Friendly Home) to move from their building on East Avenue and Alexander Street because he wanted it for the Red Cross headquarters.  I knew my cue, and asked her — “How did he coerce them?”  “Well, he simply bought them a new and better building, of course.”   Giggling from us. 

Upstairs in Betsy’s old office, I found the Archer Gibson file, found the Dossenbach file, found the Red Cross photos, but still had some unanswered questions.  And so this gave the opportunity for a favorite scenario.  I said to Betsy, “Well, why don’t we check the Index from that wonderful George Eastman biography written by Betsy Brayer — maybe she knows!”  Oh, I smile to think of it, Betsy’s beaming face, and how she’d remind me that she had created that index all by herself.   “No professional indexer was hired for that job,” she’d proudly say.    

The day went on.  I took her Kodak Girls and Eastman Ladies booklet to the George Eastman Museum and came back and told her how much everyone loved it.  (The booklet is for sale in the George Eastman Museum Gift Shop.)  Betsy then asked me to write an article for her Historic Brighton Newsletter  about Hermann Dossenbach (Hermann is my great-granduncle) and the Hubbell Bible Class of early 20th century Rochester.  I opened my laptop and found photos and articles, getting more and more excited as I told her how I could write about this and I could write about that.  Betsy ironically teased, “I didn’t think you’d get that excited about the Hubbell Class,” so I reminded her, “but it’s about my Dossenbachs!”   And she said, “yes, of course.”  

Eventually, she asked me to help her with her morning preparations.  We were both missing Kay Polis, her longtime assistant and close friend, who was usually here to help her, but was not able to come today.  Kay is a treasure; Betsy deeply loved her, and I love her too.  Wanting to help Betsy feel at ease with me, I said to her, “Don’t be embarrassed because someday I’ll be older and need someone to help me.”  She softly replied, “I hope you have a good friend to do these kinds of thing for you.”  

Humor was never far from Betsy, and so she then told me a story about how she had injured her foot when her kids were younger.  Betsy remembered chopping something at the kitchen counter with a sharp knife, but she didn’t like cooking, and was, as always, distracted.  The knife jumped out of her hands, she said, to the floor, piercing her foot.  “For years afterwards, my daughter would demonstrate the moment to her friends, using a knife and a hunk of cheese — ‘Now mommy was standing over there by the counter, and then the knife jumped into the air, and then landed on her foot,’ using the cheese of course as a stand-in for my foot.”  We laughed and laughed about this, and Betsy again reenacted her daughter reenacting that incident from the past.  

I shall always remember the tenderness of the next moments.  She sat in front of her dainty, pretty dressing table, with the windows looking out to the autumn colors in the backyard, framed by the deep blue bottles on the windowsill, creating a lovely light.   I had a sense that the little dressing table was special, and so I asked her about it, and, indeed, she replied that she’d had it since she was ten years old.  Betsy was combing her hair, and looking in the mirror, and also out the window.  And all of it — Betsy, dressing table, window, outdoors — was a precious scene.  

“It’s nearly 4:00pm, isn’t it?  You’ve got to go,” she said.  And I nodded, and asked, “You’ve already done quite a bit of writing today and must be tired, so will you be going out to the living room to watch some television and go through your mail?  Should I bring your ice water out there?”  She responded, “No, I’m going into the office, I still have a few things I want to finish.”  

And so she did.  I went upstairs to put the files away and noted that there were several sorting projects which I longed to finish — piles of her Brighton-Pittsford Post articles; black and white photos with a note, “For Betsy to identify”; binders of historical pictures to check for doubles and reorganize; and the folders of past talks and honors and writings and correspondence which I’d been placing into a chronology, in an effort to see the whole of Betsy’s career and accomplishments. 

Downstairs, I brought her water, with lemon, into her office.  And she said she didn’t need anything else.  I said, “well, okay, I’ll see you next Monday then.”  I made some kind of a little joke, which I can’t remember now, and I heard her giggling as I gathered my things and left.  

This was the last day I saw Betsy, for she passed away soon afterwards.  

It was a good day — a great day in fact — and one which I shall always remember.   

Betsy Brayer and Lisa Kleman in 2017 (Photo by Sarah Brayer)

I am honored to have been able to call Elizabeth Brayer my friend — Betsy, who will be much missed by all.  

Rest in peace, lovely lady — well done!  

Moving to Rochester in 2013

Nellie Eldridge Dossenbach
(Photo courtesy Lynn Charles)

My great-grandmother, Nellie Eldridge Dossenbach, takes credit for bringing me to Rochester.  As well she should.

It was five and a half years ago, on a hot summer day, in July of 2013.  I was 55 years old, the age when one is ready for a change, a new lease in life, as they say, a fresh start.   I had been teaching English at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, for nearly twenty years, and now I wanted to write something, something that others will want to read.  And then it hit me.  The Big Idea.  It hit me.  And I said out loud, “You dope!  You need to go to Rochester!”

It was an instant realization.  How right this was.  I would move to Rochester, New York, where I would research and eventually write a book about my relatives, the Dossenbachs, who had lived there, who had been locally famous, but whose names had fallen out of current memory.

I wanted to walk where they walked, see what they saw.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *     

Two weeks later, I was off, once more driving the 6-hour stretch of Massachusetts Turnpike and New York Thruway that I’d driven twice-yearly, for 35 years, to visit my parents (in Waterloo, New York, 45 minutes from Rochester), and that I’d thought was behind me, both parents having passed away.  But this time I sped past the Waterloo exit, which felt strange and exciting.

Approaching the city of Rochester, on 490, just passing the Goodman Street Exit, suddenly the skies grew dark, the rain poured heavily, and lightning flashed directly ahead.  It was magnificent and other-worldly.  

Everything felt Big.  And Significant.

And then, almost as soon as the storm began, it ended, and the late afternoon revealed itself as sunny and vibrant, with shiny roads and sidewalks and signs.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *     

The next day, and it was time to find an apartment.  I had five addresses to look at — three potential apartments and two historical addresses where my great-grandparents had once lived.

I looked at the first two apartments, wasn’t sure, they weren’t quite right.  But the third one, well, this one had sounded the best, but I couldn’t find it.  Annoyed.  I had the number wrong, or perhaps the street.  What to do?  

9 Rowley Street -- the photo I took on that
July 2013 day

Move on.  So I looked for the two historical addresses.  First was 28 Upton Park, the Theodore and Nellie Dossenbach homestead for the first two decades of the 20th century.  Theodore, Nellie’s husband, my great-grandfather, had founded the Rochester Park Band in 1904, but had died in 1924, at the prime of his career, leaving Nellie widowed. 

And then the second address — 9 Rowley Street, where Nellie Dossenbach had gone to live in the late 1930s and early 1940s, after she quarreled with her daughter, my grandmother, Adeline, and moved out of Adeline’s home.  9 Rowley Street was still there, an unaltered, pretty, bright yellow house, with a wide front porch on a tree-lined street.  

I gazed at these places.  Took photos.   Ooh’ed and aah’ed, imagined the Dossenbachs there, walking out the front door and up the sidewalk.  And then, not knowing what else to do, I went back to the hotel room to find the correct address on Craigslist for that third apartment.  

Pulling out the printed listing, looking closely to get it right, it said, 9 Rowley Street.

What?  It can’t be.  I peered more closely.  It couldn’t be.  That was Nellie’s house, the house I had just looked at.  I verified the printed City Directory from 1942, which showed that 9 Rowley Street was where Nellie had lived.  This couldn’t be!  

1942 Rochester City Directory

But it was.  I called the landlord.  And then I remember the next scene as if in slow motion — he and I walking up the driveway to see the back apartment, he talking about the private back porch and my two parking spots, me wide-eyed and mumbling something about this being my great-grandmother’s house.

Slow motion.  We stand on the back steps.  He inserts the key into the lock and opens the door which enters into the kitchen, with a view into the living room.  And it was exactly — exactly! — as how I’d already pictured my new place.  Golden hardwood floors, white walls with architectural details, windows with lace curtains.

9 Rowley Street -- The view from the back door,
(of course, after I'd moved in)

In a daze, I took the apartment.  And this is how I came to live where Nellie had once lived, over 70 years earlier.

Of course, Nellie takes credit for bringing me here.  As well she should.  She, who had more to fear than the others from how the story would be told.  

9 Rowley Street - Lace curtains in the living room

New Year’s Eves of Yesteryear

NOTE:  As you begin reading, click on this Youtube link and listen to Tchaikovsky’s “Andante Cantabile,” which will be referred to later in the piece.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDQuWlz37iw

On with the dance! 

let joy be unconfined; 

no sleep ‘till morn, 

when Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the Glowing Hours 

with Flying feet.

                                              — Byron

In the late 19th century, and on into the early decades of the 20th, Hermann Dossenbach was a musician and conductor in Rochester, New York.  He is often credited with establishing the musical foundation in Rochester which led to the founding of the Eastman School of Music.  

Early 1890s
Hermann Dossenbach and young wife Daisy Chapman
(Photo Courtesy of Polly Smith)

Hermann is my great-granduncle.  

He was the third son of a musical family of poor German immigrants who had settled in Rochester in 1873.  His older brothers had had some success as violinists, and his father, Matthias, had great hopes that Hermann would continue the tradition.

But Hermann wasn’t terribly interested in the violin, and so when he was still a little boy, his father took him to hear the great conductor Theodore Thomas and his orchestra in Rochester’s old Fitzhugh Hall.  Hermann remembered:  “Then and there I knew what I wanted to do — I wanted to conduct a symphony orchestra.”  (D&C 2/5/1924)

         When he reached his 20s, and had become a very good violinist, he began to work towards his dream, and organized a dance orchestra, which played in Rochester and towns beyond.

In 1894, to celebrate “the departure of the old and the arrival of the new year,” the Dossenbach Orchestra, along with the Jung-Maennerchor, performed at Germania Hall in Rochester on New Year’s Eve, which was still referred to at that time as “Sylvester Eve” by the Germans and German-Americans.  At the stroke of midnight, the bells rang, and then the orchestra “struck up a grand march” and several hundred people danced into the wee hours of the morning.  (D&C 1/1/1894)

This was possibly the Palmyra Masonic Hall

And then three years later, on December 30 of 1898, the “celebrated” Dossenbach Orchestra performed at the Ninth Annual Ball and Reception of the Zenobia Commandery, Knights Templar, in the Masonic Hall in Palmyra.  Picture the scene.  It was a splendid evening and the hall was “a perfect bower of beauty,” having been decorated by Rochester’s Bickford Decorating Company.  

At 9:00pm, “The sir knights in full regalia” performed their templar drill, and then the orchestra played a “perfectly irresistible deux temps” and “the ball room floor was filled by a swaying, joyous assemblage, all mindful of the dictates of the goddess Terpsichore.  From that hour, in the language of Byron, ’twas ‘On with the dance, let joy be unconfined; no sleep ‘till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet.’”  

Food was served at midnight; then dancing was resumed until nearly 4:00am, at which time the “orchestra wafted over the scene the strains of the old but ever popular ‘Home Sweet Home,’ and the guests realized that the ninth annual ball of the Zenobia Commandery was a treasure of their pleasant recollections.”  (D&C 12/31/1898)

Such were the beginnings of Hermann’s orchestral dream.

Jump ahead a few years and we can see the fruits of his labors.  In 1905, Hermann’s Dossenbach Quartette performed earlier in the evening of New Year’s Eve, in the grand living room of Mister George Eastman, the Kodak King of Rochester, at his brand new mansion on East Avenue.  They played Tchaikovsky’s “Andante Cantabile” (link above) and Schubert’s “Theme-Variations.”

Hermann and his musicians continued to entertain for Mr. Eastman for the next fourteen years, and Hermann’s orchestra flourished and was loved by the the good citizens of Rochester, New York, throughout the first four decades of the 20th century.  

Now and Then -- October 25

     It is a glorious October 25th, in the year of 2017, and we -- all of us now reading this -- are alive!

     Someday in years hence, when we are no longer here, there just might be someone we don't know reading these words, and remembering us.

     It is a comfort, to be sure, this business of believing in remembrance.

     I woke up this morning with the Musical Dossenbachs on my mind, my great-granduncle Hermann (brother to my great-grandfather Theodore), and their sister Bertha, and of course Otto, the oldest brother, the child performer.

     They weren't so very different from us -- they woke up on various October 25ths, and felt the crispness of Fall and noticed the brilliant colors, accompanied by the memory of a summer now past.

     In the year of 1878, Otto Dossenbach awoke on October 25, and probably had music on his mind as he was scheduled to perform that night at a grand concert for Utica's St. Elizabeth Hospital, which had been founded only 12 years earlier, in 1866.  It was the first hospital in Oneida County. and so they were trying to do something new and important and bold.

     After paying 35 cents for their ticket, over 1000 people attended this charity performance at St John's Church, a magnificent building which still stands today.

    Concertgoers heard Irish melodies and a cornet solo and a flute solo.  But most exciting was the performance of the Utica Philharmonics orchestra, led by the youthful Otto Dossenbach.

     In 1878, Otto was 18 years old.  He was known as "Rochester's wonderful boy violinist," and for the previous 5 years, he had been touring all over New York State and also Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and St Louis.

     The previous August, he had become the leader of the Utica Philharmonics orchestra, and on this night, they "surprised even the most enthusiastic admirers."  "The Philharmonics never did better than on this occasion, and they give promise of still better efforts."
 
     But it was Otto himself who stole the show.  "The large audience had quite a revelation in Otto Dossenbach's remarkable violin solos.  He gave one of Mozart's souvenirs, and received the heartiest applause of the evening.  This was acknowledged by the Carnival of Venice, and still his hearers were not content, so another admirably executed air was given in fine style.  There was some peculiar charm in his instrument last evening, and the young gentleman never handled his bow with such good effect.  Utica is proud to claim Otto Dossenbach as one of its citizens and the leader of its best orchestra."

     Otto would spend a few years in Utica, and then tour again until his career was tragically cut short in 1889, but that's another story.




     Moving ahead in time, to the year of 1907, Otto's youngest sister Bertha celebrated a friend's birthday in Churchille on October 25th.  The friend was given a new piano for her birthday present.  Pianos were popular back then.  It was common for friends and family to play music together, and sing together, in their parlors, as this was a time before recorded music  (the phonograph was still new and not everyone had one) or radio or television.



     Keeping up with the relentless forward movement of time, in 1943, Otto's younger brother and Bertha's older brother, Hermann, directed the Damascus Temple Band on October 25 -- it was Shrine night and the circus was in town!

A Shrine Circus Ad from the 1936 book "What's New" in Damascus Temple

     Tonight's performance was solely for the orphans and the underprivileged children, who were the first to witness the "daring aerial feats" and the wild animals, and "to eat to their hearts' content of peanuts and popcorn, and fluffy pink candy."  Their hearts' content!  What a beautiful sentiment.  

Damascus Shrine Band in Atlanta in 1936 from "What's New" in Damascus Temple 

   

 OCTOBER 25 -- always a grand and glorious day.  

What will you make of your day today?