Today was really an interesting day. I brought my thesis to a couple different book binders before I found a place downtown that will do a single hardcover book (as opposed to a bulk order). It will be black with gold lettering and it will be relatively inexpensive to do, I can't wait for it to be done!
My second adventure of the day is a Milwaukee history related adventure. My bass saxophone (shown in my profile picture) is a vintage conn stencil made sometime in the mid to late 1920's. It has a very interesting engraving "Walker Saxophone Band" which I was told by the previous owner, was a band in Milwaukee in the late 1920's early 1930's. I've been trying to find out information about this band since I purchased the horn as history interests me, and I am enamored with the idea that I might stumble across an old recording or photograph of the group, or I might even run into someone who was in the band or owns another horn with this engraving, Who knows, maybe some day there will be a resurrection of the Walker saxophone band!
Through a listing in Reminisce magazine, I received information that the Walker Saxophone band was directed by a "Colonel Vesey Walker" who during the time was a musician and director in Milwaukee and later in life became the first band director of the Disneyland Band (neat huh?). Today I visited the Milwaukee historical society which is located in a beautiful old Bank, to see if I could find any information on Vesey Walker and the Walker Saxophone Band. Though I didn't find anything too fantastic, I did find a listing in a "Who's who in Milwaukee" publication from the 20's that states that he was the director of, among many other groups, a group called "The Walker Saxophone Symphony". Here is a picture of our man!
It also seems, from that listing, that this group was associated with the Walker Band and Orchestra Conservatory he headed. Though progress is slow, it is a neat quest.
The third thing I did today involved another library (yeah I know). My father's side of the family is older, and most have passed away. My grandmother on his side died before I was born and my grandfather, while I was a baby. I had a chance to know his sister, my aunt, and never met his brother as he and my father had a falling out (his brother went from being a liberal to an extreme right wing conservative and there was a verbal fight between the two that resulted in their never talking to eachother again). Both of his siblings have passed away which is unfortunate, but we seem to die young in our family
.
Speaking with my father, I learned that both his brother and sister earned master's degrees, as I now have, and I thought it would be interesting to track down their theses. My aunt graduated from the prestigious Cranbrook academy with a Master's in Fine Arts around 1957-1959. I emailed the archivist there and hopefully they will be able to send me some information soon. My uncle, earned his Master's in Art Education from UW-Milwaukee in 1954. I went to the library with my father today and tracked down his thesis. I must say it was a very interesting and well written thesis. It is about Enamelling as an activity for high school art students, and he even goes so far as to describe step by step how to build a kiln. Through reading his thesis I feel that I know my uncle better then I ever have, at least my uncle as a young man before he turned to the dark side.
According to my father, as a young person he was very liberal and was even very active in the Democratic party. For some reason at some point he completely switched gears and became an active member of the extremely right wing John Birch Society and at the same time he became a conspiracy theorist believing devoutly that Bigfoot is real, aliens are invading, all kinds of strange stuff. We were discussing this and my father believes that he was very unhappy and felt unfulfilled as a high school art teacher, probably because a lot of the children didn't care about art as much as he did. I'm happy that we had this discussion and that I made the "pilgrimage" to find my uncle's thesis, because I feel that family history is important, and being that most of my family on my father's side and many also on my mother's side are dead, recollections, stories and little pieces of history like this are the ways that I can learn about my ancestors/family.
My second adventure of the day is a Milwaukee history related adventure. My bass saxophone (shown in my profile picture) is a vintage conn stencil made sometime in the mid to late 1920's. It has a very interesting engraving "Walker Saxophone Band" which I was told by the previous owner, was a band in Milwaukee in the late 1920's early 1930's. I've been trying to find out information about this band since I purchased the horn as history interests me, and I am enamored with the idea that I might stumble across an old recording or photograph of the group, or I might even run into someone who was in the band or owns another horn with this engraving, Who knows, maybe some day there will be a resurrection of the Walker saxophone band!
Through a listing in Reminisce magazine, I received information that the Walker Saxophone band was directed by a "Colonel Vesey Walker" who during the time was a musician and director in Milwaukee and later in life became the first band director of the Disneyland Band (neat huh?). Today I visited the Milwaukee historical society which is located in a beautiful old Bank, to see if I could find any information on Vesey Walker and the Walker Saxophone Band. Though I didn't find anything too fantastic, I did find a listing in a "Who's who in Milwaukee" publication from the 20's that states that he was the director of, among many other groups, a group called "The Walker Saxophone Symphony". Here is a picture of our man!
It also seems, from that listing, that this group was associated with the Walker Band and Orchestra Conservatory he headed. Though progress is slow, it is a neat quest.
The third thing I did today involved another library (yeah I know). My father's side of the family is older, and most have passed away. My grandmother on his side died before I was born and my grandfather, while I was a baby. I had a chance to know his sister, my aunt, and never met his brother as he and my father had a falling out (his brother went from being a liberal to an extreme right wing conservative and there was a verbal fight between the two that resulted in their never talking to eachother again). Both of his siblings have passed away which is unfortunate, but we seem to die young in our family
.
Speaking with my father, I learned that both his brother and sister earned master's degrees, as I now have, and I thought it would be interesting to track down their theses. My aunt graduated from the prestigious Cranbrook academy with a Master's in Fine Arts around 1957-1959. I emailed the archivist there and hopefully they will be able to send me some information soon. My uncle, earned his Master's in Art Education from UW-Milwaukee in 1954. I went to the library with my father today and tracked down his thesis. I must say it was a very interesting and well written thesis. It is about Enamelling as an activity for high school art students, and he even goes so far as to describe step by step how to build a kiln. Through reading his thesis I feel that I know my uncle better then I ever have, at least my uncle as a young man before he turned to the dark side.
According to my father, as a young person he was very liberal and was even very active in the Democratic party. For some reason at some point he completely switched gears and became an active member of the extremely right wing John Birch Society and at the same time he became a conspiracy theorist believing devoutly that Bigfoot is real, aliens are invading, all kinds of strange stuff. We were discussing this and my father believes that he was very unhappy and felt unfulfilled as a high school art teacher, probably because a lot of the children didn't care about art as much as he did. I'm happy that we had this discussion and that I made the "pilgrimage" to find my uncle's thesis, because I feel that family history is important, and being that most of my family on my father's side and many also on my mother's side are dead, recollections, stories and little pieces of history like this are the ways that I can learn about my ancestors/family.