Mr. Draper's Children's Home Band of of Des Moines, Washington

What does music teach a child?
The fun of making noise of course
by using the vocabulary of
the universal language of musical pitch.
 The game rules for recognizing patterns and order
in the arithmetic of rhythm.
 And the discovery that self-discipline and teamwork
offer a lifetime of rewards.
 

But at its core music is also about learning love.
A love of beauty; a devotion to friendship;
and a joy in expressing emotions through sound.

This is a story about how one man taught children those basics of music and love. He's standing on the right in the image above. His name is Herman Mainard Draper. Next to him are his 16 foster children arranged in marching formation for a concert of their brass band. The caption tells us where, when, and who they are. 

The Jolly Entertainers
Children's Industrial Home
Des Moines, Wash
Taken at Soldier' Home, Orting, WN. Sat. May, 14, 1910

I introduced this little band and their teacher, Mr. H. M. Draper, in a story two weeks ago entitled The Children's Home Band of Des Moines, Washington when 21 children were balanced atop a very precarious rock. That postcard of the children's home band was taken in 1925 during a grand tour of America that covered 14,000 miles of travel in two small buses and lasted 18 months. 

Who would undertake such an ambitious adventure with 21 kids even for a couple of weeks? It sounds like a kind of perpetual summer kids camp, or a never-ending family road trip. What motivated Herman M. Draper, the so-called superintendent of his own private orphanage, to embark on such a trip?

He was born in Ontario, Canada in 1857, one of eight children of a Methodist minister, Reverend and Mrs. Elisha Draper. Herman's talent for music took him to the Boston Conservatory of Music and later Brooklyn and London to master the art of a vocal method called the Tonic Sol-Fa system or Solfège which uses syllables for the musical scale pitches, i.e. Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti. He became a fervent advocate for its use in music education, believing that all children could easily comprehend it as a way to enjoy singing. In 1888 Draper got his start teaching music in Nebraska, first in Seward and then Kearney, where he organized boys bands, school orchestras, and vocal choirs. In 1897 he moved his family to Michigan's copper mining region where he set up a music store and gave music lessons on piano, voice and string instruments.

In 1878 he had married a Canadian woman, Annie Pacey with whom he had three children, Harry (born 1880), Cecil (1883) and Edith M. (1893) whose nickname was "Birdie".  She is pictured in the center of this next postcard image.

OUR FIRST GROUP OF MOTHERLESS CHILDREN
Hartel   Birdie and Papa   Doloros
Phillis        Mike        Maggie        Gudrun

Of the seven children, Birdie/Edith was actually the only one whose mother still lived. The other boys and girls now belonged to the extended Draper family that in 1907 moved to Seattle, WA from Michigan where Draper had been employed since 1903 as superintendent of the Good Will Farm and Home Finding Association in Houghton, MI. This institution took care of 45 children on a 57 acre farm and was deep in debt when Draper took over. Over the next few years he turned things around, eliminating the debt, adding a new building at a cost of $8,000, and making other improvements valued at $1,200. These included buying a knitting machine and small printing press which Draper used to teach his wards a useful trade. But his primary emphasis was musical training. He organized a brass band for the kids which played benefit concerts around the region to raise funds for the farm.

Despite his success, superintendent H. M. Draper had strong differences with the governors of the Good Will  Farm. In early 1906 shortly after a fire destroyed a building on the farm he resigned as he disapproved of the institution's rules for accepting children. Yet somehow he continued to work with the children's band and conceived an idea to take 21 of his wards to the Pacific Northwest which he had visited in 1900. He bought a truck for this purpose and converted it into a kind of motor home. It was 26 feet long, equipped for sleeping and cooking, and powered by a 24 hp engine. Draper publicized his project with concerts by the children's band and expected the journey would take several months. Naturally the governors of the farm were alarmed and took steps to stop it. Draper returned most of the children but still managed to take six with him to Seattle where he proposed to set up a new private orphanage.

Seattle Sunday Times
21 June 1908

Those same children were pictured in a Seattle Sunday Times report in June 1908 when Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Draper announced plans to move their children's home from the Ballard community of Seattle to Des Moines, WA, a small village on Puget Sound named by its first settlers after the much larger Des Moines, Iowa. At the time they had 12 children in their care, and had purchased a former hotel in Des Moines which had 28 rooms and eight lots for a playground and other activities. The intention was that the children would live there while attending the local public school. The Drapers still owed $3,500 on the property but Superintendent Draper was insistent that the children's home would be self sustaining. He secured a printing press to teach the children the printing trade, produce souvenir postcards, and do commercial work for local businesses. Draper also planned to raise funds from performances of the children's band, The Jolly Entertainers. Quoted in the newspaper, we can hear in his words a strong commitment to child welfare and a kind of progressive idealism.

"We are heartily in sympathy with the work of the many homes that are soliciting money for the care of young and helpless children, and gifts to these institutions cannot possibly go to a better cause; but ours is distinctly different proposition.
 
"Children ten to fifteen years of age, and many still younger, feel keenly the sting of 'pauper,' and it is our purpose to keep our home on a self-supporting basis and make a home for children that is a home in the highest sense of the word. A home with love and comfort; a home with culture and refinement; a home from which they can go out prepared to fight the battles of life, and be welcomed into the best society and be a benefit to the world."

Two years later the 1910 census recorded the progress Draper's orphanage had made.  

1. Draper, Mainard – Head, M, W, age 52, Canada – Superintendent, Orphan's Home
2. Draper, Annie H. –Wife, F, W, age 49, Canada – Matron, Orphan's Home
3. Sawyer, Lloyd – Ward, M, W, S, age 17, Iowa – Printer, at-the-Home
4. Erickson, Delores M.C. – Ward, F, W, age 15, Michigan – Housekeeper, at-the-Home
5. Erickson, Gudrun A. – Ward, F, W, age 13, Michigan – Musician, Home Band
6. Erickson, Phillis M. – Ward, F, W, age 12, Michigan – Musician, Home Band
7. Stitt, Corda F. – Ward, F, W, age 14,  Oregon – Musician, Home Band
8. Stitt, Thomas L. – Ward, M, W, age 11, Oregon – Choirboy, at-the-Home
9. Stitt, Ivy C. – Ward, F, W, age 9, Washington – Musician, Home Band
10. Stitt, Neva B. – Ward, F, W, age 7, Washington – Musician, Home Band
11. Heede, Bourck, Henry – Ward, M, W, age 15, Minnesota – Printer, at-the-Home
12. Guglielmo, Mike – Ward, M, W, age 14, Michigan – Printer, at-the-Home
13. Guglielmo, Maggie – Ward, F, W, age 13, Michigan – Musician, Home Band
14. Eaton, Max –Ward, – Ward, M, W, age 14, Kansas – Printer, at-the-Home
15. Edmondes, Harold – Ward, M, W, age 12, Oklahoma – Printer, at-the-Home
16. Sheridan, Francis E. – Ward, F, W, age 10, California – Choirboy, at-the-Home
17. Ramsdell, Lena M. – Ward, F, W, age 16, California – None
18. Ramsdell, Alfred C. – Ward, M, W, age 8, California – None
19. Gippe, Esther M. – Ward, F, W, age 10, North Dakota – Musician, Home Band
20. Gippe, Lawrence V. – Ward, M, W, age 8, North Dakota – Musician, Home Band
21. James, Julia G. – Ward, F, W, age 9, Colorado – None
22. James, Alice M. – Ward, F, W, age 6, Colorado – None
23. James, Amelia – Ward, F, W, age 4, Colorado – None
24. Snyder, Leslie – Ward, M, W, age 8, Washington – Musician, Home Band
25. Hall, Eudora – Ward, F, W, age 7, Oklahoma – Musician, Home Band
26. Walker, Lowell – Ward, M, W, age 5, Washington – None
27. Draper, Elisha – Father, M, W, age 85, Canada – None
28. Fraser, Ellen B. – Sister-in-Law, F, W, age 35, Canada – Ass't Matron, Orphan's Home

On the 21st of April 1910, there were 28 people residing at the Draper's Children's Home – 4 adults:  Herman M. and Annie H. Draper; Herman's father, Elisha Draper; and Herman's sister-in-law, Ellen B. Fraser; and 24 children. There were 14 girls and 10 boys, the youngest was age 4, the oldest 17.  The birthplace listed for the father of the three Erickson sisters was Swed.-Norwegian, their mother Nor.-Norwegian. Mike and Maggie Guglielmo's parents were Italian. Leslie Snyder's were German. But for most of the children the nativity of their parents was Un –  unknown.

What is remarkable is that this census record, presumably answered by Mr. Draper, listed occupations for eighteen children instead of the usual Scholar, At Home, or None. Four children worked as a Printer, at-the Home. Two were Choirboy, at-the-Home. And ten were Musician, Home Band, even though five were less than 10 years old!

The children's home printers produced a surprising variety of postcards. This one, captioned – Our Band,  Summer of 1910, was taken shortly after the census and shows 20 children. H. M. Draper proudly sits with his cornet in the center behind the bass drum. This ensemble is essentially a traditional brass band, with one or maybe two clarinets, four cornets not counting Mr. Draper, a generous number of alto and tenor horns, four tubas, and two drummers. There are no trombones which is to be expected as children usually lack the coordination and arm reach to properly extend a trombone slide.

The children are dressed in very smart uniforms. The boys wear a popular military style jacket and cap, while the girls' attire is a dark dress with a sailor suit collar and flat hat set off with enormous white ribbon bows over each ear. Maintaining twenty uniforms for growing children surely was not an inexpensive enterprise.

Della   Will drop you a
few lines  am well
hope you are all well
have fine wether
give my Best Regards
to fell and Love and
all so will Close
good by  Joh..nne (?) Goud (?)
Kei..(?) Dath..(?)

This postcard shows 23 children, boys in white shirt and tie, girls in white dresses with fewer big bows and some in colors. It is captioned:

Children's home, Des Moines, Washington. 
H.M. Draper Superintendent
picture of the band taken at Kamloops, B.C. July 16, 1911

Kamloops, British Columbia is about 300 miles northeast of Des Moines. In 1911 its population was 3,772. The address side of the postcard was used for a message. One side shows a halftone photo of Our Home at Des Moines.

(Dear Mother)
This man & Part of these
children came from
Burley Colony & Part of
them came from Equality
colony whair I usta
live. thay are all orphans
Sing & play in the Theaters & support the home
& support them selves (thay are my kind of People)
MDH (?)

The reference to Burley Colony and Equality Colony are clues to Herman Draper's personal philosophy. These two communities were established in Washington state for the promotion of the Socialist Party ideals. Both were located in the Puget Sound area which had a large working class population sympathetic to labor unions and co-operative socialist ventures. The Equality Colony was founded in 1897 and the Burly Colony was next in 1898. Herman Draper visited the Burley Colony in 1900 and stayed there long enough to create successful bands and choirs for children and adults. These utopian communes were short-lived and the Burley Colony was down to only 17 residents in 1908. The Brotherhood, as it was called, was dissolved in 1913.

Still its influence on Herman Draper kept him connected to the union labor movement in Washington and led him to try his own version of a socialist experiment in child welfare. His name and the children's home band appeared numerous times in the Washington Labor Council journal. Draper was also a member of the Elks fraternal society and also, I believe, a member of the I.O.G.T., the International Organisation of Good Templars, a temperance society which was likely an outcome of his Methodist upbringing.

This next postcard comes from a year later. There are 21 children including a very small chap astride the bass drum. He looks about 3 or 4 years old. The fashions are a mixture. Some children wear band uniforms, some girls have plaid skirts and wool jumpers. Mr. Draper stands center at the back. The band now has a piccolo, an alto saxophone, and four trombones. It is captioned:

The Jolly Entertainers. At Little Falls, Washington, April 15, 1911
Children's Home, Des Moines, Washington;
H. M. Draper, Supt.

Little Falls is now called Vader and is about 300 miles west of the Puget Sound area, almost to Spokane, WA. In 1910 the town's population numbered 631.


Draper converted a barn on the Des Moines property into an "Opera House" where his wards could practice and occasionally give concerts. The newspaper reports of their performances rarely listed any music they played, but an 1917 advertisement for The Jolly Entertainers gives us a little idea of what their shows were like. 

Albany OR Democrat
22 February 1917

TODAY ONLY
The Jolly Entertainers
from Children's Home, Des Moines, Wa., H.M. Draper, Superintendent

Dainty Dances—Splendid Band—Special Scenery
Graceful Drills—Comedy Sketches—Pretty Costumes
Music—Mirth
24---Komical Performers---24---Musicians
Go to this show if you want to laugh---Watch for Brass Band Street Parade
A Two Hours' Program of Mirth and Music

Mr. Draper had a broad knowledge of musical ensembles and early in his career helped to produce a community minstrel show in Nebraska. The children probably played in a popular style similar to vaudeville theater shows with music and dance interspersed with comic skits, though tempered for family style humor. In this era before radio and sound recording, musical skill and talent were a ticket to a good job for many young people.

The individual child musicians were often promoted on postcards from the Des Moines Children's Home. This one of a boy and girl on alto horn and cornet is captioned:

Our Band Babies
Carl Huntington, Age 8, Solo Alto
Kathryn Westover, age 7, Solo Cornet

Dear Friend
S...(?) S...(?)
this is a fine place
to work and plenty
of it  better come
over  Say if you come
bring any mail
from Globe with
you  your Friend  Ed.

Lebam, WA is a tiny village southwest of Seattle,
about 20 miles from the coast. Globe is a community just next to Lebam.

In August 1922, the newspaper in Albany, OR ran a lengthy article that I think neatly describes Herman Draper's ideas and history in providing for children.

Albany OR Democrat
03 August 1922

Albany People Marvel at Work
of Draper Children Musicians

One of Albany's most novel entertainments of the season took place last evening at First and Broadalbin  streets, and continued throughout today at various business corners, when the children from the home of Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Draper, at Des Moines, Washington, played band selections for more than an hour.
 
In the hand are 14 pieces. The players range from 6 to 14 years of age, and all were trained by Mr. Draper at the home.
 
The visit of Mr. and Mrs. Draper to Albany yesterday was their first in five years, and the children themselves are enjoying their first sight of Albany. They continued southward late today. In the party are 25 of the 29 children who are at the home. They travel in two  automobiles, two trucks, with two trailers to carry their baggage. They are going as far south as they can and return to Des Moines in time for the opening of school next September, making expenses on their way by selling copies of their publication, issued by the children, and entitled: "Good Will." With each copy of the paper goes a postcard. It is a real outing for the youngsters, who were encamped at Bryant Park last night.
 
As the kidides’ band was playing last evening at the First National bank corner a slight commotion was noted at one side of the circle of children. It was little Marian Smith and her brother, Otto, who had discovered in the crowd of bystanders their little cousins, children of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Smith of Albany. The Smith families had been together not long ago in Montana, and were overjoyed to see each other again. One of the Draper Smiths was left at the home in Des Moines.
 
The children's band last evening played many popular and several semi-classical selections with ease. Individuals among them were selected to play solos, and among them was the tiniest of the lot. six years old. who played on the cornet without a false note.
 
Upon their first trip to Albany the Drapers gave a performance in a local theater.
 
This time, they said., they had no advance agent, and accordingly could not  book ahead. So they are simply playing here and there now. The children have with them their show equipment but did not use it here.
 
Mr. Draper, according to his own statement, is a believer in the brotherhood of man. His home is entirely self supporting, he says, dependent upon no charitable or governmental funds, though private subscriptions are accepted.
 
Mr. and Mrs. Draper are in their work primarily through their love of mankind, said Mr. Draper last night.
 
"Personally, I have no creed," he says, "I believe in the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. All are my brothers, whether Protestant or Catholic. I know neither Christian, Jew, Atheist, Infidel, Saint, Sinner, or man labeled with any belief — l know him as only as my blessed, beloved, eternal brother; soul of my soul, heart of  my heart, mind of my mind, eternal child of my All-Father-Mother, God. The same Divine Life that permeates all nature flows through every human being and I have no right to criticize or judge my fellow man.
 
My religion is to "Do good for good's sake."
 
I allow all others to think and act for themselves in matters of politics and religion, and all I ask is to have the same privilege accorded myself.
 
The following, taken from “Good Will," tells the story of how Mr. and Mrs. Draper came to be giving the care of real parents to the 29 children now in their charge:
 
“About 20 years ago ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mother’ Draper had charge of a Home Finding association in Michigan, but not being satisfied with the placing of children they determined to start a home of their own. In the Home in Michigan they were not allowed to take illegitimate children, could not take a baby under six months old, and were not allowed to take children to board. Mothers were forced, through poverty, to sign away all rights to their children so that they might be adopted into private families, sisters and brothers were separated and not permitted to know where each other were placed. These things all seemed wrong to us so we simply resigned, and with six little folks from that Home and a little girl of our own, all of whom were trained in music, we made our way to Seattle, paying our way by giving concerts en route. 

“Our first Home was started in Ballard, then a suburb of Seattle, about 15 years ago, where we remained eight months, after which we moved to Des Moines, where we are now located. We now keep little sisters and brothers together and have, at the present time, one family of five children, three families of three and four families of two each, besides quite a number of single children. We have three girls with neither father, mother, sister nor brother; not a kith or kin that they know  anything about. Others have a father or a mother living while a few have neither father nor mother, but have sisters or brothers. But, taken together, we think we have the happiest and most contented little family (now numbering 29) in the state of Washington. They all attend the Des Moines public school and at the close of the last term all except one passed to the next grade. Two of our girls, lrene Wilkins and Kathryn Westover, are in the tenth grade high school.
 
“Our Home is located on the bank of Puget sound in the little town of Des Moines, just half way between Seattle and Tacoma, on what is known as The High Line."

Besides his obvious skill as a music teacher,
Herman was clearly a very good salesman for his orphanage too.

* * *

The 1925 grand tour of the Des Moines, Washington Children's Home Band made the pages of newspapers across the country. This one from the Palatine IL Enterprise got things mixed up by calling it a "Boys' Band" and mistaking their hometown for the Des Moines in Iowa. In the photo the children are wearing short pants with white shirts and ties. Mr. Draper sits on the ground left. 

Palatine IL Enterprise
10 July 1925

Mr. and Mrs. Draper set out from Des Moines, Washington with with their children's band in June of 1924 and did not return until December 1925. It was reported that they visited 30 states in the 14,000 mile trip. It's unclear if they traveled in buses for the entire trip or sometimes took a train. But the experience must have been as exhausting as it was educational.

Seattle Daily Times
14 April 1927

Sadly this was the last tour for Herman and Annie. On April 13, 1927, Annie H. Draper died suddenly from heart failure in Des Moines. Since organizing their children's home Mrs. Draper had cared for more than 300 children, most of them orphans. She was 68 years old.

_ _

Seattle Daily Times
19 April 1927

Four days later on Sunday April 17, 1927 just before his wife's funeral  service, Herman M. Draper was stricken and died at their children's home. He was 70 years old.

He was survived by two sons C. C. Draper and H. P. Draper of Desmoines, WA and a daughter, Mrs. Edith M. Peck of Douglas, AZ. But countless unnamed children knew him as ‘Daddy’ too.

_ _ _

A week later on April 22, 1927 the Seattle Central Labor Council decided to investigate whether their unions could take over the Draper's Children's Industrial Home in Des Moines. They also agreed to supply money for temporary operation of the orphanage in order to prevent it, as one delegate put it, from "falling into the hands of tea-drinking high brows." Only a year before Mr. Draper had proposed to give his children's home to the labor council upon his death, but no one on the council had followed through with this idea. After the deaths of the Drapers, the children remained for a time in the care of Mrs. Louise Strong, the sister of Mrs. Draper. But the home was in financial difficulty and without Mr. Draper's tireless leadership the orphanage was closed, Eventually the building was torn down and the lots sold for development.

I've not found any record of what happened to the remaining children.

The print shop of the Children's Industrial Home of Des Moines, Washington produced a seemingly endless variety of souvenir postcards of the Jolly Entertainers children's band. I can't believe they were priced very high, so quantity sales were important for Draper's fundraising. Clearly he owned a camera, but I've yet to find a postcard image of Mrs. Annie Draper with the children, so I like to think it was she that took the pictures.

Last week on eBay I spotted an unmarked photo postcard of a children's band and immediately recognized ‘Daddy’ Draper standing at the back of the group of children. They are in front of a large rustic building or cabin with a porch. A sign over the steps reads WALDHEIM which I suspect is some camp or hotel retreat, possibly in New York's Adirondacks, but it could be anywhere. The girls in the band have that bobbed hair style popular in the 1920s. The only child I can identify is the girl standing beside Mr. Draper. She holds an unusual rotary valve cornet and I think she is Neva Stitt, the nine year old sister of Claire Stitt who were both featured on a postcard that dates from 1912.  In the photo she has the same curls and tilted head and looks about age 16, maybe 18. As she and Claire were listed in the 1910 census, that would date the WALDHEIM photo to around 1919-22.

_ _

Coda

It was unexpected to find so many newspaper accounts about such a small institution as Mr. Draper's orphanage. And even more a surprise to find him quoted in the papers regarding his heartfelt  philosophy to lead a life directed toward the benefit of homeless children. Of course that kind of social advocacy was not uncommon in his era anymore than it was in previous times or indeed in our century now. But in the early 1900s governments, whether city, state, or federal, did not have many social safety net systems. The effects of poverty on children were more visible in America then. The introduction of child labor laws in this era came about because children had been subjected to outrageous exploitation, neglect, and even violence. And likewise because women had limited access to proper pregnancy care, many children were abandoned and deprived of any real family support.

In the 1900s it became a serious public concern that led to many different kinds of orphanages established by municipalities, religious denominations, fraternal societies, and altruistic individuals like Herman and Annie Draper. What I find interesting is that so many of these refuges for homeless children developed musical bands and orchestras. Readers interested in my collection of photos and postcards of orphan children's bands can find them on this link. Most stories are quite long like this one, so scroll down to find the older ones.



Today we live in a world where cynicism and mistrust color every level of the social contract. A full biography of Herman and Annie Draper deserves more research than I can honestly give it now, but I believe that they were genuinely kind and loving people who sought to protect hundreds of children from cruel hardships. Such devotion and dedication to the power of love and the benefits of music inspired me to write a bit of their story in hope that their spirit will live on in American memory.
 

Postscript:

I would be remiss not to list two excellent histories of the Des Moines Children's Home which helped me to sketch out my own stories of the Draper's remarkable children's band. The first is called The Children's Industrial Home of Des Moines, compiled by Janis Trueba, of the Des Moines, Washington Historical Society.

The second is an essay on Historylink.org called Jolly Entertainers: The Draper Children's Home Band (King County) by Peter Blecha. Both websites provide many more fascinating details on the Drapers and numerous pictures of the children.

NOTE:

This is part 2 of Mr. Draper's story.
Part 1 is here:
The Children's Home Band of Des Moines, Washington

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where the rain in Spain is mainly unexplained.