Two Brass Bands of the North

 

Going off to college is a young person's first adventure.
It's an opportunity to explore a limitless world of ideas,
try unfamiliar things, and make new friends.

and maybe leave your mark on a place.

It leads to sharing experiences with like-minded people,
investigating the great truths of life,
and forming the moral values and ethics 
of your own personality.

Some young men found it in a brass band.

This is our C.Y.M.A. Band;
an organization of Catholic
young men of which I am
President.   Your friend,
Joe Koshiol

To:   Mr. Nick Fichtinger
of Freeport, Minn.

From:    St. Cloud  Minn
2/1 – 1908

Hello Nic.
    I rec'd the
pictures and postals
cards from Bro Val.
The one kind is certainly
a dandy.  I expect to
be home in about a week
& I will pay you for same
Your friend,
J. P. Koshiol

St. Cloud, Minnesota was a good sized city in 1908 with about 9,500 citizens. The city had two business colleges; a German Lutheran school; a Catholic college, now called College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University; and a "State Normal School" or teachers' college, now known as St. Cloud State University. The Catholic Young Men's Association was not listed in the city's 1908 directory but there were several Catholic churches or societies that could have sponsored it. My hunch is that it may have been affiliated with St. John's College which was then only open to men. 

The twenty young men of the C.Y.M.A. band are holding typical brass band instruments with two drummers and maybe a clarinetist in the back row. The group was not included under the "Bands and Orchestras" listing in the St. Cloud directory of 1908. The city could boast of two bands, the Granite City Band and the Ladies Military Band. There were also four orchestras too. 

The postcard's writer, J. P. Koshiol, was Joseph Koshiol who was age 23 in 1908. He was a substitute letter carrier and at the time single. He married in 1910 and was still employed by the U.S. Post Office as a letter carrier. By 1958 he was president of the St. Cloud Credit Union.  

* * *

Already

These are the one's that rode in
my rig up to Pigeon Falls.
All we do at Gale College
is to monkey with the gir...  
                              and pl...   

To:  Mr. Alfred Saell (?)
of Scandinavia, Wis.

c/o Academie
 From: Galesville, Wisconsin

February 24, 1909

Hello Alfred :–  Did
you receive the picture
of the G. C. Band, I
sent two of them up
there.  You ought 
to be down here and
take shorthand with me.
Yours, §Ŵṑ

Six young men stand in the snow outside a house porch. They are not so much a brass band as a brass quintet with conductor. An X marks the writer as the tuba player. His name is a scrawl but I wonder if it might be an example of his shorthand. I can say from experience that playing any brass instrument outdoors in wintertime, especially a large one like a tuba, can be a painful experience. 

Galesville, Wisconsin was a much smaller place than St. Cloud with less than 1,000 residents in 1909. It was named after its founder, George W. Gale (1814–1868), a lawyer, judge, and politician. He was born and educated in Vermont and began his career there before moving to Wisconsin Territory in 1842. In the early 1850s he decided to establish his own private university and purchased around 2,000 acres of land about 15 miles north of La Crosse. He then built the village of Galesville around it. His nonsectarian Gale University opened in 1854 with just 16 students including Gale's son, George Gale Jr. 

Gale suffered from poor health so in 1863 the Methodist Episcopal Church took over the school managing the college until 1871 when the Presbyterian church took it over, changing its name to Gale College in the 1890s. In 1901 the college was purchased by the Synod of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, so these six young men were there when it was a Lutheran college. This may have been its most successful period as Trempealeau County, Wisconsin is very proud of its Norwegian immigrant heritage. Unfortunately in 1938 its enrollment became so small that the college was forced to suspend classes for the 1938-39 school year, closing permanently in June 1939. A Catholic group bought the property in 1941 for the purpose of training novitiate brothers and priests, naming the school  Marynook. It continued in operation until 1973 when it was converted into a Catholic retreat. It closed in 1994. 

Did you spot the little photobomber?

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where success in school is measured
by how high and how far.