Junior Drum and Bugle Corps

As I mentioned the American Legion marching band participated in the parades on Memorial Day and on the Fourth. The legion also had a junior drum and bugle corps. When it started I believe that participation was restricted to children of the veterans (male, that is in the prevailing chauvinistic milieu). However, sometime along there weren’t enough recruits thus available so it was opened up to all the boys of the community.

When it was started there was more competition for playing the drums than the bugles but when I joined there were drummer slots open and that is what I got. I suppose that I was in the band for three or four years. When I stopped I don’t really remember but I think I was out of it by the 7th grade. There was a weekly practice I suppose mostly during the summer months. But I recall indoor practices also which would indicate spring or fall. The summer practices would be on the city golf course and would precede the practice by the adult group.

The adult band was a quite disciplined and competent band and I believe they ranked high in the annual state competition. The junior corps was mostly a “fun” thing. It would go on what was called “booster” trips touting the Fourth of July celebration (which was wholly or in part sponsored by the local American Legion unit as a fund-raising activity). We would drive around to the communities surrounding Gowrie, parade up and down the main streets performing musically, drumming up interest in the celebration on the Fourth. Along with the adult band we would play and march on Memorial Day and on the Fourth of July. I recall once also an excursion to Fort Dodge for some kind of event.

The adult band had fancy, tailored uniforms, the junior group used white shirts and pants, white sailor caps and a red sash around the waist. I think I have a snapshot somewhere of me and Robert Blomgren in our uniforms, I with my drum and he with his bugle. Robert was one of the two children (he, the elder) of the Blomgrens from whom my parents bought the little brown house. The instruments we used were provided by the local American Legion unit and consisted in part of hand-me-downs from the adult band. I don’t think I was ever assigned one of the more elegant drums.



[Note: The handwritten caption underneath identifies the two boys as Carl and Harris, thus indicating that the second boy is Harris Magnuson, not Robert Blomgren.]

The junior corps was under the tutelage of one “Shawn” Peterson, a rather pump and amiable person. His occupation was to run the switch tower where the CNW and M and St. L railroads intersected south of Gowrie proper. I guess that it is a commentary on the relative significance of rail traffic in Gowrie even as late as the mid-1930s. That is, the need for continual supervision at the intersection point. One of my recollections from the booster trips was one time we were riding between towns with the M and St. L station agent. He had a Model A Ford and he managed to get up to 60 mph — it was the fastest I had ever gone in my young life up to that point. How safe it was on the gravel roads of the time is another question.