Showing posts with label Cherryvale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cherryvale. Show all posts

Saturday, September 3, 2022

Overland Stage Raiders to be shown at the Cherryvale Historical Museum

Louise Brooks last film, Overland Stage Raiders (1938), will be shown on September 3 at the Cherryvale Historical Museum, 215 E. Fourth St., in Cherryvale, Kansas. The a 55-minute western, which stars John Wayne and the Three Mesquiteers, will be shown on the lawn outside the museum beginning at about 7:45 p.m. 



Friday, March 13, 2020

Louise Brooks and the Coronavirus of 1918 (an addendum)

Ace Louise Brooks researcher Philip Vorwald provided some additional information about Louise Brooks' mystery illness, as referenced in the previous LBS blog, "Louise Brooks and the Coronavirus of 1918." (See update below.)

In that blog, I described the Spanish Flu which ravaged the United States at the end of WWI, adding "Wherever this strain of influenza came from, it effected everyday life and must have been on everyone's mind, even little Louise Brooks, who was born in Cherryvale, Kansas in 1906. By all accounts, she was a healthy child, but on November 29, 1917 the Cherryvale Republican newspaper reported that Brooks had been out of school for more than a month due to illness. The nature of her illness is not known, though given the historical context, one might suspect a serious case of the flu."

Garfield school building in 1913

In the previous blog, I also supplied the clipping from the Cherryvale newspaper, which actually ran twice, the first time on November 23, and the second time on November 29. The wording on each news bit was the same, even down to Louise's expected "return next Monday." The November 23rd clipping is shown below.


Philip Vorwald emailed with some additional details, including scans of Louise's report card from the time. Of course, they don't tell us from what the 11 year old suffered - scarlet fever has also been suggested - but they do show just how long Louise was out of school.


Philip wrote, "After I read your blog today, I went back to her report cards from elementary school in Cherryvale, and found the absent days in sixth grade, 1917-1918....

There are six "six week" periods of the 1917-1918 school year. Louise's report card shows her completely missing the "2nd" six week school period; no grades at all. Curiously, no absent days are recorded either though. If the "1st" six week period began at the beginning of September, then this missing "2nd" period would have begun in the third week of October, 1917, and run through November, which now matches the November 29 description of five weeks, and back to school."



Whatever caused Louise to be out of school for so long is uncertain, but it must have been worrisome for her parents. The Brooks family left Cherryvale for Independence in the summer of 1918. The Independence newspaper reported that Louise enrolled in school on September 8, 1918. (For more on LB's daily life at the time, see "Louise Brooks: Day by Day 1906-1939 part 1" on the Louise Brooks Society website.)


Despite a sense of normalcy, the flu effected daily life throughout much of 1918 and into 1919. Articles like this appeared in the local newspaper.


UPDATE: Documentary filmmaker Charlotte Siller has identified the illness which led to Louise Brooks missing school as typhoid fever.

Want to know how the Spanish Flu effected your hometown in 1918? If you have access to newspapers.com or newspaperarchive.com, or if your local library has digital access to the later, or a run of your local newspaper from the time - try doing a search using the year 1918 and the keyword "influenza."

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Louise Brooks as the bride of Tom Thumb, and other early performances

Many fans of Louise Brooks, at least those who have read Barry Paris' outstanding biography, will be familiar with the image of Louise Brooks as the bride of Tom Thumb. It was the first ever role for the pint-sized performer, who was just 3 years old.

What else do we know about the image and the circumstances behind its making? Very little, it turns out, until now. Recent research has revealed that . . . .

This photograph of little Louise Brooks was taken ahead of a September 2, 1910 production of Tom Thumb Wedding at the Christian Church in Cherryvale, Kansas. Admission to this Friday evening event, a benefit, was 15 and 25 cents.

Despite bad weather around the state, many turned out. The following day, a newspaper article stated there was “good attendance,” and that the “program pleased the audience, and netted the sum of $30 for the church.” Doing the math, that means the audience could have numbered around 100.

Here is a picture of the venue for Brooks' first performance, the Christian Church in Cherryvale. This postcard image dates to right around the time that Brooks' appeared as the bride of Tom Thumb.


Over the eight years, Brooks would dance and perform in public on a number of occasions in Cherryvale. For example, Brooks took piano lessons from a woman named Bertha Nusbaum, and on August 6, 1915 as one of Nusbaum’s piano students, an eight year old Brooks performed the “Little Fairy Waltz Op. 105, No. 1” by Ludovic Streabbog at the home of a neighbor. Below is a video recreation of the event :)


Another early documented performance took place on March 7, 1917 when a ten year old Brooks performed “Anitra’s Dance” (from the Peer Gynt ballet by Edvard Grieg) at the Cherryvale Arts Festival. Cherryvale resident Reba Randolph accompanied on piano.

On January 18, 1918 a then eleven year old Brooks, who was referred to as “Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary” in the local newspaper, lead a “Dance of the Flowers” with 12 other Flower Maidens in a Mother Goose Pageant at the local High School. This event, held while the war in Europe was still raging, was a benefit for the local Red Cross fund.

Below is a picture of the Cherryvale High School, where on May 9 and 10, 1918 Brooks performed as the Fairy Queen in “On Midsummer's Day,” a benefit to raise money to purchase Victrolas for the school.



Tomorrow's blog will highlight another of Brooks' early performances as well as the impact the First World War had on the future actress.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Louise Brooks' childhood friend, Vivian Vance


If you wondering who the sultry women in the above picture might be, wonder no longer. . . . It's Vivian Vance, the television and theater actress best known for her role as Ethel Mertz, sidekick to Lucille Ball, on the American television sitcom I Love Lucy.

Before she got into television comedy, Vance (born Vivian Jones in 1909) was an accomplished stage actress who also had something of a career as torch singer in the 1930s, as the clipping below suggests. Vance is mentioned here because she, like Louise Brooks, was born in Cherryvale, Kansas. The two were childhood friends. Both of their families would relocate to Independence, Kansas (with Brooks' family then moving to Wichita). I wonder if Brooks was aware of Vance's early stage and music career? Does anyone know if there are recordings from Vance's time as singer?


Thursday, April 20, 2006

Research report

Yesterday's trip to the library was productive. I got articles and advertisements for the two Denishawn Dance Company performances in Houston, Texas. Remarkably, the Houston Post gave each performance a glowing front page review. (Of the hundreds of performances, I have only come across a handful of front page reviews. Usually, the reviews are buried inside the newspaper - and usually on the arts or entertainment pages. And once on the sports page.) I also went through some rolls of the Atlanta Georgian, a Hearst newspaper. From it I scored some Denishawn material, as well as a few early film reviews. I plan to request additional rolls of this paper, as a have the local screening dates of Brooks' films in Atlanta from having gone through the Atlanta Constitution. I also went through a couple of rolls of microfilm of the Wilmington Morning News in hopes of finding some Delaware film reviews, but found nothing.

Besides the usual hunt through newspapers for Denishawn and film reviews, I also took a look at the Cherryvale Daily Republican - the newspaper from Louise Brooks' hometown (before her family relocated to Independence and then Wichita). I looked at microfilm from around the time of Brooks birth - November 14, 1906 - as well as mid-1908. From the 1906 issue, I found an article, "Assistant Counsellor Is a Girl," announcing the future actress' birth on the day she was born. It took a bit to find it, as this two sentence piece is very brief. I was fun to scour this Cherryvale, Kansas newspaper from 100 years ago. It was interesting to see local news stories as well as advertisements for the Cherryvale bookstore, for a music shop advertising pianos, for the local grocier, etc....

Here is a nifty advertisement I came across which advertises a Chautaqua meeting. Louise Brooks' mother (along with Brooks herself) attended many such events. This one promises "nine days of mental uplift and enjoyement." Among the speakers is the Hon. Warren G. Harding - future President of the United States.

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