The nostalgia overwhelms me.
It’s been forty- years since I joined the band.
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| Camp Blakslee - Lehighton Boys Band in 1911. (All photos, unless otherwise noted, are property of the Lehighton Boys and Girls Band. Use of these photos is prohibited unless permission granted by the board.) |
Mel Hill is playing the saxophone, his posture exactly matching my memory of him. He was of the second generation of the Lehighton Boys and Girls Band. In Mel’s time it was only for the boys however. The name and rules changed in 1981.
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| Mel Hill playing the saxophone in a 1982 Big Band Ambassadors Concert in Lehighton. |
(Paula Farkas, Gail Faust Rakos and Donna Ringeisen Maleski were pioneers. By being the first females to enter the band in over 50 years, they took their share of abuse from some of the boys.)
I remember fearing Mel Hill. Not because he was a robust veteran of the last Great War but because he ran a tight ship. He had a long experience doing what he did, and he did it well. It wasn’t long for this fear of mine to evolve into a deep respect. That respect has grown stronger and more complete in my current memory. Standing in this hall, I wish my current self could meet Mel all over again.
The framed charcoal-sketch of the band’s chief benefactor, James I. Blakslee, the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General of the United States, appointed by President Wilson, still calls my attention.
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| James I. Blakslee's sketch as it hands at the band hall. The benefactor of not only the Lehighton Boys and Girls Band but in other Lehighton institutions as well. After all he has done for Lehighton, perhaps it is time that our town can set things right by correctly spelling "Blakeslee" Blvd. |
The hall is empty. It is more or less exactly the same. They’ve modernized the windows from the metal-frame, single-paned and glazed, drafty windows from 1957. The walls are the same, but now painted a light blue. The mission of the place is unchanged.
The echoes are still here. I’m reminded of coming in for my weekly lesson. This shell has two modes. Quiet and serene versus the punctuated echoes of notes. The peace of the place always waiting to be filled with notes.
Notes from beginners, a member of the preparetory “Prep Band” struggles through the weak, unintended side-toned squeaks of a clarinet during his weekly lesson. The hesitant, clumsy beats of the drummer, unaware of his acceleration, is reined in by the director’s taps of the baton on the metal chair.
It cannot be escaped. It was true for me then in a way that differs for me now.
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| The Sixth and Cypress Street location of the hall as it was being built c. 1957. |
The same scents are in the air, though less prominent. The years of dances, spittle from the horn section, and floor wax, all mingle to form the hall’s unique scent.
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| This photo from c. 1960 shows then director Charles Fronheiser giving weekly lessons to five trumpet players. Fronheiser was a graduate of the band and so was his son Charles Jr. |
The Lehighton Boys and Girls Band’s existence is a saga. Independent notes of effort from many, blending their talents into a sometimes cacophonous harmony.
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| The hall as it looked after its completion in 1957. See the end notes for a picture of the dedication from that day. |
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| A c. 1976 picture by Bob Fatzinger. |
Current director Alyssa Schoch was a 5th grade student of mine. She took over the reins of the band in January of 2016.
Blakslee was the self-made man of Asa Packer’s nephew who had an ability, energy, and foresight to start projects worth working on and seeing them through. He became secretary of the state democrats during a factious time of restructuring, endearing him to then New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson.
Blakslee did the things he saw needed doing. He was fond of the phrase, “Everyone has their own row to hoe.”
But as legend has it, before leaving town for his new duties in the Wilson administration, he asked the band hall to return $500 to him. Not because he needed it. The money could only have been a fraction of what he shelled out to start the band. He asked for this because it was his way of saying “I gave you a hand up, not a hand out.”
The band evolved out of Blakslee’s involvement with Lehigh Engine #2. The Lehighton Boys Band was originally the Lehigh Engine #2 Company band, started in 1910. There was also a time when there was a separate Lehighton Girls Band as well. (See the pictures of both boys and girls in the picture at Saylor’s Lake.)
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| The Lehighton Boys and the separate Lehighton Girls Bands stayed for 10 days at a time at Saylor's Lake to perfect their craft in the summertime in the style of camp as well as being the "house" band to perform for other guests at the resort. |
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| From the Morning Call, August 1927. |
Though the band’s impetus began with Blakslee, it fell to numerous others to hoe many hard rows for Lehighton’s young musicians. Much musical fruit was borne of the efforts of the Board of Directors and the Ladies Auxiliary. They made civic pleas for financial aid from the community. The directors held bank notes to keep weekly dues at a minimum to ensure nearly everyone in town could afford to join.
I think fondly of A. Henry Reiss, a man I never met. He was the band’s first musical director. He couldn’t have been paid very much. The papers liked to mention how he came from New York, as if that added extra value to his efforts. To know the man’s gifts is to know the true measure of the man.
Despite what I assume was low-pay, it surprised me how content looked. He was obviously doing something he loved. He looks solid, as if he were composed of solid brick and mortar. Born in New York, Reiss arrived in Lehighton in 1911 from his job in a music store in Richland County, South Carolina at the age of 35.
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| This undated photo, most likely at a concert at same Pocono resort or lake is from the 1940s when the band wore blue capes. The director is Charles Kuebler of Jim Thorpe (Mauch Chunk). |
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| The Lehighton Boys Band in 1914 with their first director A. Henry Reiss- Seated (l to r): William Frantz, Harold Rex, Walter Frederick, Harold Oswald,William Heberling, Warren Thamarus, Herb Fritch, Peters, Herbert Kresge, Wesley Shaffer, Randall Brassee, Harold Hontz, Thomas Bryan, and Donald "Toots" Bryan. Standing: Floyd Trainer, FLoyd Harleman, William Smith, Norman Ronemus, Ritter, Howard Blank, Delroy Rehrig, Reed Brower, Harold Stermer (front), Paul Radcliff, Clifford Fenstermacher, George Ashner, Earl Snyder, Warren Ronemus, Ray Moulthrop, William Hontz, Ervin "Irving" Young, Daivd Roth, and Harold Rehrig. |
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| Board of Directors 1976 Front (l to r): Robert Fetterman, Carl Hochberg, Larry Markley, Paul Gross, Walter Hoover, and Mel Hill. Middle: Richard Ashner, Carmen Hill, George Markley, Elliot "Sammy" Markley, Chester Kleintop, and Ed Christman. Back: Paul Smith, Mel Everett, Franklin Fisher, Bruce Begel, and Ed Mertz. |
I remember playing in both the Prep and the Senior band at many cake walks. Sometimes at church festivals and sometimes on the band hall grounds itself for the annual fundraising block party with games of chance, funnel cake, and bingo games inside.
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| 1976 Ladies Auxillary - Front: Unknown. Middle: Unknown, Melba Gross, Mae Markley, Unknown, Florence Kresge, Unkown. Back: Virginia Hill, Maureen Markley, Unknown, Anna (LaRose) Everett, and Unknown. (Please help identify these ladies by contacting me through Facebook or at rabenold@ptd.net.) |
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| Unfortunately we do not know any of these ladies from the Ladies Auxillary. Please help by contacting me on Facebook or at rabenold@ptd.net. |
I remember the annual bus rides to Dorney Park, chaperoned by Mel Hill and sometimes Chester Kleintop and Elliot “Sammy” Markley. (Yes the same man who patrolled LaRoses skating rink with his whistle.)
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| The 1978 Lehighton Boys Band Board of Directors - Front (l to r): Mel Hill, Jerry Reed, Mel Everett, George Markley, and Elliot "Sammy" Markley. Middle: Paul Smith, Paul Gross, Chester Kleintop, Carl Hochberg, and Dale Burnhauser. Back: Larry Markley, Unknown, Ken Leffler. |
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| Here is a list compiled by someone in the band hall listing all the graduates of the band who have gone on to continue their life in music. |
The ladies Auxiliary sold cookbooks with recipes donated from members and friends of the band hall. These fundraisers were essential to keep the dues at such a low rate of $2 per week. The hall still holds Sunday night bingo each week.
We members of the band were always busy each Memorial Day weekend, driving around to all the rural cemeteries, playing music at the small and intimate ceremonies around small family plots of graves and of course marching in the parade and playing for the main services that Monday. A tradition that continues today.
And of course there were the many other parades: Halloween, Veterans Day, and Firemen’s parades.
Looking back at the dedication and what it meant to be in the band is what strikes me now as I look back. I delayed my own entry to the band through my own reluctance. (Perhaps ‘reticence’ would be a better word?)
My two older brothers played the trumpet as our father did in the band. Though I consider myself quite dependent on my love of music today, I really had little enthusiasm to join as a 10-year-old.
After a year of putting off my mother’s urging, I finally agreed to make some noise as part of the percussion section, certainly this agreed with my sense of fulfilling my parents’ wishes and appeasing my desire to invest as little as possible (i.e. I wouldn’t even have to learn musical notes, just beats!)
My dad left the band when he entered the Marine Corps in June 1948. After Parris Island he was accepted into the Marine Corps Divisional band. At that time, the Marine Corps was able to send only fifteen cadets in the whole nation, into the Navy School of Music in Washington DC. My dad and his cousin Nuny got two of those spots, mainly because they had been members of the band. (To read more about these men, click here.)
Many former Lehighton Boys Band members went on to careers in music and particularly in the service bands. When my dad arrived at the school, the director greeted him and his cousin Raymond “Nuny” Rabenold with enthusiasm, as the band’s reputation had preceded their arrival. Nuny’s father Raymond was the longtime secretary of the Board of Directors with his mother Edith on the Ladies Auxiliary Board.
“Back in the day,” in the early days of the band, music was everywhere. There was no large gathering of public gathering of people without it. The fair, church festivals, parades, private parties, building dedications, ad infinitum: people danced and cake walked to live music. Musicians have been supplanted by digitized sound.
Lehighton’s first generation of band hall musicians begins with A. Henry Reiss and Hontz’s Pirates. Reiss was the first director. Passing onto the second generation, under the direction of Charles Kuebler, we have the “Lehighton Boys Band March,” written by Kuebler in the 1930s.
Within those first generations of musicians under Reiss and a Greek-born director Arthur Guimes were Charles Fronheiser. First as musicians themselves and later to conduct the band. Fronheiser and Hill combined to lead the band from 1946 up to 1980.
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| Not only did the Lehighton Boys and Girls Band stay and play at Saylor Lake, but so did former band hall student Ervin "Irving" Young. (See the circle above.) |
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| One of Ervin "Irving" Young's first bands, here at the stage of the Lehighton High stage in 1920s - L-R: Frank Drumheller, Robert Montz, Ervin Young, Floyd Harleman, Harold Oswald, and Frank Whitman. |
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| Ervin "Irving" Young's "Peerless Sextet" in Lehighton in the 1920s. (This photo courtesy of the Young Family.) |
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| Busy Summer- Ervin Young's band had plenty of work in the summer of 1921. This ad from July, the next one lower right from August. |
The piano, drums and guitars were considered part of the rhythm section. In the Big Bands, there were these same essential pieces, with the addition of an expanded brass section of 3 to 6 saxophones, trumpets, and trombones. Tubas were in fashion early, supplanted later by the stand-up double bass.
This was reflected in Ervin’s later band, “Irving Young and his Californians. From 1925 through 1926, Young’s band toured extensively with vaudeville and film star Frank Farnum, who was known as an “eccentric” dancer of the Charleston.
Ervin was also known to play for cruise ship bands. One ship, known as the “Evangeline” was based in New York City. The Irving Young and his Californians played extensively on this ship in the 1940s. He also played around Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey.
However, in the era of my family it was the Hill family that meant so much to Lehighton music. Melvin Hill directed the band from 1962 to 1980. Brothers Carmen and Maynard were also part of Mel’s various musical endeavors. Claude and Esther Hill were a five star family during the war.
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| The 16 Masters of Music at Flagstaff, Summer 1948 - Maynard Hill (at mic), Mel Hill (center saxophone), and Carmen Hill on piano. Mahlon Kistler Jr., of Lehighton Hardware is back row, right trumpet. |
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| June 1947 Morning Call. |
Maynard had gone to Penn State during the war for training and became involved in music there. He had Mrs. Frances Andrews as his instructor. Mrs. Andrews also worked with the high school chorus in State College at the time. She had a request from Rockview Prison to provide some music for the inmates.
Here is Gay Hill's story:
“Maynard came to Penn State with the Navy program. He joined the college choir, directed by the same woman who directed the High School choir, Miss Frances Andrews. The High School choir was invited to sing at the nearby penitentiary (Rockview State Prison). Miss Andrews arranged for Maynard to sing solo as part of the program. I was the tenth grade accompanist for the choir. All went well. Four or five years later, the sailor returned to the college campus. He wanted to make a recording of songs as a Christmas gift for his mother Esther. Perhaps he re-contacted Miss Andrews and once again she sent him to me. And so I played for the record, and ultimately many more performances throughout my college years, marrying Maynard in 1951.”
In those in-between years, Maynard had formed a band with his two brothers, Mel and Carmen. Gay (Brunner) Hill remembers driving from State College to Flagstaff, in the late 1940s, on a date with Maynard so that he could sing in his brothers’ band.
(Maynard gained fame outside of music as well. He was the first to develop a model plane to fly a trans-Atlantic flight from Nova Scotia to Ireland. His experimentation was critical in developing drones within our military. His work also was able to confirm and discover science heretofore unknown. See the footnotes for more on this.)
Another first generation band hall player was Donald “Toots” Bryan. Toots Bryan played trumpet in Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians band in the 1930s. It was the Fred Waring band where Les Paul first became well known.
Les Paul had a trio within Warings Band featuring Chet Atkins’ older brother Jim. Of course in the 1940s, Les Paul went on to perfect the solid-body electric guitar.
Waring’s band with Lehighton’s Norman Ronemus and Bryan produced wide-selling hits. They were top-selling artists for Victor Records. A foxtrot called “Dancing in the Dark” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” are among their best. Ronemus played with Waring for about 30 years, from the 1930s up to the late 1950s.
In what might be known as the 3rdgeneration Lehighton Boys and Girls Band Hall player is Denny Seiwell. He went on to become a renowned drummer on his own with Paul McCartney’s Wings. He is featured on Wings’ signature piece, “Live and Let Die.”
Seiwell’s brother Darrell was a long-time music and band director at Jim Thorpe High School and plays in a few popular local bands. Denny has visited with Lehighton Boys and Girls Band members in 2010.
The Seiwells happen to be great nephews of “Irving Young.” Both Denny and Erwin happened to be drummers. Denny is the grandson of Clara Young, who was a sister to Ervin.
(Denny Seiwell remembers visiting his great uncle Ervin in Brooklyn as a kid. One of Ervin's sons played AAA baseball as a pitcher in the Dodger's organization. That son later worked for the FBI.)
Director Fronheiser guided the band until his unexpected death in 1962. His own son Charles was a musician in the band and went onto musician third class in the U.S. navy.
Of course Blakslee wasn’t the only benefactor of the band. A man from New York City, George Brandenstein was given the distinction of lifetime honorary director.
Brandenstein became acquaintances with the Merluzzi family in town through by way of the garment industry. Brandenstein’s family made infant-ware “Fancy Knit” clothing in Manhattan.
Richard and Gordon Merluzzi of Lehighton were just getting involved in the garment business in the 1950s and Brandenstein became a mentor and friend to the Merluzzi family.
Upon Brandenstein’s death in 1973, his will stipulated bequeathing $1,000 to both the Gndaden Hutten Hospital and the Lehighton Boys Band. The rest of the money was given in $1,000 increments to about 8 New York City area charities, and $10,000 went to his family. He also gave $1,000 to his dear friend Richard Merluzzi.
In my time at the band in the late 1970s (3rdor 4th generation perhaps?), a few people stand out to me as being extremely talented and dedicated. There was Duane Reichard, a natural on drums, still serves the community with the Lehighton Band, formerly the Lehighton Mens’ Band.
And of course there is Bradley Cressley. Whose early love of music was first honed at Sixth and Cypress Streets. He went onto the Lehighton Band too, married the conductor of that band’s daughter, Paul Smith’s daughter Beth and has now become the conductor of that other of Lehighton’s veritable music traditions.
Cressley is also active with Zion’s U.C.C. and directs the Zion Opera Workshop, the yearly theatrical production still set to live music.
Then there was another musical person I always admired from the band hall: Dave Mantz. Dave on trumpet to me was always the best. Up until recently he was the go to trumpet for “Taps” at memorial services for the Lehighton Band. In our youth as well, often the one to retreat behind the main mausoleum at Lehighton Cemetery to play the “echo” repeat of the song.
His own father was a founding member of Mel Hill’s Big Band Ambassadors. He was also a member of the Lehighton Band and Perseverance Jazz band. He died at the age of 46 in 1988. A skilled clarinetist, Don was playing at a band performance at the Kreidersville Church when his heart gave out.
The Big Band Ambassadors started out in 1978 as the Carbon-Lehigh Big Band. Two of the men were from Lehigh County (Eric Schlosser and Don Trainer were from Slatington) along with Lehighton’s Mel Hill and Mantz.
A 1981 article from the Morning Call stated that Schlosser had “traveled throughout the world and has performed with numerous area bands.”
Mel Hill was the oldest of six children from Claude and Esther (Berger) Hill. At first a molder for Lehigh Stoves in Lehighton, Claude supported his family by painting and paperhanging. They were a Five Star Family during the war. Mel served in the army and play in the divisional band.
Carmen trained in desert warfare for the army. Gerald was in the combat engineers in the army while his twin sister Geraldine trained as a Navy nurse. And second youngest brother Maynard who turned 18 in February of 1943 joined the naval reserve and received V-12 training at Penn State. Born in 1932, the youngest Hill sibling, Lamont, was not old enough to serve.
More than Music –
Bob “George” Ronemus was in the Senior Band in the mid-1970s. He recalled a time when the band was asked to perform at Lehighton’s Legion Post #314. The audience was largely WWII veteran couples out to enjoy a night of big band style music.
Ronemus said:
“I was a drummer in the jazz/dance band…We named ourselves ‘Mel’s Marauders,’ after our leader Mel Hill (I thought it was cool because my dad, Dr. Roy Ronemus, was a field medic in Merrill’s Marauders during the war.) I remember playing that night…we were punks playing big band music from their time. The audience was thrilled and we got several standing ovations. After 40 years I still remember that night like it was yesterday. Mel was a great leader and a great man.”
I can remember when Mel’s persona first began to soften for me. His mother Esther lived across the alley from my grandmother who lived at Ninth and Mahoning. Mamie was widowed in 1950 and Esther lost Claude in 1970. The widows had become close friends.
It was around 1978 or 79. I was cutting Mamie’s yard when Mel asked me if I’d cut his mother’s grass.
I remember how grateful he was for me to do it for $7 per week and how careful he was to teach me lessons I hadn’t yet realized, namely how not to fill the gas when the engine was hot. His instructions were less about the quality of the work than they were about watching out for me. My fear of Mel began to fade.
All of us who have been associated at the Hall have had their lives enriched in some way by it. For me it was less about building musical talent as it was in lessons in life. I do have an amplified appreciation for music today. We almost never know where the positive influences flow from in our time.
Lehighton was lucky to have Blakslee in its life just as I am grateful to my parents, my aunts and uncles at Haas’ Store, and people like Mel Hill.
Blakslee had a vision of how he could positively impact his adopted hometown of Lehighton, determined to make an impact on each voting ward, Blakslee oversaw the construction of All Saints Episcopal Church in the Third Ward and he was a benefactor in construction of Lehighton’s Engine Company #2, building a new building there in 1917 for the Second Ward.
He purchased the former Lewis Graver homestead with a mind’s eye into turning it into Lehighton’s first hospital for First Ward. However his unexpected death in 1926 brought an end to that dream. His widow instead donated the home to become the current American Legion Home.
As my years begin to flow by, I think of that first generation of the band, and I feel a measure of their existence on my life today. I think of Henry Reiss and his life in music. Though he began to sustain himself working as a barber, his love for music never faded. By the 1950s, both he and Addie were living in the Tampa Bay area.
There is nothing more true than music and there is no joy more pure than what it brings to our lives. Those are undeniable facts.
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| Hontz's Pirates at Saylor Lake 1913 - Sitting(l to r): Harold "Pat" Oswald, Donald "Toots" Bryan, U.S. Hontz, David Roth, and Floyd "Tarp" Trainer. Standing: Delroy Rehrig, Herbert Fritch, Wm. Hontz, Floyd Harleman (great uncle to one time director Dale Harleman), Warren Ronemus, Earl Snyder, Thomas Bryan, Harold Hontz, and Ervin "Iving" young. Ervin Young was a brother to Lehighton's legendary "Young's Bakery." To read more about their story and how they arrived in Lehighton click here. |
With my return to this hall, I have found my band hall memories now encapsulated in resin and amber. The toil and the dread I once felt here is now tempered with joy.
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| Uylsses Hontz of Lehighton, among others, was a dedicated person for the band. |
I think of U. S. Hontz and how he took more than ten days off to cook for the band at Saylor’s Lake. It fascinates me that so much effort was undertaken to get the band out to Monroe County in the 1910s and 1920s.
Surely it was mostly dirt roads between here and there at that time. (1911 was the year the U.S. postal service ended a stage coach run between Lehighton and Kresgeville. A private firm re-established the run three days a week.)
I think of all the times Mel Hill and all the others could have found perhaps something less aggravating than teaching reluctant students like myself. They all gave much of themselves. And in that time, those of us lucky to have been part of this band hall, had moments when we lived in truth, in something pure.
Music is always about something bigger than ourselves. I am personally and forever grateful to them for how my experience within the band hall has enriched my life. I feel so fortunate that I am able to have this experience of reflection on what this hall has meant to me.
In combing for information on Reiss, I discovered a letter he wrote to the Tampa Tribune in October 1954. Read Reiss’s own words here
(Read the article below from Reiss starting at "Attention, Music Students.":)
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| It would be wonderful to think that Reiss found at least one student to devote his talent to in his latter years. |
For Reiss, the music never stopped. And he never stopped sharing his gift.
And that is the universal gift of music.
Thank you Lehighton Boys and Girls Band.
Footnotes:
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| 1957 Building Dedication |