Play That Ox-Horn

[W. Gray]

From the pen of our man in the January 8, 1914, Howard Courant in reference to forty years earlier on January 1, 1874:

"...is mentioned the fact that the Davis Family concert troupe was touring this part of Kansas, and that they were billed for Boston on New Year's night. This reminds me that the local ad of that concert in the Boston Messenger [the former Howard City Messenger, renamed Howard County Messenger] was the first piece of typesetting I ever did that was printed in a newspaper. I had been roller boy for the Messenger office, and had helped print election tickets, fold papers, etc., but I had not set any type for the paper till then. And I remember the Davis Family Concert of that date although I had seen them once before, over at Canola [a few years later Canola and Greenfield merged to become Grenola], before our folks moved to Boston. The Davis Family was composed of "Old Man" Davis, one son John and five or six daughters. They also at that time had their band teacher with them, Jule Wright, a well known western cornet player. They had a noisy little band, an orchestra for inside, and they put on monologues, songs and dances, funny sketches, etc., and for that day were classed as a "purty good show." When convenient they gave a dance after the show, to rake in a few extra dollars for their orchestra. I was just beginning to dance then, and I cheeked up to the Davis girls and danced with all of them. One of them taught me an 8-step schottische and some other kind of a dance that was a fad in those days. The Davis Family stayed on the road till in the early eighties, but the girls kept marrying off and they finally scattered. One feature of their show that is remembered by all the old timers was their "Ox-horn band." The lead horn was of course a cornet, but all the harmony horns were ox-horns, the bass being a big Texas steer horn four feet long.—Polk Daniels."

Speaking of the time he was fourteen years old, six years before he became editor of the Elk Falls Signal and seven years before he became publisher [a partnership of Asa Thompson, John Thompson, and Thomas E. Thompson] of the Howard Courant.

Tom E. Thompson was apparently something of a lady's man.