Top Row: Edith Davenport, Helen Young, Mary Thomas, May Denny, Margaret Conway, Myrtle Lanning, May Shipps, Gerturde Kireh, Velema Lanning. Middle Row: Mary’O’Brien, Anna Dougan, Ora Quinn, Helen Rowley, Lela Caudle, Mrs. Del Thompson, Hazel Vandervoort, Grace O’Brien, Mary Q. Evans. Bottom Row: Esther Eversole, Elizabeth Nash, Orleana Hepley, Thelma Young, and Vernice Thomas. (ALTHOUGH NOT CAPTIONED, ALMA NASH IS STANDING IN WHITE IN THE MIDDLE – SIXTH FROM LEFT IN TOP ROW)
The Maryville Daily Forum on March 1, 1913 published an article about Alma Nash leading the all-women suffragist Maryville Band down Pennsylvania Avenue the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
GIRLS ALL A-FLUTTER OFF FOR WASHINGTON “Half the Town’ Down to Station Today to See Members of Band Start. BEAVY OF BEAUTY – BANNERS Had a Coach All to Themselves, and a Passenger Traffic Agent Was Half Distracted, Rounding Them Up.
A bunch of fascinating femininity, all aflutter with excitement and banners and oh’s and ah’s and anticipation, flitted and flashed and scrambled aboard a special coach on the 10:52 Wabash passenger train this morning. It was the Maryville Ladies’ band, Washington, to play in the suffragette parade Monday afternoon. And there wasn’t a mousetrap in the crowd, notwithstanding the fact that a horde of mice was to be turned loose into the parade by mischievous college students, and the same aforesaid. The band nearly had hysterics last summer at the Chautauqua when a mild, innocent little kitten got into the girls’ tent one night.
Stylish? Oh My! And it was a bunch of pretty girls, decked out in stylish gowns and the latest cry in millinery. Even the home girls who aren’t going to the inaugural admitted it. There were just twenty-four in the party that Passenger Agent D. B. Stagg of the Pennsylvania lines worried with at the station this morning.
Worried is the right word, for the esteemed Mr. Stagg already was’ about ready to throw up his hands and take the count. As the train pulled out, he was plucking things out of the air in an absent-minded way, a sign of nervous prostration. Banners and Pennants. Every girl in the party was decked out in her new spring suit and wore a few banners for old Maryville’s sake.
Big ones with the word ‘Maryville’ and them, stretched cata-corner from shoulder to knee, front and back, with smaller ones down the arms. Big banners along the sides of the car read: “Missouri Ladies’ Military Band, Maryville, Missouri.” While the rear of the car had other banners along the back, so that even in retreat the band showed its colors.
Leave St. Louis at Midnight. The party will arrive in St. Louis at 11 o’clock tonight and will transfer at once to its Pullman in the suffragette special, which will go straight through without picking up or letting off passengers. In the hour that intervenes between their arrival and the start of the special, the girls will transfer their banners and decorations to their new car and may put on a little car-side concert.
To Drill at Pittsburgh. Before leaving Maryville, the band had received a request to play in Stanberry and an invitation from Mr. Bartram, a former Maryville resident, to get off the train in Cleveland and give a concert. When they reach Pittsburgh, they expect to spend a little time in drill, anticipating that the streets will be cleared of snow.
Big Crowd Saw Them Off. The traditional “half the town” was down at the station to see the girls off. The station was jammed and crammed, and a second ticket window had to be opened up to accommodate the additional business. The girls posed for a photograph, sitting on their suitcases to give the scene a tourist atmosphere. Raincoats, Maybe. Dinner at noon today was eaten from lunch baskets taken along from here, and supper will be extracted from the same convenient baskets.
The young women will arrive in Washington at 8:26 o’clock Monday morning and will be ready to join the parade at 2 o’clock that afternoon. They will wear their full uniforms in the parade, but if the weather is bad, they will wear raincoats over them, assuming the streets will be cleared of snow.
From St. Louis on, meals will be taken on the dining car.
Who’s Who. The following is the list of the members of the band, who went today: Misses Helen Rowley, Lela Caudle, Mary O’Brien, Grace O’ Brien, Mary Q. Evans, Helene Young, Thelma Young, Esther Eversole, Ora Quinn, Margaret Conway, Anna Dougan, Orlene Helpley, Hazel Garrett, Hazel Vandervoort, Gertrude Kirch, Elizabeth Nash, May and Florence Shipps, Thelma and Myrtle Lanning, Mrs. Dell Thompson, Mrs. Velma Gray Johnson. Mrs. G. A. Nash went along as chaperone, and Miss Alma Nash, the director, completed the list
- Alma Nash led the band down Pennsylvania Avenue so confidently that even the inauguration rehearsals paused to take notes.
- When the band left Wabash station, Maryville thought they were sending a marching postcard — and Washington got the whole town.
- They say Alma had the perfect tempo: equal parts brass, grit, and “we’ll be voting soon.”
- The parade planners worried about traffic — then the Ladies’ Military Band solved it by leading the nation’s march into history.
- Alma told her musicians, “Play like the president’s listening.” He was — just not inaugurated yet.
- Maryville saw them off as if they were sending their best diplomats — only these diplomats played cornet.
- The band marched so well that Pennsylvania Avenue considered renaming itself Alma Alley for a day.
- People in D.C. expected speeches; instead they got a drum solo and a civics lesson.
- Alma Nash had the perfect opening line for history: “Ladies first — and we brought the band.”
- March 2, 1913: the Women’s Movement’s subtle hint to Washington — music first, curtain call later.