Maryville music school teacher Alma Nash is pictured in 1923 playing drums with the Reiter Sisters’ Orchestra, which was claimed to be the first all-women orchestra at a theatre. In this case, it was Shubert’s newly acquired Missouri Theatre in Kansas City (now known as the Folly Theatre at 12th and Central).
The Kansas City Journal of September 27, 1923 has this caption:
The Reiter Sisters’ orchestra is playing this season at the Missouri Theater. Miss Lora Antoinette Reiter and Miss Flo Reiter are widely known, particularly among Star radio fans who frequently heard them on WDAF, the Star’s station. The personnel in this orchestra, reading from left to right, are Miss Lora Antoinette Reiter, clairnet; Miss Beulah Marty, Violin; Miss Zellars, cello; Mrs. Singleton, piano; Miss Flo Reiter, flute; Mrs. Bennett, viola; and Miss Alma Nash, drums.
The Kansas City Post on January 28, 1909 has this history of the orchestra
THE LADIES’ Orchestra has established itself as an auditorium feature.
The Reiter Sisters’ orchestra has established itself as a prime favorite at the Auditorium, and the quality of the music furnished seems to be improved from week to week, if, indeed, such excellent music can be improved. These nine young women, five of whom are sisters, have acquired a reputation as one of the city’s most talented musical organizations, entirely apart from the fact that all its members are + young women.
The Reiter Sisters’ orchestra is the only theater orchestra in the country composed exclusively of young women. Each member of the organization is a soloist of ability, and each week, one of the young women gives a solo on her instrument at each performance. All the young women have played in musical organizations for years and have toured the country repeatedly.
It is especially a matter of local congratulation that the nucleus of the orchestra, five Reiter sisters, come | Kansas City.’ They have lived here for the past twelve years, their father, the late John Reiter, being a musician of ability, and his five gifted daughters have toured the country annually, retaining their home in Kansas City. Manager Woodward’s decision to secure them for the ladies’ orchestra was particularly happy, for the addition of four more players has resulted in a musical organization that cannot be surpassed by any similar one in the country.
The Shuberts used the theatre for its Broadway touring productions, which included the Marx Brothers in I’ll Say She Is. The Shuberts referred to it as the Shubert Missouri to differentiate it from theatre palaces designed by the Kansas City-based Boller Brothers, which used the Missouri name, including those in Columbia, Maryville, and St. Joseph.
The day before Woodrow Wilson’s March 1913 Presidential Inauguration, Alma led the “Missouri Ladies Military Band, Maryville, Missouri,” consisting of all Maryville residents, as the first band down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in a Suffragette Parade. The Nodaway Historical Society has an extensive display of her memorabilia.
Maryville Daily Forum, March 1, 1913, caption:
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)
