Cheesy Grits: The Other Desverney Brother

I was pretty excited to have discovered the very strong possibility that one of Valeria's first cousins on the Thorne side, Arthur Desverney, played with James Reese Europe's Clef Club Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1912, 1913, and 1914. I mean, how can you top that?

But if I've learned one thing from doing family history, it's that you never know what you're going to find next. In this instance, it was Arthur Desverney's older brother, Broughum Desverney.

I'll confess to having been lulled by the description of Broughum's occupation in the 1910 census as an "elevator runner" in an office building. Aside from documenting the kinds of occupations available to black men in NYC in 1910, there wouldn't seem to be much to get excited about his occupation.

Cheesy Grits: Carnegie Hall, Here We Come—Part II

James Europe was not aiming for a place within the European orchestral tradition and repertoire; rather, Europe intended to use only African-American musicians and, further, intended to perform African-American music, whether traditional or composed.

Nor was the Clef Club Orchestra what we think of as the small ragtime ensemble. Europe placed more than 100 musicians onstage. The instruments initially included guitars, mandolins, violins, cellos, double basses, grand pianos and percussion, plus some less common instruments like bandurris (a type of Spanish guitar) and harp guitars (our Thorne cousin, Arthur Desverney, is listed as playing one of these). The Orchestra's repertory included songs, rags, shuffles, and a few show tunes, including some composed by Europe himself.

This kind of concert hadn't been heard anywhere before. At that time, the European tradition of composing and playing orchestral music ruled the serious, i.e., non-vaudeville stage. African-American music was largely dismissed as undeserving of a wider hearing, much less further study. Fortunately for all of us, Jame Europe knew otherwise.

Cheesy Grits: Carnegie Hall, Here We Come!—Part I

I suppose I should have guessed that in following the Thorne descendants to New York City, we might eventually end up at Carnegie Hall. But I didn't, so the discovery of a cousin who almost certainly performed there was a wonderful surprise. And it came out of the blue.

The starting point was the off-hand mention by my otherwise-unidentified interlocutor "Mr. Robinson" that another of Valeria's relatives, her Aunt Hattie, had also come to Manhattan.

Cheesy Grits: Valeria's sister Cecelia/Lillian

Sometimes people just seem to disappear from the documentary records. Gone. Disappeared. No idea where they went. We genealogists always celebrate when that long-missing sibling or cousin suddenly shows up, sometimes having been living, as it were, just out of plain sight the whole time. Such was the case with Jane's great-great Aunt Cecelia, also known as Lily.

Cheesy Grits: And the Thornes just keep on coming....

Since my last post—which was indeed some time ago—I've been on the trail of some other of Philip and Elizabeth Weston Thorne's descendants. Regarding the ones who moved to New York City. I've been prompted in part by a series of exchanges with a reader who calls himself "Mr. Robinson." What I've been doing is documenting the hints and clues he gave me.