Music by the Lake at Glenwood, Minnesota

It's summertime. The hats are white, the grass is up, and there's no ice on the lake. What could they be watching?








The children watch too, divided into separate clumps of boys and girls.








Some wish that they were on stage too. Then they could wear a different cap.








What has captured everyone's attention? It is a children's band concert with nearly 30 young musicians all dressed in white and wearing sailor hats (with a few adult ringers to play the solos.)








They are playing their music in the band shell by Lake Minnewaska in Glenwood, MN. Civic structures like this were once very common all across America as summertime concerts were regular events for small towns like Glenwood, which had a population of only 2,220 in 1930. Constructed of concrete and brick, the design produced very efficient acoustics that easily projected sound without the need for electronic amplification. This band shell was built in 1925 (we can spot the date marker on the right, partly hidden by the small tree) and it remains a feature of Glenwood's lakeside park where the sound of school bands may still be heard across the lake.  


What makes this a special photo postcard is that Glenwood, MN was the hometown of my grandfather, Wallace Robert Dobbin. He was born there in 1906 but by the late 1920s or 30s when this school band photo was taken, he had made a new life far away in Maryland where he worked at the Union rail station in Washington, D.C.

Of course Glenwood then changed from a hometown to a holiday destination. And in the summer of 1935 he took his wife - my grandmother, and their 5 year old daughter - my mother, for a trip to meet his extended family relations in Glenwood.  I believe it was their first trip to Minnesota and their first look at  Lake Minnewaska.  

They got a little wet.





On the left is my great grandfather William Dobbin, my mother Barbara Dobbin, my grandmother Blanche Dobbin, and my grandfather Wally Dobbin.     It is a moment of pure delight.