Runnels Co., TX - Newspaper - Winters Band *********************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: "Jan PittardD" Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgenwebarchives.org *********************************************** Abilene Paper, April 25, 1968 Marched Down Dirt Streets Winters Band was Once Famous By Charlsie POE, Reporter-News Correspondent … The only living charter member, Mrs. CORDILL says that her brother, Charles TIPTON, known as Charlie, had played in a band at Denton and thought that Winters had to have a band, so he organized one. He also thought that they should have uniforms. First uniforms were middy blouses, and dark panks, skirt for her, of course. When Charlie called for the band members to be ready for their first formal appearance, the bass player turned up in a lawn blouse with drawstring and sailor collar trimmed in embroidered ruffle (in a letter she states that it was LOLLAR who did that.) They learned to march down the road, which is now Main Street, to the tune of “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”. The road was so rough that it was hard to march and play at the same time. Charlie was about the only one who could manage both. Although the date on the drum says 1901, Mrs. CORDILL says that Charlie actually got the first group together in 1899. The names she recalls were Ben SPILL, Albert SPILL, George LOLLAR, Will MEEK, Wilder HUNTER, Will BURK, Mitchell OVERBY, Will ERNST, Fritz ERNST, Will PIERCE, George MURRAY and a Mr. CREWS. In addition to the brass band there was a string band composed of ‘four of us’ says Mrs. CORDILL. ‘Dr. J. H. GRANT, who was also my brother, played the violin. I played the mandolin, Charlie the guitar and Mitchell OVERBY the banjo. We furnished music for all the little entertainment around and had a good time doing it. “Turkey in the Straw was one of our numbers that I remember.” Mr.s CORDILL recalls playing for a picnic at Fort Chadbourne. And once the band drove over to Crews in the band wagon to put on a show, but when they got there the school building was dark and no crowd, so they drove home again. (repeat of information from the 1956 article… Charlie continued to direct the band for 15 years, or longer, until he moved to Corpus Christi. Dr. GRANT (J.H.) had moved to Ballinger in 1904, and to Corpus in 1922. During the flood, Charlie lost everything he had. He and his family spent the night in Dr. GRANT’s upstairs office. He later moved to Austin where he and his wife both died. She was the former Mattie CURRY, a Winters girl. Their daughter, Mrs. Katherine GRAY lives in Austin. (They had two other daughters, Josephine, and Ruth Olivia, Kat was the youngest, Jo, the oldest. Olivia married John Carlton PITTARD sometime before 1931, and gave birth to my father Carlton Duwain PITTARD December 03,1931. ‘We’ve kept up the music in our family,’ says Mr.s CORDILL. ‘I have an old fashioned pump organ and a chord organ that I try to play. My son, Bill, played in the CHRISTY Brothers circus band for two years, 1927-1928.’ Bill is now employed by the Ballinger Post Office. Mrs. CORDILL’s husband was a jeweler in Ballenger for 50 years and died in 1950. There are two daughters, Mrs. James C. PARISH of Ballinger and Mrs. O.H. LAYTON of Fort Worth. Mrs. CORDILL was born in Grandview in 1878, the youngest of seven children. Her father died when she was four years old and the family moved to Denton where she grew up and attended school. The family moved to Ballinger in 1895 and her mother moved to Winters in 1899 to be near Dr. GRANT who had come to Winters in 1894.