Music: the Anti-Drug

My great-grandfather, Bandmaster G. Oliver Riggs, ran his own anti-smoking campaign decades before people in the United States began to understand and acknowledge the harmful health effects of using tobacco.  Riggs not only warned his own two boys, Ronald and Percy, about the evils of smoking, he passed on this message to all the young men he directed during his lengthy career.

I'd heard this through other sources, but it was reinforced Saturday when I had the pleasure of interviewing Howard J. Pramann by phone from his home in Duluth.  Pramann, a 91-year-old retired electrical engineer, played cornet in the St. Cloud Municipal Boys' band from age 10 until he graduated from St. Cloud Technical High School in 1936.

He said Riggs gave anti-smoking lectures at almost every weekly band practice.

"As a result of all his lectures, I never did smoke my whole life," said Pramann, who was born in 1918.  "He was ahead of his time."

Riggs' aversion to smoking was due to the influence of his own father, Jasper, a Civil War veteran who used tobacco heavily but despised the habit.  There's more to this story – it also involves an heirloom violin – but I'll explain it in a future post.

Back to Pramann: I won't claim that abstaining from smoking is the reason he is such an active, energetic senior (he still takes classes at the University of Minnesota Duluth for the fun of learning).  But I think it's pretty safe to say that his music experiences as a young man enriched his life in immeasurable ways.

Pramann started his adventures in music at the piano bench, at age 8 or 9, under the tutelage of my great-grandmother Islea, G. Oliver's wife.  After Pramann joined the boys' band, he also got to know my grandfather Ronald and his brother Percy because they occasionally helped direct the band.

What did Pramann enjoy about playing in the St. Cloud Boys' band?  He learned a lot of different music, by a variety of composers.  The band put on a weekly parade in the summer, marching and playing through different residential areas.  The band also traveled to other cities for conventions or special events, like in 1934, when they traveled to St. Paul to perform for a live National Junior Chamber of Commerce radio program broadcast nationwide on the NBC blue network.  Minnesota Gov. Floyd Olson, who delivered a speech during the show, praised the St. Cloud group as "the best boys band in the United States."

Pramann recalled, "He spoke so long we didn't get much of a chance to play."

Pramann played cornet for two years in the St. John's University band, and for one year at the University of Minnesota, before giving it up to focus on his studies.  As he explained to Riggs after quitting the U of MN band, "I figured I wasn't learning anything there compared to what I did in the St. Cloud Band."