Meredith Willson would make frequent trips from his home in California to Iowa City to guest conduct The University of Iowa Hawkeye Marching Band. Here he is with the sousaphone section at the 1958 Homecoming game vs. #8 Northwestern on October 25, 1958. The #2 Hawkeyes won the game 6-0, securing their first-ever #1 UPI ranking after the game. The Hawkeyes went on to a very successful season, winning the 1959 Rose Bowl 38-12 over California.

This 1958 show featured many creative pictures in conjunction with the favorite musical selections from The Music Man: a fancy drill routine set to the popular tune “76 Trombones,” a horse-drawn wagon set to “Wells Fargo Wagon,” and even a rotating barber pole set to an acappella vocal rendition of “Lida Rose.” Meredith guest conducted the band in The Iowa Fight Song as well as his popular “May the Lord Bless You and Keep You” as a sort of benediction to the 1958 football season.

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Our Picture of the Week is an Our Iowa Heritage blog series that offers you a little bit of Iowa trivia from a large selection of stories on our website.

October 21, 1816 – My ggg grandfather – George F. Boller – arrives in America in 1816 – onboard the ship Ceres, which arrives in Philadelphia on this day.

George F. Boller, age 22, arrived in America, from Bavaria, in October, 1816, establishing our Boller family in the United States. Shown above is his application for naturalization (citizenship) filed in the Wayne County Court of Common Pleas on March 7, 1837. In that application George, age 43, is applying for U.S. citizenship and is stating that he came to America from the Kingdom of Bavaria in October of 1816. This application is an exciting find since it not only helps confirm George’s birth in November 1793, but it also gives us the time frame – October 1816 – when our Boller family first arrived in America! Other records indicate that George left Amsterdam on May 9, 1816, sailing on the ship Ceres, which arrived in Philadelphia on October 21, 1816.

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Renamed Kinnick Stadium in 1972, Iowa Stadium first opened in 1929, replacing Iowa Field. It was constructed in only seven months with groundbreaking and construction beginning in March, 1929. Workers labored around the clock using lights by night with horses and mules as the primary heavy-equipment movers. The first football game was played here on October 5th. The opponent is Monmouth College, with the Hawkeyes winning the game, 46–0.

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Our Picture of the Week is an Our Iowa Heritage blog series that offers you a little bit of Iowa trivia from a large selection of stories on our website.

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