Looking Back: The Royal Playhouse

by Marcia Napier, Grain Valley Historical Society

     ​How old must this playbill be?  As was typical with most printed material in the early 1900s, i.e. grocery ads, and church announcements, there is a month and date, but no year.  Once again, I am left with a “wild guest” as to when this might have taken place.
     A quick look at the internet revealed that “The Old New Hampshire Home” is a melodrama in 3 acts written by Frank Dumont (1848-1919) and published in 1911. He was a popular American minstrel show performer, manager and playwright. Founded in 1889, the Epworth League, whose members made up the cast of the show, was a Methodist young adult association for people aged 18 to 35.
     If you read this column regularly, or you are a long time Grain Valley resident, you will recognize some of the names of the performers. When I was very young, Minnie Butler was the telephone operator in Grain Valley and lived in the back of the telephone office on Capelle Street next to the old Methodist Church. The McQuerry family (McQuerry Road) was very large by today’s standards. Maybe that is why there were three of them in the cast.  J. I. Belford was my great uncle. By 1920 he and his family had moved to Oklahoma.
     How old must this playbill be? I’m guessing around 105 to 110 years.  What’s your guess?

Photo credit: Grain Valley Historical Society