Earthquake Ethel's Roadhouse Jazz Band
Story
furnished
by
Clarence
Crocker
Ethel C. Quinn Smith, who was
born in Glendale, S.C. in May 1926, and still has many family ties
including a half brother in the community, organized a Dixie jazz band
known as “Earthquake Ethel’s Roadhouse Jazz Band” some ten years ago in
Oregon where she now lives. Playing New Orleans's style jazz, the band
consisting of eight members play banjos, tubas, drum, reed, cornet,
trombone and also does vocals, has become quite popular over the past
few years and are engaged from time to time on Alaskan Cruise
Ships.
Ethel
also plays the banjo in
another local band called “The Rose City Banjoliers”. Some 14 members
play the banjo, one plays the tuba, one the piano and four ladies play
the washboard.
Ethel Conelia Quinn Smith,
the daughter of Earnest Daniel and Eva Nellie Crossley Quinn of
Glendale, married David Vern Smith in Oregon and they became the
parents of five children; Wayne, from David’s first marriage, Steven,
David Jr. Kenneth, and Daniel Smith. Their son, Wayne, was killed in
battle in Vietnam in 1970. David Vern Smith died on September 17,
1996.
Ethel’s grandparents, Aaron
and Nancy Mary Lindsey Crossley, were the parents of eleven children,
all of Glendale. In e-mail which I received from her, Ethel related how
well she remembered the times she played on bales of cotton on her
grandparent’s porch which had been picked from the cotton patch on
their farm.
Ethel’s father, Earnest
Daniel Quinn, the son of Anderson Daniel and Zell Vandiver Quinn was
born in Glendale in May of 1896.He was first married to Rosa May
Crossley. They were the parents of four children; Ruth May, Robert Lee,
James (J.C.)Crossley and Eugene(Gene)Quinn. (Referenced
in
Glendale
Palmetto Ramblers story). Rosa May died from acute appendicitis at
the
age of 21 in 1921.
After the death of Rosa May,
Ernest married her sister Eva Nellie Crossley, born April 6, 1905. They
became the parents of seven children; Ethel Conelia, Nellie Margaret,
Maybell, Mildred Lavina, Ernest Jr., Elsie May and Daniel Arthur Quinn.
Eva Nellie Crossley Quinn died February 15, 1998.
Due to the health of her
father, the family had moved to Glencullen, Oregon in 1930 where Ethel
remains. Her father, a veteran of WW2, died on December 28, 1986. Ethel
was the granddaughter of two prominent Glendale families of the late
1800’s and early 1900’s.
We are grateful to Ethel for
supplying the material for this article.
