HENRY HANSON LOUDENBACK.
A review of the educational institutions of Atchison county would be incomplete without mention being made of the Loudenback School of Music. It is probable that no institution within the borders of the State of Kansas has had a more rapid, substantial and satisfactory growth than has the school under the direct supervision and management of Professor Loudenback. Established in 1912 as a school of piano and theory, enlarged in 1913, and incorporated in 1914, it is now authorized by the State to issue diplomas and certificates. It is rapidly building an enviable reputation for thoroughness of instruction, having graduated pupils who are conceded to be artists of recognized ability, and its importance as an educational institution of the highest grade is appreciated by the residents of its home city.
Henry Hanson Loudenback, founder and principal of the Loudenback School of Music, was born in a log cabin on his father’s farm in Hancock county, Indiana (the county seat, Greenfield, being the birthplace of James Whitcomb Riley), March 17, 1879, a son of Daniel and Margaret (McCray) Loudenback. His paternal grandparents were Henry Loudenback, a native of Pennsylvania, who came to Hancock county, Indiana, in 1836, one of the early pioneers of that section, and Elizabeth Brown, a native of Virginia, of German ancestry. Daniel Loudenback was born in Hancock county in 1846 and reared in a district which at that time was almost a wilderness. Splitting rails was an occupation which took up a good portion of his time. With his father, he settled on a farm about three miles from Charlottesville. This property they developed into a highly productive farm. Henry Loudenback died in 1905. Daniel engaged in business in Charlottesville in 1882, and in 1883 established a store at Wilkinson, which he conducted until his death, in 1888. He had married, when a young man, Margaret McCray, now a resident of Wilkinson, who survives him. They were the parents of two children: Henry Hanson, the subject of this review, and Allie Almeda Cook, of Wilkinson, Ind.
Henry Hanson Loudenback received his educational discipline in the public schools of his native State, and in 1898 came to Kansas and joined relatives who resided near Centralia. He became a teacher in the country schools, and later spent one year teaching music, going from place to place on horseback. From early childhood he had given evidence of remarkable musical ability, and had sung in public when only four years of age. After learning harmonies from his sister, he began to improvise his own melodies, and to harmonize them upon the reed organ. His first real lessons were taken when thirteen years of age. In the fall of 1901 he entered Campbell University at Holton, Kan., and was graduated from that institution, in music, in 1902. Since receiving his degree from Campbell College he has studied piano, harmony and composition with the best teachers of these subjects in America, his training being under such noted musicians as Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, of Chicago, the world’s greatest woman pianist; Mr. and Mrs. A. K. Virgil, of New York City; Peter C. Lutkin and Arne Oldberg, of Northwestern University, at Evanston; and Allen Spencer, of the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago. From 1902 until 1906 he was director of music in the Atchison County High School; from 1906 until 1910, professor of music in South Dakota State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts; from 1910 until 1912, director of piano, pipe organ, and musical theory at the Dakota Wesleyan University. In 1912 he founded the Loudenback School of Music at Atchison, and since its establishment has devoted his entire time to its management and the teaching of piano and musical theory. He is an accredited teacher of piano and theory by the Kansas State Music Teachers’ Association, and was a member of the executive committee of that organization which issued certificates to accredited teachers in December, 1914, and was appointed a member of the committee on piano standards for 1915, and in December, 1910, was elected vice-president of that association, and was appointed a member of the special accrediting committee. He has appeared twice as piano soloist with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and numbers among his friends many of the great musicians of the present day.
Professor Loudenback married on June 28, 1900, Miss Flora Donald, a daughter of George and Christy (Black) Donald, of Centralia, Kan. Her father was an early settler and prominent farmer.
Professor and Mrs. Loudenback are the parents of the following children: George Daniel, born November 23, 1901; Allie Mae, born March 12, 1904; Ramona Lolita, born July 25, 1905; Henry, born August 17, 1907; and Donald, born July 19, 1909. The children have inherited their father’s love of music and show talent.