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Retired
Harmony
Halls
1943 Michigan/Pioneer District Champs
1944 International Champions
Bob Hazenberg- Lead (left)
Ed Gaikema- Tenor (top)
Ray "Curley" Hall- Bari (right)
Gordon Hall- Bass (bottom)
Bob Hazenberg- Lead
Ed Gaikema- Tenor
Ray "Curley" Hall- Bari
Gordon Hall- Bass
Replacement Members:
(from the 1942 Hall Brothers)
Tenor: Frank Clark
Tenor: John "Slim" Peterson
Lead: Harold Hall
The members have all passed as follows...
Ed Gaikema 27-Jul-91
Bob Hazenberg 01-Apr-68
Ray "Curley" Hall 20-Sep-63
Gordon Hall 25-Apr-94
Per the AIC website...
http://www.aicgold.com/quartet-champions/
93-1944-the-harmony-halls.html
The Harmony Halls came from a background of quartet singing that dated
back two generations. Grandpa Hall sang bass in a quartet during
Abraham Lincoln's presidency. Pop Hall, his son, was a choir and
quartet singer at the turn of the century and when O. C. Cash founded
the Society it was only natural that some of the six Hall brothers
would become barbershoppers.
Harold, Ray, and Gordon Hall, singing lead, bari, and bass
respectively, formed the Hall Brothers quartet with tenor John "Slim"
Peterson. At the 1942 national contest in Grand Rapids, the quartet
made the finals with Frank Clark as tenor.
In March of 1943 the quartet was reorganized; Ray, who was known among
barbershoppers as "Curley", and Gordon Hall sang with Bob Hazenberg,
lead, and Ed Gaikema, tenor. That year, the Harmony Halls placed fifth.
During a year of intensive work, they became Michigan champions the
following spring, then entered the international contest in Detroit and
won first place.
old link
(http://www.aicgold.com/
History-ChampDetails.asp?WinningYear=1944)
-END-
Preservation; February 2012 Vol 3, No. 1, page 12
Harmony Halls Scrapbook Discovered
A treasure of history and memories found
http://greatlakeschorus.org/retired/harmonyhalls/
Preservation_February_2012_Final.pdf#page=12
Preservation is our goal and recently we took delivery of an impressive
scrapbook with hundreds of clippings and photos as well as two
one-of-a-kind historical items. Needless to say our archives now
include MUCH more history of one of our early champions.
The quartet is the Harmony Halls and they were from Grand Rapids,
Michigan and are our 1944 International Quartet Champions. The winning
quartet consisted of Ed Gaikema (Tenor), Bob Hazenberg (Lead), and
brothers Ray “Curley” Hall (Baritone), and Gordon Hall
(Bass).
The quartet remained active up to 1963 and the death of Ray Hall at the
age of 61. Bob Hazenberg died at 58 in 1968. Ed Gaikema died at 85 in
1991 and Gordon Hall died a few years later (1994). He was 84.
Any connection to the family members of this champion had been lost
long ago. Thanks to the extensive research of Bob Sutton we were able
to find Curley's daughter, Barbara Landstra. A meeting was set up
between Barbara and long-time Grand Rapids barbershopper Mike
O'Donnell.
They talked and she showed him her scrap book stuffed with quartet
photos, newspaper clippings and show programs. She also brought along a
set of Harmony Hall 78rpm records, a custom “barber pole”
belt buckle, her Uncle Gordon’s AIC name badge, his membership
certificate signed by OC Cash and even the 1940s Pitch Pipe they used.
Also most impressive were Gordon’s two medals – His 4th
place medal from 1943 and his GOLD MEDAL from 1944.
Barbara was excited that someone showed an interest in her father and
uncle and their barbershop history. She generously donated all these
items to the Society Historical Archives to preserve their memory.
Prior to shipping this memorabilia, Mike took it to a Grand Rapids
chapter meeting. Many of the members had never even heard of the
quartet, even though they came from their own chapter. Many members
took the opportunity to take cell phone pictures with them posing with
the 1944 gold medal.
We immediately scanned the entire collection and, on the
quartet’s behalf, donated the images to the Grand Rapids Public
Library care of local history librarian Tim Gleisner.
The extra set of 78s were passed on to the Pioneer District historian,
John Baker.
All in all, it was a successful project. We got to know some of the
family, pass on some historical information, and preserve the memories
of our pioneers.
-END-
Preservation; February 2012 Vol 3, No. 1, page 16
Finding Lost Champions (excerpt)
Ancestral Research of Our Legends
http://greatlakeschorus.org/retired/harmonyhalls/
Preservation_February_2012_Final.pdf#page=16
(The Feb 2012 Preservation magazine page 17 mistakenly has this photo
labeled as Curley Hall when it is actually Gordon Hall, a correction is
in the next Preservation issue.)
With
similar stories along the way, by this past May, the only
remaining champion on my list was Raymond “Curley” Hall of
the 1944 Harmony Halls. Curley (properly spelled with the
“e”) should have been easy.
He had many siblings, including quartet brother Gordon, and much of the
family had always been in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Plus, I had my good
friend and former Society judge Mike O'Donnell living right there in
Grand Rapids to help run down leads for me. Moreover, there was a whole
family tree sitting on Ancestry.com for the Halls.
But no, it is never so simple. For one thing, the family tree at
Ancestry.com rather explicitly stated that Curley Hall - and it was
obviously “our” Raymond W. Hall they were citing - was born
in China (!) in 1902.
The “1902” part jibed with the other data I had, as did the
fact that the other siblings in the family tree were all shown as being
born in Grand Rapids and had the right first names for Curley's family,
but ... China? I knew from Census records that their father, Herbert
Hall, was not a missionary, and there was not a prayer (no pun
intended) of finding a birth certificate from China. So I had to start
chasing the family tree a little harder.
Family trees on Ancestry.com typically do not give the names of living
descendants, just last names and dates of birth, for privacy purposes.
I knew, for example, that Curley had a daughter who had married a man
named Robert Dryden, but he was deceased, the daughter had also died in
Nevada in 2007, and after a number of strange phone calls by me to
Grand Rapids, I deduced that no Drydens there had any connection to the
Halls. Were there other children? I had no idea.
After two months of research when I could spare time, I did learn that
Curley's wife was born Elizabeth Cebelak, and I obtained their marriage
certificate, showing that Elizabeth was born in 1900. Now, you'd think
“Cebelak” would be an uncommon enough name that perhaps I
could easily find a relative in Grand Rapids, and you'd be sort of
correct. The first Cebelak I pulled out of the White Pages and called
had never heard of an Elizabeth born in 1900, but he said “I'm
only 32 - call my uncle Bob Cebelak, he's 60 and knows that sort of
stuff”, but he didn't have a phone number for his uncle.
So I Googled away and found a “Bob Cebelak” who was a
professor at a college in Grand Rapids, and emailed him.
If this quest weren't interesting enough, Professor Bob emailed me back
promptly. No, he said, he had no knowledge of an Elizabeth Cebelak. But
he explained that there are actually two big families of Cebelaks in
Grand Rapids and, while they are completely unrelated, they all attend
the same church and know each other well. Professor Bob's father and
sister were still alive, he said, and he would ask his dad if he had
any knowledge of Elizabeth or if they were “that” family.
Next morning Bob emailed me back again, with an “Are you ready
for this” lead. Although Bob was indeed from the
“other” family, his dad actually KNEW Curley and Elizabeth
- Curley and Bob's grandfather worked together at Standard Oil, and
Bob's dad knew of the quartet very well. And not only did he know of
Curley's surviving daughter Barbara (Landstra), and not only did she
live in Grand Rapids, Bob's own Aunt Virginia was going to be dining
with Curley's daughter that week!
Word came back that Barbara was willing to entertain a call from me,
and we spoke a few days later. Much like when I was talking with Don
Marrese, I was just flabbergasted to be on the phone listening to
stories of a champion quartet of the 1940s that few of us knew much
about. I asked Barbara about helping us, and she was willing to speak
with Grady about things she might have that she was willing to have
copied or donate. Mike O'Donnell, my friend in Grand Rapids, became a
local go-between, and the rest is history (see more in different issues
of PRESERVATION).
Of course, Barbara was able to confirm that her Dad, Curley, had been
indeed born in Grand Rapids, not China, on June 16, 1902, and our
records of gold medalists could finally be completed. Unfortunately,
some items such as Curley's gold medal were lost in moves in the
intervening years (though we did obtain brother Gordon's gold medal as
noted in the earlier article in this issue), but some wonderful items
were saved - including a long letter Curley wrote home to his family
from the quartet's 1950 three-month tour of European military
installations.
This effort to find a few birth dates has led not only to some great
artifacts, but to some stories which otherwise would doubtlessly have
been lost with the children of our early gold medalists. When
“Preservation” is not only in our Society name, but the
objective of our humble committee, it's a privilege to have saved even
a few stories and items we would never have known existed.
-END-
A Beaudin (Pontiac Chapter) caricature
The Feb 2012 Preservation magazine page 17 mistakenly has this photo
labeled as Curley Hall when it is actually Gordon Hall, a correction is
in the next Preservation issue.
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