By the time of the 1918 draft he was a well-established salesman for Osborne. Frank and Lydia soon had a daughter, June, named for her birth month of June, 1915. Around 1913 he decided on a change of pace that still involved the publishing business, and he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he started working with the Osborne Company, who produced advertising calendars for various trades. Then in mid-1911 Wooster was married to Finnish immigrant Saimi Lydia Kirnamsen. He and Olive divorced if they were indeed married. As no record of their union was found, it may have been a domestic cohabitation situation, but a short term one as they were clearly separated before even a year was up. He showed as having been recently married to Olive "Ollie" Wooster, and lived in a boarding house, making his situation seem even more desperate. The collection agency not having worked out, Wooster was found in the 1910 census working as a sole cutter in a shoe factory. Even after selling off his assets to Stark and others, he ended up having to work hard to get out of debt. Universal Rag found its way onto at least a couple of piano rolls, giving the Wooster name a good boost, but by now it was too late.Ī 1908 listing in the Gould's directory of Saint Louis showed that Frank was now running the Wooster Collection Company at his old digs in the Commonwealth Trust Building, with the promise of "Nothing Impossible." There is some irony to this as it is likely that Frank tallied up quite a debt in his aborted foray into big time publishing. Frank's final known composition, Blue Jay Rag went to John Stark for publication, selling moderately well. Before he left, Wooster sold off his remaining stock to music stores and his plates and catalog rights to dominant publisher Remick.
However, no composers were making their way to his door, and that address was occupied by another concern by early 1908, so it is unlikely that he lasted any more than four to six months in New York. From this location Frank was able to get off another printing of Black Cat Rag and a couple of other pieces in his small catalog. 23rd Street, and was listed as a publisher in a special edition of the The Music Trade Review in late 1907. Frank set up near Tin Pan Alley at 127 E. Even after five years in New York with moderate success pushing a limited scope of products, John Stark had retreated back to St.
#Black cat rag player piano plus#
Remick, Shapiro and Harry Von Tilzer, it was hard to get a foothold without good product and good advertising, plus some hefty investment.
In the substantial shadow of firms like Jerome H. Louis, funded largely by Black Cat Rag and a couple of recordings of his Universal Rag, Frank tried to establish himself in Manhattan, which at that time was a brutal environment for the independent publishers. There is no way to know if Frank was following the lead of the elder publisher John Stark, who took off for New York City in late 1905. In any case, the rag was the first of Wooster's publications that warranted a second, then third printing, and even distribution far beyond St. Black Cat Rag is not particularly friendly to many players in the A section since it involves a lot of moving octave work, but the effect is pretty stunning once a player gets it up to speed. It is not clear who contributed what to this piece, but it was either the music or the cover that helped it to take off.
Then, of course, there was the Black Cat Rag co-composed with 18-year-old Ethyl B. Another associate of Wooster was Clarence Edmunds from Chicago, whose only known songs were those written with Frank as the lyricist. Louis real-estate, dying in 1953 with a good-sized fortune. Ilgenfritz went on to be a very competent composer in his own right, albeit not in the ragtime genre, having written several waltzes and two operas. Louis youth named McNair Ilgenfritz who had written a pair of waltzes. Among those was another Missouri native, Max Wilkins, with whom he wrote Brownie Rag, and an 18-year-old St.
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