It Began in Sedalia

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The carnival tent on Fifth Street was as hot as an air balloon. The old men wore shiny shoes, and there was one woman in a dress with piano keys all over it. Ragtime wafted from pianos all over town—from the mainstage on Fifth; from somewhere up in the banisters of the Bothwell Hotel lobby; from the old waiting room of the Katy Depot, where the floors creaked and two red cabooses slept on the tracks outside. We ate our lunch in what used to be the ticket booth, listening to ragtime through the walls.

It was like taking a celebrity to their hometown, driving Papa Larry to this festival, which he helped start in 1974. He was a young man when he heard an entertainer named Max Morath making the piano bound with something called ragtime, and when he ran up to the performer after the show to ask:

“If we were to host a ragtime festival in Scott Joplin’s town, would you come?”

Max has always been a generous performer, and he agreed to play in Sedalia – the place where Joplin wrote the “Maple Leaf Rag” — though later, Max said he thought Papa was someone important.

He was right about that, in time.

When one of the performers discovered we were Mr. Melton’s grandchildren, he swept over in his pressed suit and shook our hands. He told us how important it was that we were there, and how important our grandfather was in bringing ragtime to Sedalia. It made us feel small, because this was a man who had performed all 53 piano works of Joplin by memory at Carnegie Hall.

But when the band started up with “The Entertainer” and the “Maple Leaf,” we did feel at home, because whether we realize it or not, ragtime has danced its way through our family’s bloodline. Sedalia is the cradle of ragtime, and where Papa began a ragtime festival, and it’s also where my dad’s story began.

Sedalia is where Papa and Nanny bumped around a tiny house with a new baby. It’s where Dad played wiffle ball with his friend Kevin on the corner of First and Rainbow. It’s where he and the pastor’s son burned crayons under the gymnasium stage after school, and where he skated in a red stocking-cap at Liberty Park in winter.

Between ragtime at the depot and ragtime in the street, Dad drove us to all these places that made him who he is— the hospital, the house, the fairgrounds, the park. We lingered under a shade tree at the park.

Papa once took a picture of my dad holding my grandma Karen’s hand at Liberty Park in winter, skates under his arm. So Dad walked down to the bank to restage the picture, not holding his mom’s hand, but with three grown kids beside him. We’re kids who grew up playing wiffle ball with the boys next door, skating in winter, and who’ve got music in our blood— so whether we realize it or not, we’re kids who have been made by this place.

For us, as for Scott Joplin, it began in Sedalia.

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