Harry L. Alford (1875-1939) - - The REAL Alford

Harry LaForest Alford was born August 3, 1875, in Hudson, Michigan. When he was two his family moved to the nearby village of Blissfield. As a child, Harry was active in musical activities. He taught himself how to play the trombone, piano, and organ, as well as how to compose and arrange music.
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He first made his living as a church organist at the age of 16. Back then, if a person had musical talent, he worked rather than trying to learn more about music in a university or conservatory. Harry was a very hard worker. After working for a long time as a traveling trombonist, he realized he lacked musical knowledge, which confounded his good skill. He took classes at the Dana Musical Institute in Warren, Ohio (now part of Youngstown State University) and went back to traveling around with bands.
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At age 28, he got fed up with traveling and moved to Chicago, where he had a music studio. He made a living by renting out space and arranging music. No one had ever made a full time living arranging music at this time. However, the music he arranged for the pit orchestra of shows by entertainer Eva Tanguay (1878-1947) made him very busy as many theater managers loved his arrangements and he was able to make a living by doing orchestra arrangements. He was famous for his quirky music.
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In the early 1920s his firm, The Harry L. Alford Arranging Studios moved into the sixth floor of the State-Lake Theater Building in Chicago. It continued until a year after his death.
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Harry wrote his first march at the age of 14 for a brass band that was visiting Blissfield. The director of the town band in the city got wind of this and had Harry write marches for that group. He decided that he would write band music, especially marches, whenever he had the time.
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Dr. A.A. Harding director of bands at the University of Chicago in Champaign-Urbana, commissioned Harry to write several half time projects for the Marching Illini. One of those was a march setting of the popular song, "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" in 1919. That arrangement is still popular with bands today. He composed over 100 pieces for band, most of them marches.
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Harry was the band director of the Templar Band of the Siloam Commandery in Chicago from 1927 until his death.
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In 1902, Harry married Lucille Teetzel. They had two children, Harold and Ruth (Harry's name was NOT a diminutive of Harold... In naming his son Harold LaForest Alford, he told his friends that he gave him the name everyone thought Harry had). Harry was very good friends with John Philip Sousa and Merle Evans. When Sousa would come over to have supper, Lucille refused to serve him until he took off his white gloves. Lucille passed away January 30, 1938, after some health problems she had for some time.
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Harry died suddenly on March 4, 1939, at his home in Chicago.

Census records, and not Internet rumors, were used to get Harry's correct birthday. The problem here was that two major Chicago newspapers published his obituary with the wrong birth year (1879). While the papers retracted their errors, the damage is still happening as those obituaries are used to prove Harry's birthdate. Rumor years vary from 1872 to 1883.