Just think that today that this type of activity is off-limits to so many of our youth.
-NW

Viola Smith, trailblazing female drummer, dies at 107
Piet Levy
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
reposted on USA Today
Oct 26, 2020

[snip]

In the 1930s, Viola Smith was billed as the “world's fastest girl drummer,” and she went on to see other female drummers follow her trailblazing path over the next nine decades.

A native of Mount Calvary, Wisconsin, near Fond Du Lac, died Oct. 21 in her sleep at her home in Costa Mesa, California, according to The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. Her 108th birthday would have been next month.

“I am very, very thankful that I’m accepted as a girl drummer,” Smith said in a video interview with Tom Tom Magazine in 2012. “One time there was no such thing.”

Smith got her start in the late 20s playing in her family band, the Schmitz Sisters Family Orchestra, with five older sisters.

“(My sisters) had the rest of the instruments, and by the time there was a sixth one added to the family orchestra, my dad decided it should be drums which was great for me. What better instrument to play than the drums,” Smith told Tom Tom.

“It was all practice, practice, practice in my childhood,” Smith said. “Every school vacation, we practiced two hours a day. Dad say we cannot waste children’s energies on anything but music, music, music.”

The practice paid off, with the family orchestra playing gigs around the region before Smith and a sister formed the Coquettes, an all-female orchestra, in 1938. They traveled the country for four years; on stage, Smith dazzled audiences from behind a massive set that included two double bass drums.

Frances Carroll & Her Coquettes Featuring Drummer Viola Smith
verycoolsound
Sep 17, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5c_XZaArH4