Embedded Files
Exhibition, Eunomian Literary Society of Clay Seminary, July 10-11, 1862.
Music Teacher
Music Teacher
Cordelia Green Drumm graduated at age 16 from Clay Seminary and became a young professional, teaching music by the age of 23. She was one of two Clay Seminary students that later became teachers there. Julia Lincoln Hurt was the other. Both were from Clay County and later in life resided in Kansas City, Missouri. Cordelia had noted in a book that she began teaching music in Professor Hughes' school on October 5, 1868. It is not clear if she was teaching somewhere else prior.
Although several young men called on her, asked if she was engaged, and even warned her about other men, she chose to remain unmarried until 1886. The letters written to Cordelia show the interests of these men, the esteem she was held in by suitors, friends, and relatives. The fact that Cordelia chose to remain single for many years proves she was able to take care of herself as an educated, professional woman.
Program page 1, Annual Concert by the Music Class, Woodland College, May 27, 1870.
Julie Roy Jeffrey in Frontier Women: "Civilizing" the West? 1840-1880 writes about the diverse frontier experiences white woman found themselves in during the nineteenth century. The definition of a woman’s place was important, but there were new and expanding standards for middle class female behavior. Glenda Riley in The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains writes, “Those who held paid employment before, in addition to, or in place of marriage were typically limited to such ‘acceptable’ female occupations as milliners, shop clerks, domestic servants, teachers, and nursemaids.” (page 2) In 1870, the census listed Cordelia Green as a music teacher in Liberty, and the Clay County Archives has an 1875 petition from Clay County Circuit Court where Cordelia Green is listed as a plaintiff in a dispute over a piano. She was clearly not afraid to assert her rights with a work-related grievance.
Program page 2, note Cordelia listed on this page.
Wife, Socialite, Traveler & Philanthropist
Wife, Socialite, Traveler & Philanthropist
There is some mystery as to how Cordelia Green met Andrew Drumm. Andrew Drumm had gone to California in 1849 with the Gold Rush by way of Panama and then took a steamer to San Francisco. He mined gold for twenty years and then turned to the cattle business where he made most of his fortune. He came to Kansas City, Missouri, entered the livestock commission business, and had a prominent role in the stockyard district.
Andrew Drumm was fifty eight and Cordelia Green was forty when they were married in Liberty on February 17, 1886. Their marriage was described as happy and they were inseparable until his death in 1918. After their marriage, Cordelia was part of the highest levels of Kansas City society and her name appeared in numerous Sunday issues of the Kansas City Star as someone who had received invitations to receptions. Beginning in 1889, Cordelia began renting a storage space in Liberty with her keepsakes from Clay Seminary and her youth. Her mom, Mary, lived with them for four years at the Midland Hotel. After her death, they traveled to Mexico and Europe.
Wedding Announcement from the Kansas City Times, February 19, 1886.
Brain Burnes writes in The Andrew Drumm Legacy: A Cattleman’s Promise to Children that the Drumms had a lavish lifestyle living at the Midland Hotel and later the Washington Hotel, both leading hotels in that era in Kansas City. In 1909, they bought a house on Armour Boulevard which had previously been owned by the founder of the Kansas City Southern Railway.
In Andrew Drumm’s later years, his dream was to create a place where disadvantaged boys could have freedom and receive a practical education. Together the Drumms traveled to Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia to study similar institutions. The two letters Cordelia wrote her mother that are part of the Clay County Archives collection were written on these trips. In 1912, Drumm bought land where orphaned boys could be cared for and educated.
Andrew Drumm (Image found https://www.drummforkids.org/who-we-are/our-history/)
Andrew Drumm died in Texas after getting bronchitis while attending a convention of Texas cattle ranchers in 1919. As usual, Cordelia was with him. At his death, his estate was estimated to be worth close to $2 million. Cordelia was given $150,000 with an annual income of $10,000, leaving nearly $1.8 million. Most of this remaining money went to establishing Drumm Farm where Drumm wrote in his will boys would not have to wear uniforms, could learn useful trades, and would not feel that they were the objects of dependence. Cordelia spent her years after Drumm’s death working with Drumm Farm Center for Children.
Some claim Andrew Drumm became passionate about disadvantaged boys after witnessing how Kansas City’s newsboys lived in an outdoor alley, sleeping in ash boxes. Supposedly, he went home and told Cordelia that he was going to do what he could to remedy that. With the Drumms marrying late in life, they never had children of their own which possibly could have also influenced their joint passion for creating a home for orphans. Cordelia’s educational experiences at Clay Seminary as a teacher could have influenced them, particularly her. This type of philanthropic work was also typical of the Progressive Era that the Drumms lived in.
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