Advertisement for the Community Church Of the Air

Harrisburg, PA: Community Church Of the Air, 1933. General wear. Letter folds.. This flyer is for three different musical groups: the Community Church of the Air, The Swalm Brothers Quartette, and the Boys Orchestra. However the flyer supplies little information beyond the performers names and the black and white printed photograph of each group. All three groups were scheduled to perform together on Tuesday, February 28, 1933 according to an article in the Harrisburg Telegraph on February 23, 1933. It is therefore likely that this flyer was simply given out at the performance as an advertisement for the three groups. Half of the flyer is promoting The Community Church of the Air, who seemed to be hosting the event. Harrisburg, PA is misspelled on the flyer as Harrisburgh, PA. Single page, one-sided. Measures 12" x 9" The Community Church of the Air was run by Rev. Roy O. Musser (1892-1981) and his first wife Clara Alberta Messerschmidt (1891-1953), and featured their three children in various parts: Iva Mae Musser Cook (1913-1996) as the alto singer, James Isaac Musser (1915-1970) as the Telephone Messenger, and Clara Ruthannah Musser Cook (1919-1995) as the soprano singer. The flyer provides information on the group's regular radio broadcasts which occurred on the second and fourth Sundays of the month from 3:30 to 4:30 PM on the radio station 249.9 WCOD. The Community Church of the Air shows up throughout the newspaper printings of the radio schedule between 1932-1933, but otherwise little information on the group can be found.
The Swalm Brothers Quartette (aka Swalm Brothers Quartet or the Swalm Brothers Male Quartet), features the brothers Roy Swalm (1901-1962), Edgar Swalm (1905-1957), Harold Swalm (1907-1969), and Roosevelt Swalm (1913-1990). They were popular in the 1930s in and around Harrisburg, but did continue performing into the 1940s. The last group, the Boy's Orchestra, was made up of five boys named Bill, Earl, Ivan, Clyde, and Albert, who played on guitars and banjos. Little else is known about them.