For many admirers, a personally signed autograph is a treasured keepsake. For over fifty years I avidly accumulated these bits of personalized ephemera. It all began when my Father stopped our car on the way to my grandmother’s home in Independence, Missouri, one day. Dad spotted a strolling Harry Truman and the ex-president paused to sign an old envelope for me. He pleasantly autographed the scrap, patted me on the shoulder and strolled on with only two (as I remember) suited gentlemen tagging along behind him.
I accumulated hundreds of autographs over the next decades either gathered in person or by mail in most cases, and that gave me a sense of personal acquaintance with these notable men and women. As with many of my collections, I have given most of that one away in the past few years and now others can share that sense personal connection I had.
That brings me to perhaps the most famous autograph in the world of ragtime and syncopation, that of Scott Joplin’s. I came close in 1974 to the composer’s signature when John Stark III loaned the famous “Maple Leaf Rag” contract to us during the first Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia. In near disbelief, I found myself holding the original document signed by Joplin, Stark, and witness, R.A. Higdon. My effort to purchase the treasure was politely declined and Sedalia missed the opportunity to regain this important doc
