Biography - Ella D. Cravens
MRS. F. S. CRAVENS (ELLA DENT CRAVENS) is the proprietor of the Cravens
School of Music at Emporia, and for a number of years has been one of the
leaders in musical circles of that city. She is a native of Kansas and one of
the notable women whom this Sunflower commonwealth has produced.
The daughter of a pioneer citizen of Manhattan, where she was born in February,
1866, she exhibited unusual musical talents when a girl, and by careful training
and study both in America and abroad has long enjoyed a high position both as an
individual artist and as a successful teacher. Her maiden name is Etta Dent.
After attending the public schools of Manhattan she went back to the old home of
her family at Galesburg, Illinois, was a student in the high school there and
also spent one year in the Musical Conservatory of Knox College.
She was married at Manhattan to S. F. Cravens, who was born in Kearney,
Missouri, and died at Phoenix, Arizona, in 1906. He was a musical director and
teacher. Mr. and Mrs. Cravens taught music in Kansas City, Missouri, later
established the Cravens School of Music at Topeka, and from there went to
Denver, Colorado, where they were directors of music in the Denver University.
Subsequently they were again in Kansas as directors of the Conservatory of Music
of Ottawa University, and from there removed to Phoenix, Arizona. Mr. Cravens,
on account of ill health, was no longer able to keep up the active work of his
profession, and Mrs. Cravens assumed all the burden of teaching while there.
After the death of her husband she returned to Kansas, and in 1908 located in
Emporia. For seven years she was director of the musical department of the
College of Emporia.
Then in 1915 she organized the Cravens School of Music, which has its studio at
523 Merchant Street. On account of the prestige associated with her name because
of her successful work at Emporia and elsewhere this school has grown rapidly
and at the end of the first year has over 100 pupils. It is one of the best
schools in the state for broad and thorough musical instruction. One feature of
its management are monthly recitals by the pupils, and these recitals have
always attracted large audiences and the programs are arranged not only to
furnish experience for the pupils in solo and ensemble work, but also as an
exhibition of many of the best things written in music, including both
instrumental and vocal numbers. Mrs. Cravens also has a chorus for her students
and a music study club.
At all the places where she has taught Mrs. Cravens has directed a church choir,
and is now director of the choir in the Christian Church at Emporia. She is
herself a member of the Presbyterian Church, and her wide range of interests is
shown by the fact that she is president of the Women's Bible Class and president
of the Research Club, one of the best known literary clubs of Emporia. She is a
member of the program committee of the Fortnightly Music Club. The Emporia
Women's Chorus, of which she is the director, sang the "Highwayman" in the music
festival at Emporia in April, 1916, this festival being an annual event of
interest, not only to Emporia but to a wide territory around the city.
Mrs. Cravens has constantly kept up with the best in music, and has not only had
thorough training at home, but in 1892 she went to London and studied with
Shakespeare and Beringer, two of the ablest teachers of the time, and she again
went to London in 1910 for further instruction. Mrs. Cravens' only child,
Francis, died at the age of seven months.
Her father, William Dent, was born in Kent, Westmoreland, England, in 1838. He
came to America when a young man, lived for some years in Brantford, Canada,
afterwards at Monmouth, Illinois, where he married, and in 1865 came to Kansas
and became one of the pioneers at Manhattan, where he lived until his death in
1880. He was a merchant all his active years. After coming to the United States
he was a republican, and at one time served as mayor of Manhattan. He was also
active in the Baptist Church and one of its deacons.
Mrs. Cravens' mother, whose maiden name was Lucinda Harding, represented an old
English family in this country. Her grandfather, Stephen Harding, was an early
settler in Yates County, New York. A miller, he one day went to his mill and
nothing was ever heard of him afterwards, and it is not known whether his
disappearance was due to his being murdered by the Indians, who were then
plentiful and hostile, or whether it could be accounted for on some other
grounds.
Jones Harding, the maternal grandfather of Mrs. Cravens, was born December 12,
1799, in New York State, was reared and married at Rushville in Yates County,
and died in Galesburg, Illinois, in August, 1896. In 1837 he went to Ypsilanti,
Michigan, when that part of Southern Michigan was a sparsely settled wilderness.
Six months later his family came on in a prairie schooner. One of the family on
this migration was Lucinda Harding, mother of Mrs. Cravens. Later Jones Harding
moved to Illinois and acquired a tract of school lands belonging to Knox College
at Galesburg. He was not only a farmer but also a contractor in stone and brick
masonry. In 1849 he went out to California, where he remained 2 1/2 years, and
gained some profits as a prospector and miner. He was much interested in the
Congregational Church and politically was a whig and afterwards a republican.
Jones Harding married Mary Angeline Rowley, who was born in New York State in
1807 and died in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1849. Their six children were: Ann
Elizabeth, who married Levant Dilley, who for thirty-five years was in the
machine shops of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad at Galesburg, where
both he and his wife died; Mary Angeline, who married M. P. De Long, and both
died on their farm three miles from Galesburg; Roderick Rowley, who is a veteran
soldier of the Civil war and now resides at Port Angeles, Washington, where at
one time he was postmaster; Lucinda, mother of Mrs. Cravens; Antoinette, who
married R. C. Walter, and both died at Amorita, Oklahoma, where they
homesteaded; and Albert N., who for many years was an engineer of the Wabash
Railroad and died at Moberly, Missouri. Lucinda Harding, mother of Mrs. Cravens,
was born October 20, 1838, at Rushville, Yates County, New York, was educated in
Knox College at Galesburg, and is still living at the age of seventy-eight, with
her daughter in Emporia. She is a member of the Baptist Church.
William and Lucinda Dent had three children: Ella, who was born at Monmouth,
Illinois, August 10, 1863, and is now living at Denver, Colorado, the wife of
George Cool, who was a contractor and builder; Mrs. F. S. Cravens; and Emma, who
was born June 18, 1876, and is the wife of R. L. Jones, an attorney and
abstractor at Emporia.
Contributed by Todd Walter, extracted from the 1918 A Standard History of Kansas
and Kansans, William E. Connelley, Secretary of the Kansas State Historical
Society, Lewis Publishing Company.
