Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society

Portals to the Past by David W. Jackson

Original Priest of Pallas Host Still a Mystery

Priests of Pallas--Kansas City ‘s Mardi Gras--pulsated for over a quarter century between 1887-1924. Annual festivities commenced with an ornate, otherworldly invitation from an elusive host named, Jackson.

Jackson remains an enigma. As early as 1923, George M. Myers, president of the Priests of Pallas directorate, offered $500 in gold to anyone offering clues to Jackson’s identity. Strangely, the bullion went uncollected. Might the following nuggets tip the scales?

One account suggests Jackson was prominent Kansas Citian, John Prince Loomas, the first President of the Priests of Pallas Board. Loomas was born in Wisconsin, January 11, 1854. He came to Kansas City in 1877 with $13 in his pocket. Already successful by 1881, he returned east and wed Mary Ida Huxley.

Loomas had charge of the Priests of Pallas produce dealers’ trades display in the first parade in 1877. The debut was so successful that he managed all Priests of Pallas parades until his premature death.

In May 1899, Loomas became manager of Kansas City’s Convention Hall. After a disastrous fire on April 4, 1900, Loomas oversaw hundreds of men to quickly rebuild the new Convention Hall in time for Kansas City to host the Democratic National Convention over July 4^th celebrations.

John and Ida’s daughter, Linda Loomas, grew up and married prominent Kansas City lawyer Charles M. Bush, who as a young man, had also participated in the Priests of Pallas by masquerading as its patron goddess, Athena.

Loomas and Bush ancestors rest in Elmwood Cemetery. I have had the fortune to meet gracious descendants who live in Kansas City yet today.

Without definitively connecting the Jackson reference to Loomas, though, we must weigh another speculation that the mystery host was a nod to an employee of the Commercial Club of Kansas City--where early Priests of Pallas organizers met--in the Exchange Building on the northwest corner of 8^th and Wyandotte (the Commercial Club reorganized as the Chamber of Commerce in 1913).

Should the adage, If you want to know something, ask the hired help, have credence, then the Club’s janitor, Charles A. Jackson, was likely privy to a multitude of public and private frivolities…and a reliable source for Club members. Plausibly, event organizers found it paradoxically comic to invite their fellow socialites under a secret guise. Who would suspect their honorary host Jackson was someone at the opposite end of their 19^th Century Kansas City social spectrum…a ‘negro’ janitor?

Charles A. Jackson was born in Ohio on January 19, 1852. On December 23, 1888, he and South Carolina native Mrs. Frances J. Fannie Bradshaw, a hairdresser, married in Jackson County; each had been married previously. Living with the couple in their rented home at 1021 Flora was Frances’ 18-year-old daughter, Ruby (or Ruba) E. Bradshaw, born in Tennessee.

The 1900 Census confirms his employment as a janitor in a club room. By 1910, Jackson owned the house at 2434 Montgall Avenue. They were neighbors of Kansas City schoolteacher, John H. Bluford, his wife, Addie, their two sons, and 18-year-old daughter, Lucille Bluford, who became a journalistic icon with the Kansas City Call newspaper.

Jackson died in 1926 at Wheatley Provident Hospital. The Jacksons, who were members of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church (then at 11^th and Troost; a congregation that continues today), rest peacefully in Highland Cemetery off Blue Ridge Boulevard.

Frances’ 1930 obituary listed two surviving daughters, Mrs. John H. Graves, of 2210 Charlotte, and Carolyn E. Brydie, a maiden Kansas City schoolteacher. Ruby Bradshaw married Slater A. Logan of Columbia, MO, in 1911. Mrs. Logan married Graves on Christmas Day, 1929.

Whichever hypothesis you may or may not believe, Priests of Pallas organizers were daringly clever.

If you have not received your invitation directly from Jackson to this year’s Priests of Pallas Ball, please join the Westport and Jackson County Historical Societies Friday, October 26, 2007, from 7 p.m. to Midnight at Union Station. Tickets may be procured at the door, or online at www.popkc.org.

In any event, be sure to have your name added to Jackson’s elite guest list for an advance invitation to next year’s Priests of Palls ball.