Thomas Henry Lodge (February 9, 1885 to February 16, 1933)
Known Compositions
1904 At the Ball - Piano Caprice Victorious Eagle - March 1909 Skylark - Intermezzo Temptation Rag Temptation Rag Song [w/ Louis Weslyn] 1910 Ole South - A Plantation Dance Sure Fire Rag Sneaky Shuffles Red Pepper, A Spicy Rag 1911 The Roulette Reel: A Parisian Prance Dixie Daisy Dear [w/Bert Fitzgibbons] 1912 My Tango Maid [w/Jean Havez] Voice of the Cello - Waltz [w/Leon Rogee] Black Diamond: A Rag Sparkler Tokio Rag Tango Land Some Other Time [w/Jack Brockman] 1913 Moonlight Rag Pastime Rag 1914 My Heart's Tonight in Erin [w/Tom     Henry] He's Working in the Movies Now     [w/Vincent Bryan & Harry Williams] The Egyptian Trot Fascination Waltz Oh You Turkey The Boston Stop Demi-Tasse Cupid's Caprice 1915 Silver Fox Geraldine Hill and Dale Gum Drops	1917 The Baltimore Blues Remorse Blues Eveline: Geraldine's Sister In the Spotlight: Waltz [w/Nick Nichols] 1918 Making Cider The Bounding Buck Misery Blues Hifalutin Rag 1921 Shadow Dreams 1922 Gypsy Rose [w/Robert Stark] 1923 Wireless Wavelets In a Tea Garden: A Japanese Romance That Red Head Gal [w/Gus Van & Joe     Schenck] 1924 Moonlight Silhouettes 1925 Moon Madness: Intermezzo Rose of the Moonlight [w/Edgar Leslie] 1926 Baiser d'Amour 1927 Indian Butterfly (Namoi) [w/Edgar Leslie     & Billy Stone] 1928 Bunny Hug 1929 Missouri Moon [w/Mitchell Parish] Forget Me [w/Irving Kahal & Willie     Raskin] I Can't Remember the Words [w/Milton     Ager & Jack Yellen]

     Thomas H. Lodge was born in Providence, Rhode Island to British father Edward Lodge and his wife Joanna Lodge, an Maryland native of Irish descent. He was the oldest of four brothers and one older sister. His siblings included Annie (8/1883), Edward A. (1885), Lyman A. (1/1891) and Walter (5/1898). His father worked in the Providence Woolen Mill, as had many of his siblings since their father died in the late 1860s. In spite of seemingly non-musical parentage, Thomas took well to the piano, and was able to find employment after high school demonstrating and selling pianos. By 1900 his father Edward had died and his mother Joanna was running their home as a boarding house. Within a few years Thomas had published a couple of his early pieces. Lodge was married in 1906 to Sarah Agnes Mackie, and they had a child, Mary, late the following year.
     In 1909, Temptation Rag was published, and quickly became a hit in the stores and on the Vaudeville circuit. It received accolades not only in the trades and the press, but from his peers as well. One such mentioned appeared in the New York Clipper in early 1910: "Mike Bernard, that 'Wizard of the Piano,' has in his repertory several numbers that posess excellent qualities. Noticeable among these is Henry Lodge's 'Temptation Rag.' The success of this number is remarkable, and fully supports its appropriate title, 'Temptation,' for it is positively one of the most tempting numbers that has yet been given the public..."
     Temptation Rag was soon followed by Sure Fire and Red Pepper, A Spicy Rag, which were also popular sellers. Again from the New York Clipper of mid 1910: "Some of the biggest dancing acts are making the assertion that the 'Sure Fire Rag,' by Henry Lodge, is the best buck, wing and step dance that has been published in years." The Lodge family is shown still living in Providence in 1910, Lodge now using Henry as his name, and listed as a musical director for a local vaudeville company. Sarah is listed as a servant, which is unusual as the family boarded in the same house as her brother and father, who both worked in the same woolen mill as Lodge's father had.
     In 1912, Lodge moved his family from Rhode Island to New York City. After stints in bars and cabarets, he landed a job with the famous dancing duo, Irene and Vernon Castle. Lodge became their lesson pianist at their ritzy dance studio. Some of his 1914 dance numbers came out of this experience. He also played for some Vaudeville outfits and started working on more advanced ragtime that was much more harmonically complex than his earlier works. One of Lodge's longest-lasting works from this time frame is the enchanting ragtime waltz Geraldine. He followed it up with the less successful Eveline: Geraldine's Sister two years later.
     Working free-lance for many years, usually through M. Witmark & Sons, Henry finally got a coveted contract with them in 1917. According to an article in the Music Trade Review of November 17, 1917: "M. Witmark & Sons have entered into arrangements with Henry Lodge to publish the latter's compositions exclusively for a term of years. The Witmark catalog already includes a number of Mr. Lodge's instrumental pieces, including the famous 'Temptation Rag,' 'Black Diamond Rag,' 'Red Pepper Rag' and many others. The popular 'Geraldine Waltz' is another of Mr. Lodge's well-known numbers."
     In 1918, the family relocated again to Atlantic City, New Jersey for the summer season. He was listed there in September 1918 as a musician employed by the Martinique Cafe on Kentucky Avenue (red for Monopoly fans). It was around this time when his wife Sarah died, possibly from the Spanish flu pandemic. The disposition of their daughter was not found in the author's research.
     While Lodge was not seen in the 1920 Census, he was in town according to some newspaper items. He was also making somewhat of a shift in his career from composer to writer, specifically working on movie scenarios, a lucrative field that really needed all the help it could get. According to a listing in the May 14, 1920 New York Times, he officially incorporated himself into this field: "Henry Lodge Photo Plays, Manhattan, $100,000; H. Lodge, J. Harris, W. Salisbury, 1545 Broadway." Henry had not totally give up his music work, and was still in demand, but this was a sizable investment into what had the potential to become a successful business.
     In the early 1920s, Lodge followed the lead of associates like "Luckey" Roberts and started working with an orchestra in wealthy Palm Beach, Florida. During that time he remarried to Irene Lodge of Boston, Massachusetts, 18 years his junior, and had three more children, Sally, Theodore and Arthur. According to their birth locations, he lived in Boston from around 1924 to 1927, and was back in Manhattan in 1928. There was still song output with various lyricists, in part due to his contract with Witmark. When sound came to the movies around 1928, it was clear that the center of the music and movie business was going to quickly shift to the left, out to Hollywood. So he followed.
     Lodge got work in Los Angeles, California, likely either through his photoplay company or the remnants of it since it was soon out of business. He is shown in the 1930 Census in Los Angeles with Irene and their three children, listed as an author of fiction, which may or may not have been associated with the film industry. It was a temporary relocation as the couple still maintained a Randolph, Massachusetts address. Curiously in both this Census and a couple of other documents from that time he shows his birth state as Massachusetts, but the birth day and year remained the same.
     A passenger list from November 3, 1930 shows Henry and his family returning from a trip through the Panama Canal to New York, presumably on their way back to the Boston area. Henry spent his last two years alternating between Palm Beach and New York while still based in Randolph. Thomas Henry Lodge unexpectedly died in Palm Beach just days after his 49th birthday. Irene would remarry within three years to a Mr. Harding, and her copyright renewals of Henry's rags would be taken under the name of Irene Lodge Harding, Whitman, Mass. Over the next two decades his Temptation Rag would grow in popularity until it became one of the more frequently recorded rags of the 1950s ragtime revival.