By Steve Flairty

NKyTribune columnist

Always on the lookout for accomplished, but “unsung” Kentuckians, I recently came across a gifted solo violinist from Northern Kentucky, one who became a part of the prestigious John Phillip Sousa’s Marine Band and toured the United State for several years.

Born in Covington in 1886, Florence E. Hardeman, according to Jenny Plemen’s article in The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky, graduated from La Salette Academy there in 1902 and went on to make a splash in her public performance career.

Florence made her musical debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra while she was only a teenager, and she received a graduate degree from the Cincinnati College of Music. It would be in 1909 that Sousa gained her high-level strings skills as part of his icon

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