January 30, 2010

Grand Square Piano

My first memory of the rosewood grand square piano (c 1865 built by Woodward & Brown of Boston, Mas) was when we moved from West Liberty to the Neil Howard's Creek Farm in the late spring of 1932. I was four years old.

The piano was too large for the house at West Liberty so Daddy had kept it at the farm where it stood in the large living room. The first piece I remember him playing was  the Storm. He had taken piano lessons for several years as a young boy at Morehead. He bought the large piano from his music teacher and often played classic pieces as well as hymns and some of the Stephen Collins Foster songs. He had a natural musical gift and played by ear also.

When we moved to Wayne County in the spring of 1934, we were living in the house with Grandmother Jones and Aunt Lizzie.  The carefully crated Piano was stored in the barn. At Mt Victory, the piano had a prominent place in the large living room except for the times the living room was a store or a post office. Again it would be carefully crated, covered and stored in the barn.

I have many good memories of Daddy playing the piano in our home .  He also played for church.  Some of my siblings had that musical gift as well, especially Joyce.  When she was three or four years old, she would come home from Sunday School and play the songs we had sung at church.  I did not have that gift. 

In the late 1970s,  Daddy announced that he wanted Joyce to have the piano. When she came to move it he said something like, "I will play my piano for the last time"  He sat down at the piano and played several hymns and then proceeded to carefully build a crate to support the instrument for the move to Joyce's home in Knoxville, TN.

On a visit to the Smithsonian Institute Joyce saw the  exact same piano.  She said Daddy's piano was in much better condition. It has the original ebony keys.