March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Good home sought for melodious little piano

In the Solon home of Virginia Merrill sits a little piano with a lovely history she hopes will find a new home that has either a musical bent or a historical one.

The piano “is terrible small as uprights go,” Merrill said, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in quality. It has a melodious tone and a rich legacy. Here is its story.

“My grandfather was what was called a trucker,” Merrill said of the late John Murray Tuttle who lived on Fourteenth Street in Bangor. “He owned a team of horses and a dray. He did all kinds of hauling around the city.”

One day her grandfather was called “to go to Harmon Piano Company on Central Street and asked to haul three pianos up to the old Bangor Auditorium because there was going to be a great big to-do up there.”

That “to-do” was the first Eastern Maine Music Festival. The date was Oct. 14, 1897. The star was the world-famous singer from Farmington, Madame Lillian Nordica. You can look it up. Merrill has a copy of the program.

Nordica and her accompanist tested the three pianos, chose one, and Tuttle “hauled the other two back to Harmon’s.”

When the festival was over, Tuttle loaded up the little piano and drove it back to Central Street. But, instead of taking it inside Harmon’s, he left it sitting in his dray.

“My grandfather decided if it was good enough for them, then it was good enough for his little boy to take piano lessons on. He bought the piano.”

The little boy was Merrill’s uncle, who later married a music teacher.

“She looked at that piano and said, `I’m not going to have that in my house.’ My uncle thought of his little niece who was taking lessons on an old pump organ. That’s how I got the piano. I’ve had it ever since.”

When asked what name was on the piano, Merrill said, “It’s not a good one. When the piano tuners look at it they say `oh,”‘ her voice dropping. “Then they start tuning it and say, `oh,”‘ as she raised her voice in surprise and approval. “It’s a Woodbury. Of Boston.”

Merrill would like to find the piano a good home. But she wants it to go where it will be appreciated for its historic value as much as its musical worth.

“I would really like it to go with a musical outfit or a historical society. I’d like to see it go someplace where it would be of interest because of its history. I prefer that it go somewhere where it will be looked after as I’ve looked after it all these years.”

Merrill, a history buff herself, is a retired teacher who includes on her resume teaching stints at the former Anson Academy; Solon, Weld and Bingham high schools; and Madison High school as well as several other Somerset County institutions.

Merrill reserves the right to decide just where, and to whom, her piano will go. If you or your organization is interested in contacting her, call 643-2275 or write her at P.O. Box 316, Solon, 04979.

Four area women will be representing our interests well as members of the 1997 Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism Committee.

Cindy Whitney of Kenduskeag and Bangor residents Tricia Kenny, Patricia LeClaire and Cynthia Giles Sudheimer will serve with the organization that supports a statewide conference which trains and supports volunteers and volunteer managers, and dispenses recognition for volunteer accomplishments.

This year’s conference will be Oct. 7 at the Augusta Civic Center with a pre-conference workshop on Oct. 6. If you would like information on the organization, the conference, or to have your named added to its mailing list, call 785-3388.

A recent check for $1,000 from Wal-Mart of Bangor has helped the Big Brothers-Big Sisters Bowl-a-Thon held last March reach the $25,000 mark. BB-BS helps area young people between the ages of 7 and 17 receive guidance and support for social, emotional and intellectual growth through friendships with older, positive role models. A member agency of BB-BS of America and United Way of Eastern Maine, BB-BS is under the auspices of Catholic Charities of Maine. To participate in this program, call 941-2862.

If you live in our circulation area and served in the U.S. Navy aboard a patrol gunboat during the period of the Cuban missile crisis in the ’60s to the Vietnam War, the Patrol Gunboat Reunion Association is looking for you.

Navy veteran Terry McManuels of Virginia Beach, Va., has written the NEWS stating his group “is looking for a number of our crew members” whose original records from their ships’ squadrons “indicate that some were originally from the Bangor area.” A national ships reunion is being planned for those who served aboard them.

Crew are being sought who served on the USS Ashville, Gallup, Antelope, Ready, Crockett, Marathon, Canon, Tacoma, Welch, Chehalis, Defiance, Benicia, Surprise, Grand Rapids, Beacon, Douglass or Green Bay.

If you are a crew member from one of these ships and interested in this reunion, contact McManuels, 1673 Kilt St., Virginia Beach, Va., 23464; phone 757-479-2261; or fax 757-479-0849. Macs@visi.net is his e-mail address.

The Standpipe, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.


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