Ahnentafel

Today we’re taking a look at musical instruments in our family. The first is the violin that belonged to my great-grandfather, Albert Carl Swing. His daughter, my maternal grandmother, always talked of how her father purchased the violin with the first money he ever earned, shucking corn away from home. He was about 14, which means this purchase would have taken place around 1903. I’ve always liked to imagine that he ordered the violin from the Sears catalog, but I have no way of knowing this for sure.

When Grandma was a young girl living in Wing, Illinois, several families there got together and built a community center where they would hold Saturday night square dances. Albert was often the caller for these dances; Grandma would emphasize to us that he called, not sang, the dances. She said he called dances more often in these years than he played the violin, as he had lost the tip of his left middle finger reaching into some kind of motor and wasn’t able to play the violin as he had in his younger days.

Albert’s violin would get a lot of use by others in the family, however. Mom and Aunt Carla, anyway, were both in orchestra in school and learned on Albert’s violin. I also joined the school orchestra when I was in the fifth grade, and when I had grown enough to be able to handle a full-sized violin, I used the same one as well. At some point in all those years of orchestra and private violin lessons, I ended up naming the violin “Fred.” I don’t remember why anymore, but he’s been Fred to me ever since. Fred desperately needs a tune-up and probably a new bow; one of these days I’ll manage to get over to a music repair shop in Charlottesville. It’s the least I can do for Fred after 122 years.

The second family musical instrument is the guitar that belonged to my maternal grandfather, Joseph Hoffmann. I don’t have any origin stories of how Grandpa acquired his guitar, but I know that he played it as part of a band that performed locally in Illinois as well as on the radio (again, I assume locally; not quite Grand Ole Opry-level fame). There is even a formal portrait of the band and their instruments; Grandpa and his guitar are second from the left:

More recently, while poring over old newspapers at Newspapers.com, I found journalistic confirmation of the band’s existence. 1934 appears to have been a banner year for them; in February the Central Theatre of Fairbury, Illinois hosted radio personalities on stage, the new movie, “Bedside,” and 20 “home talent acts,” sponsored by local businesses. Among the local acts competing for $10 in cash prizes were Joe Hoffman, Dayton Alt, Raymond Alt, Mac Jarvis, and Carl Bollinger. Grandpa would have been 26.

Later that same year the Fairbury Sportsmen’s Club hosted the Dwight Club at a picnic. By this time Grandpa’s band had undergone some personnel change but acquired a name: the entertainment for this gathering was provided by the Fairbury Ramblers String Quartet, consisting of Grandpa and the Alt brothers from the earlier iteration, along with Cecil Phelps. According to the newspaper article, the Quartet “punctuated the program with the dulcet strains of their music.” They also accompanied a singer named Herb Hurt on two songs.

Grandpa’s guitar also had a second musical act, as Mom carefully packed and shipped it to my brother in Virginia when he decided to learn to play. He doesn’t play that particular instrument so much any longer, but it is probably no surprise that this guitar is now here in my house with me. Maybe I should try to learn to play the guitar. Or at least give Grandpa’s guitar a name.