Heirlooms: Charles M. Kenyon's Violin and Phebe (Hunt) Vandervort's Piano

Photo Note:  Click on any image to view the full size photo.

My mother, Kathleen Kenyon, and her siblings grew up in post-Depression poverty in rural, Monroe County, Wisconsin. There was no indoor plumbing. No electricity. What heat there was in -30 Wisconsin winters came from a single wood burning stove in their living area, and a wood fueled cast iron range in the kitchen.

The house had been built almost 70 years before in 1872. It was run down, unpainted, and absolutely worn on every surface. But the family was happy to be there. After moving from house to house, after WWI, each of the children born in different homes as their parents worked hard to stay ahead of the rent payments, my grandfather had finally been able to purchase back what was the old Kenyon homestead farm on a land contract which we would call today, rent to own. The farm, which my grandfather had grown up on, had been sold out of the family over 20 years earlier by his father.

There simply was no money for any type of extravagance.

My grandfather, Charles M. Kenyon, and his father, Lou, played violin, guitar, piano, and other instruments totally by ear. They were widely respected for their talent and often played at barn dances and at the community hall.  The fiddle Charlie played was a "Stradivarius" model and had been ordered from the Sears catalog ca.1895-1900 when my grandfather was a boy and the used guitar had been picked up sometime after that. The family did not own a piano. 

Charles Kenyon with his fiddle, ca 1945-50.

Inherited by Charles' grandson, Rodney Kenyon in 1963.

Singing around the guitar and dancing around the fiddle at home in the evenings was a big part of my mother's family's entertainment in the little free time they had from working the farm.

From that point in my story, I will let my Uncle Jim Kenyon's voice take over in a story he shared in his book, "A Record of my Yester-Years"… 

Great Grandma passed away on a Monday in July 1932. Before that time, she gave a wonderful gift to our family. She purchased a brand new Brunswick piano. She wanted (my sister) Doris to take piano lessons, which she did. 

She knew that Dad and Grandpa both played the piano. She also knew that it would bring a lot of good times, singing around the piano, for the family; and it did. That was our entertainment center when company came.

There sure was quite a contrast in our old house, between the old gray wooden benches, unvarnished tables, potbellied stove, bare wood floors, and this beautiful new piano.

Thank-you, Grandma. We had a lot of happy times singing and dancing around your beautiful piano. You brought us many years of happiness in a not so happy era. You brought us many stories to brighten up our dull days; and you made us laugh. You gave us love and continuity with our generations long since passed. 

I remember you, with your frail body and stooped shoulders. I remember you, with your smiling face and the love you delivered to our family.

That piano was known as Phebe's Piano after Phebe (Hunt) Vandervort and was inherited by her grandson, Glen (Shookman) Kenyon and had a place of honor in his family's home until 2014 when my aunt died and it passed out of the family.

Phebe (Hunt) Vandervort, 1851-1932.

ca.1925

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

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