My name is Jared Graham. I want to submit my wife's parent's family heirloom, a 1902 Lester piano. Her dad bought it for her mom over 50 years ago to restore it. (It hasn't happened yet) My wife Laura taught herself how to play the piano at age five. Our son Tyson, who started to play the piano at two, loves to play his grandma's piano.
The history of Grandma and Grandpa’s piano. Grandma and Grandpa’s friend was selling his piano. He had plans to restore the piano but couldn’t follow through with it. Grandpa, a handyman, went to his friend’s house to see the piano. The previous owners had painted the piano in thick white paint, so the friend had taken the piano apart to strip the paint off. It was all in pieces all over the floor, even the keys. (To this day, the piano has residual white paint.) Grandma and Grandpa bought the piano for $500, a Lester built in 1902. Grandpa put it mostly together, then had a piano tuner put the keys in place and tuned the strings. They enjoyed the piano for many years in California before moving to Utah. When they moved to Utah, their home was still under construction, so their piano stayed in a friend’s garage for a couple of months until the house was finished. Grandma does not remember how they got it in the home or took it upstairs, but they figured it out. As Grandma and Grandpa’s family grew, their piano became an anchor of peace in their home. Not only did they fiddle around with the ivory keys, but their children also grew to love it. Their oldest daughter learned to play the piano, but their youngest daughter, Laura, began teaching herself how to play when she was five. Her love for the piano increased through the years, and as a teenager, she started giving lessons to the neighborhood children. Grandma has many fond memories of her children playing on the piano. Fast forward several years, and Laura has become a mother herself. She would place her two blind babies, Tyson and Dino, on her lap as she played on her piano. She wanted them to feel the peace that the piano brings as she stroked the keys. One day, while visiting her mother, Laura sat at the piano bench with her son in her lap, where she had spent many hours as a child. And then it began: at nearly two years old, her son, Tyson, began to explore the piano keys with his own hands. What wonder it brought him as he touched the piano keys, causing it to make a beautiful sound. The bright sound of this over 100-year-old Lester was exciting. Now, at 18 years old, Tyson has become quite the pianist. One of his favorite things to do is to visit grandma and grandpa so he can play their piano. Grandma hadn’t had the piano tuned in well over 40 years, so Laura and her family surprised her this year by having their piano tuner come and tune Grandma’s piano. It was Grandpa’s ambition to finish restoring this old Lester to its glory days over half a century ago. Laura and Tyson would love to have Grandma’s piano to be considered for the Brigham Larson piano restoration project. It is tall and dressed in beautiful carvings and ivory keys. This piano has lived through a few families, mostly with grandma and grandpa. Now, three generations have grown to love it, and we would love to have its years extended by having it restored by the crafty hands of Brigham’s team to live on for three more generations and beyond.

• YEAR 1900-1910
• MAKE Lester
• SERIAL NUMBER 25508
• FINISH Maybe walnut
• CATEGORY CONTESTANT