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Smith and Nixon Patent Grand

The Sandburg Family Piano!

The Sandburg Family Piano!

The legacy of music in my family has been such a blessing. I am so grateful for the opportunity you have provided to share with you this legacy and for the chance to have a piano restoration. It has helped inspire me to create a documentary of the history and impact this musical legacy has had on our family. I was able to interview my living aunts and uncles as well as cousins and have spent countless hours doing research and finding pictures and videos. I have created a small snippet of this to share with you and am excited for the history we now have that will continue to live on...so that we can always remember that music really is what tied us together. I hope you enjoy watching it! (https://youtu.be/Z0Vbpg4Djnk?si=-0jpo3d61J0E9llE) I inherited my grandma's piano in about 2009 and it truly is my greatest treasure. My grandma Lucile Young Springer was an excellent pianist, just like her father, Leo Young, and her grandfather, Phineas Young, the last son of Brigham Young. She could play just about anything and could transpose into any key without a glitch. George and Lucile had 10 children that lived to adulthood. And the thing that kept them and continues to keep them so tight over the years....is music! They sang ALL the time....while doing their chores, weeding the garden, at church, in events, for fun, and in many singing groups over the years . In fact, they sang so much, that they were banned from singing at the dinner table! Grandma Lucile was often at the piano, accompanying them, and she loved being there and listening to their amazing harmonies so much. In about 1960, the Springer family participated in singing an Easter cantata called Resurrection Morning by B. Cecil Gates, which grandma accompanied. That quickly became their Easter tradition and we have now been gathering together and singing Resurrection Morning every Easter for almost 65 years!!!! It is about 20 minutes long and we love it so much, we always sing it twice, one right after the other. My grandmother passed away 19 years ago in 2005, but the legacy of music that she helped instill into all of us is so important and is why we continue to gather to keep this tradition. It really is what has united our family. My aunts and uncles have the most incredible harmonies. You will love listening to them throughout my video (https://youtu.be/Z0Vbpg4Djnk?si=-0jpo3d61J0E9llE). I grew up loving to listen to them and singing so many of their fun songs with them. They really inspired me to learn to sing, read music, and create harmony. I teach my students all things music, but whenever I ask them what my favorite kind of music is, they know to shout Harmony!!! It fills my soul and I credit so much of that to my mother and all of the Springer family. Choir has for sure always been my first love, but I also play the piano, harp, and ukulele. I have taught Let’s Play Music for several years and I love that I can help instill a love of all kinds of music to budding generations and that I can make it exciting and fun....because it is so exciting and fun! My children have also all learned how to play the piano on Grandma's piano. My daughter, Adri, has become extremely talented and she fills our home with the most beautiful sounds. She has taught piano using grandma's piano for the past 5 years since she was 12. It is such a gift to be able to use the piano to play and to teach. There is a spirit about this piano. It is where I go when I am sad or worn, happy or needing comfort and peace. It has the most beautiful sound and is where I feel grandma the most. But most importantly, this piano signifies the love, unity, connection, and joy that is in my extended family, now hundreds of us....and that all stemmed from my beautiful grandma.
We believe this piano to be over 100 years old. My aunts and uncles remember having it through most or all of their lives, although the older ones remember having grandpa Young's piano when they were small. They are not sure when grandma got this piano or who she got it from, but it has been in their home for about as long as they can remember. It is an upright Smith and Nixon Patent Grand and is truly beautiful inside and out. After my grandparents passed away, my uncle inherited the piano and later gave it to his children, making its way to the midwest. They ended up with two pianos and so they offered it to any aunt and uncle that wanted to come and get it. My parents jumped on the opportunity and so they drove out to the midwest and loaded it carefully in the back of their truck, bringing it back home. It was a labor of love and in the journey home the truck broke down multiple times. But what a blessing it was that they went to get it. Not long after, this cousin was moving and their other piano was outside. It accidentally got left in the rain and it was ruined! My parents didn’t let me know any of this until they were about a day away. They called and said that they have something for me if I wanted it. They were bringing me grandma’s piano! I absolutely couldn’t believe it. I have an extensive family with 45 cousins and all of their families. It is nothing short of a miracle that I have this piano. We work really hard to maintain it and it is our greatest treasure. Grandma’s piano is absolutely gorgeous and still has most of its original components and is of excellent craftsmanship. It plays beautifully and for as old as it is and the journey it's had, it is in fairly decent shape. Even the sound board appears to still be intact when they checked it about a year ago. That being said, we have had to do a lot to maintain it, fixing piano keys, strings, hammers, and putting glue in all of the tuning pins. And there is a lot of external damage and wear and tear. We are so grateful that we have been able to maintain it to this point. But as I’m sure you know, being as old as it is, it is naturally going to be harder and harder to maintain and many more repairs will be needed. And this just breaks my heart. We are not in a position to be able to do a full restoration on it. And I just can’t watch it start to fall apart. The legacy it represents that is impacting generations needs to be preserved. It just has to be. It means too much. This is a piano that is so appreciated and will continue to be so loved and maintained. To be able to have it in its full glory so that it can continue to bless lives and be passed down for future generations…..there are just no words. I am so worried that because it is in working order that it might not be the kind of project you are looking for. But I hope you can see truly how meaningful it is to us and how much it is loved and cherished. I’m so grateful it works as well as it does. But we want so much more than a few more years before it starts really breaking down. It would just mean so much if we could continue to use it and love and and pass it down for generations. Please watch my video and see how important the legacy of music is in my family (https://youtu.be/Z0Vbpg4Djnk?si=-0jpo3d61J0E9llE). And really, it all stemmed from my beautiful grandmother and her incredible gift at the piano. Thank you so much for considering this piano. This means so much to me to be able to participate in this. Thank you! NOTE: I have worked for weeks creating an amazing video talking about the history of the piano and the legacy of music in our family. It doesn't say anywhere on your form that it is limited to 10 MB and I didn't know that until I tried to load it. I actually shortened it quite a bit but there is no way I can get it to 10 MB. I also wasn't able to load up to 9 photos down below. It would only let me load one, and so I chose the best...my grandma at the piano! Please view the video through YouTube using this link: https://youtu.be/Z0Vbpg4Djnk?si=-0jpo3d61J0E9llE Please let me know if it doesn't work or if you have any questions.

  • YEAR 1910-1920
  • MAKE Smith and Nixon Patent Grand
  • SERIAL NUMBER 20757 (I think)
  • FINISH Wood Finish
  • CATEGORY CONTESTANT
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