Her grandfather left behind a mandola, which was sent to her in the hopes that it would be preserved in the family. This was enclosed with it; it was made by him and this is the story that goes with it.
"One day, in
about 1933, your grandfather and his friend Leonard were looking for work. The country was in the middle of a depression
and there wasn’t much work available for two young fellows in their early
twenties.
They found themselves over
near Grand and Natural Bridge in St. Louis Missouri, and were out on the
sidewalk in front of a set of stairs leading up to a second floor workshop. They heard something going on up
there, it wasn’t suspicious but their curiosity was aroused so they went on up
the stairs.
It was
an instrument shop and the guy working there was nude! It gets very hot in St. Louis in the summer
and this guy usually worked alone, without interruption and without anyone coming
in. Well, they put that aside and one
thing led to another and they got a little training about instrument making.
It seems
that there is a way to make the curved backs of violins, guitars, and mandolins
where a grid is put on a piece of wood thick enough to carry the depth of the curved portion of the instrument. The grid is drawn on
the top and bottom of the board and each square numbered, sort of like a spread sheet, and
each “cell” has a value which is the depth of the amount of wood to be
removed. When the chiseling is complete,
the rough surface is sanded smooth and, voila, there is the curved body.
This
mandola, which is a larger mandolin, and a guitar were made by these two in
that shop. Then they moved on to the rest
of their lives, leaving the instrument making trade to others. Attempts to tune and play it have not been
all that successful; the tuning screws may not of the best quality."
So, there you have it. The story of the Saint Louis Mandola.
