Grandmother’s 1918 player piano finds new purpose

In 1918, Lucy Gooch received a wondrous gift from her parents – a new player piano from Montelius Music House in Seattle.

Though the name “Montelius Music” was scripted on the piano, it was likely made by a different company and sold through the retailer.

Gooch was the grandmother of Carole Mann, a Spokane Valley resident.

Mann grew up in Everett and often visited her grandma, who lived in Ballard.

“Most every time we went to see her, she’d play the piano, and my dad would sometimes play it, too,” Mann recalled.

Mann and her siblings also played it.

“We’d put the roll in the cabinet,” she recalled. “We’d pull the pedals out from behind a sliding door and pump them to make the rolls go ’round. It was good exercise!”

The music extended into the next generation. A fading photo shows Mann’s son, Chris, at the time 6, watching his great-grandma play the piano.

When her grandmother died in 1983, Mann and her siblings were asked if they wanted anything from Grandma’s home.

“I said I wanted the piano,” she said.

Mann served in the Army, and that instrument traveled with her from post to post throughout the country.

“When I was sent to Korea in the early ’90s, I left it in storage,” she said. “When I returned, I had it updated and retuned, and it cost $5,000!”

The piano came with her to Spokane Valley, where her grandson would come over to practice his lessons on his great-great-grandmother’s instrument.

Eventually, it became hopelessly out of tune. A piano repairman told Mann that it would cost $20,000 to repair.

She looked online, hoping to rehome it.

“No one wanted pianos,” Mann said. “Someone said they’d haul it to the dump for $300.”

That broke her heart.

“It just made me cry to think of Grandma’s piano going to the dump.”

So, she talked with carpenter Robert “Oak” McCord about repurposing the antique instrument.

“I asked him if we could do something with it – maybe make a shelf, so I could have something of Grandma’s.”

They decided to use the old mahogany cabinet to make a storage bench for her entryway.

“It just hurt me to think of something like this sitting in the dump,” she said. “Why throw it away? How much better to make something useful out of it.”

McCord got to work, repurposing as much of the original piece as possible, including legs and hinges.

The sliding doors that opened for the player mechanism and pedals now open on the front and back of the bench.

“It was so exciting,” Mann said. “We’re going to use it to store winter coats and mittens.”

The sturdy bench provides a convenient place to sit while removing boots or shoes.

She asked McCord to leave the wood just as it is – no buffing or sanding.

“I didn’t want to change its appearance,” she said. “Those are 100 years of nicks and scrapes.”

Even the accompanying adjustable piano bench got a new purpose as an end table in the living room.

Mann is delighted with her new/old entryway bench.

“I love it,” she said. “Every time I see it, I think of Grandma playing the piano.”

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com.