My Grandfather’s Violin

The image of the violin in the header on my website represents a bit of family history. My dad Glen D. Anderson’s father, Harry Anderson, made the instrument circa 1932 in South Dakota. This, his third violin, was the last instrument he ever made, and it is the only extant playable one.

When I was in high school, I learned violin on an instrument that had been owned by my grandfather that was repaired by H.C. Middlebrook in 1906 in Huron, South Dakota. There is an intriguing story about the history of that violin that warrants telling in another post!

My grandfather never had the opportunity to study violin making. He learned from a second edition 1885 copy of Violin – Making: as it was and is by Ed. Heron-Allen, which was popular among the many who were interested in joining the burgeoning violin-making field at the time.

My dad tells me that on his birth certificate his father listed his occupation as “Piano Tuner & Violin Maker.” Apparently he was serious about violin making but never had the opportunity to develop it past this point, undoubtedly due to the unfortunate effects of mustard gas from World War I.

I asked my father to take the Anderson violin to Alf Studios violin shop in Ann Arbor, and Adam Ginsburg kindly obliged in taking a thorough set of photos of the instrument. The image in this site’s header is from one of them. When I have time, I will add some of the pictures to the Gallery page.