The Jensen Family Piano!

Our story- My husband grew up in rural southern Utah in a small town called Torrey. His family has been here multiple generations and even have the original homestead papers for the farm we currently own. We bought the house he grew up in from his parents and are raising our four young kids there. We love the outdoors and tight knit community lifestyle we have here. It is fun to have a large area of land for the kids to be wild and free. Because of our attachment to the land and community here we are especially in love with our piano as it was a part of the community before coming into our family’s possession. My husbands family isn’t particularly musical. But, his grandfather played the steel guitar and played in a band from the 50’s-80’s. He unfortunately died from a heart attack when my husband was two. His mother also learned to play the piano a little and was the one who brought our piano into the family in 1979. In my family my grandma loved the piano. She was a school teacher and then taught piano lessons to the kids in her ward. She was the primary piano lady as long as I can remember and at her funeral they honored her for her years of service and all the primary kids sang. She had a player piano which I adored as a kid. Because of her influence I learned how to play the piano and have now encouraged our two oldest kids to play the piano. They have completed about 9 months of lessons and are doing really well. They are currently 8 and 6 years old. If our piano was chosen for restoration it would benefit our children the most. We would love for them to be able to cherish this piano and its history as much as we do and be able to use it as they continue learning.
Pianos story In September 1898 the Torrey schoolhouse and church building was finished. In November of that same year it was furnished and we believe it was at this time the piano was brought into the log cabin along with the chairs and desks and other appropriate furniture. We have been unable to find documentation of who originally donated the pioneer piano or brought it into the area. 1917 there was a new schoolhouse built and after that time the log cabin was just used for religious purposes. The piano stayed in the log cabin and continued to be used by the community until 1970. At that time a prefabricated building was brought in to be used as the local church meetinghouse. Along with that building came a piano and organ. Our piano was moved from the log cabin into the new church house at that time but it was placed in the hall. My father in law remembers the piano in the hallway leading from the sacrament area to the primary. He says that as every kid passed by the piano they would plink a few keys. I love this memory thinking of all the sweet children that played the piano as they walked by! I am sure they couldn’t resist it just sitting there. According to him that was the only use the piano got in this new building. It was auctioned off in 1979 at a church bazaar and it was then that my mother in law purchased the piano. She said it cost her 520$. She immediately got to work restoring the piano to the best of her abilities. She said sometime during its life it had been painted all black and so she spent time stripping all the paint from the piano. She also had some of the hammers and other pieces replaced and kept it regularly tuned. When we purchased my in laws house in 2019 the piano was left and became ours. We have loved having a piano in our home. I have played the piano since then and my two oldest kids started taking lessons last September. What a blessing it would be to have this heirloom piano restored.

• YEAR 1800-1900
• MAKE Decker Bro’s
• SERIAL NUMBER 10815
• FINISH Brazilian Rosewood
• CATEGORY CONTESTANT