Mathew M. Symons was interested in violins from a young age, but growing up in Henry County with Quaker parents it wasn't always easy to explore his passion.
The first instrument he created °®¶¹app“ out of a shingle and a single string °®¶¹app“ disappeared after he played it for his family the first time. Other violins, both homemade and professional, came and went.
But eventually Symons learned how to play and create quality violins he sold for hundreds of dollars. Some were made of spruce and maple sent to him by a son who was working in Germany.
In 1955, at age 95, he told his story to Lou Deinzer of °®¶¹app. Symons died Sept. 13, 1958, according to an obituary in the newspaper's archive.
To suggest a date or subject for History Journal, email Corey McMaken at cmcmaken@jg.net.
"Cast-Off Fiddle String Started Violin Hobby," by Lou Deinzer (Feb. 13, 1955)
When you're 95-years-old you might find it hard to think back to the days when you were 6, but not so with M.M. Symons of Taylor Street.
As spry an old gent as you'd want to meet, Symons readily recalls it was a cast-off fiddle string that led him to the hobby of making $200 and $300 violins.
He has a shop in his basement where he has turned out violins of German spruce and maple woods.
"The violin wsa the height of my ambition," Symons remarked thoughtfully the other day. "I still haven't gotten away from it."
A slight man with a mustache as white as his thick crop of wiry hair, Symons reminiscently told how he never realized his first burning desire to learn to play the violin well.
"It was when I was six down on dad's farm in Henry County. We had an orchard of maple trees °®¶¹app“ a sugar camp that dad opened every February and March." The kids were always in the sugarhouse at this time of the year when the sap was being boiled down in big troughs, Symons added.
"A neighbor had a camp, too, and my brother used to hang around with a hired man over there that played violin. One day I went along.
"There in that sugarhouse that hired man played us a few tunes. Then a string broke. I remember his pulling it off and throwing it on the ground. A string usually breaks at the end. Rarely does it break in the middle. Anyhow, I picked it up, saw that he didn't want it, and took it home in my pocket."
Here Symons explained that his parents were Quakers, a religious sect extremely prejudiced against musical instruments and particularly violins.
"I took that violin string and make me a one-string fiddle out of a shingle. Bored a hole at one end and set it in a peg. Then for a bow, I got a young sprout and some hair from the tail of one of our horses. Took me all day to make that violin."
"That night," Symons continued pensively, "our family gathered around the fireplace as was our custom. I brought out my one string violin and played for a little entertainment. Nobody said anything against it, so I left if on the mantlepiece when I went to bed."
Symons paused and nodded several times.
"You know °®¶¹app“ to this day I never found nor heard of that violin. That was almost 90 years ago."
In a new house, one with an aisle-like hall down the center and rooms on both sides, Symons' brother brought home a real violin and hid it upstairs in a box.
"I'll let you see if you won't tell," Symons said his brother offered.
"It was easy for me to make that promise. I plunked one of the strings."
"Careful, they'll hear it," Symons' brother warned.
"Well we went through the day, got our chores and supper over and sat down for the evening.
"Get that violin," Symons' father said suddenly. "I want to see it."
"My brother got it. We didn't argue the case. Dad looked it over and then said my brother would have to take it back. That hurt me as much as it did my brother."
Symons said it was then he decided he would not only play, but learn to make violins. He then made a few out of shingles, box-like affairs with three strings. One of these he kept hidden in the fruithouse.
He once traded his fife, skates, dulcimer and purse for a violin.
One of Symons' biggest obstacles to playing a violin was learning to tune one.
"Once dad took us to the fairgrounds in the family wagon. Inside the gates, I heard some music and headed straight for it. It was a dance floor and a feller was playin' a violin."
"Guess he couldn't play very well cause he kept playin' the same tune. I listened to that one tune until I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt I could imitate that tune as well as he could play it.
"So I went home °®¶¹app“ walked two miles °®¶¹app“ and tried it on my fiddle. My violin was out of tine. I didn't know how to tune it. I couldn't play the song," Symons said. He added that he didn't have any money to get back into the fairgrounds.
Symons said he finally met a Quaker who "was an old time Kentucky fiddler. Nobody suspected that fellow knew how to play the violin. One day he was visiting my father, who had warmed a little to my having a violin."
"He heard me playin' and called to me: 'Bring the violin here, boy, and I'll show you how to tune it.'" Symons said it was this fiddler that taught him a little about playing the violin.
In his earlier days, he made, bought and sold violins as a hobby. His son, now in Germany with the Voice of America, has sent him seasoned spruce and maple woods from Mittenwald, violin capital of the world. He made his last violin about three years ago.
Another son had 10 of his violins.
Symons lives with his daughter, Mrs. Myrtle Perry. He made a violin in 1908 and later presented it to her.
