by Jeffrey Bell-Hanson

Laurene Turner has written a horror novel called the Ghosts of the Keweenaw, which I have not read. I’m not a horror story fan, but I admit that the Keweenaw part intrigues me. Because the Keweenaw Peninsula was a home to me for years, and still feels like home in many ways, the idea of peeling back the layers that you see so easily on the surface and finding out what’s behind them is irresistible.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I have been drawn to this mystery surrounding Henry F. Miller 40603. Sometimes it seems like this piano found its way to me. Why me, is one mystery. I’m not a good pianist, though playing the piano is one of the things that I have done the longest. Walking, talking and basic bodily functions are the only things I have been doing longer.

I have not been a proactive caretaker. I should tune it more often, and I know that it has needed major reconditioning since before I acquired it. Yet I keep putting it off. (I will do it!) I can claim one major good turn for this magnificent instrument: I kept it humidified for several long, dry Keweenaw winters, and then I moved it to the Pacific Northwest. (You’re welcome, piano!) The truth is that my wife, Karen, gets the credit. It was her idea to take the piano in. I am forever grateful.

Deepening the mystery is that this piano seems to have been well cared-for prior to my first encounter with it. It has a few nicks and chipped keys, and a little damaged finish, but for 107 years-old, it looks pretty good, and sounds even better. It holds pitch beautifully and has all the resonance that Henry F. Miller (and sons) would have wanted it to have.

In 1810, a 6-foot-9 grand piano would have been as relevant to life in the Keweenaw as a Rigelian Flugeltoerkenjammelscope is to us today. What’s that? Don’t you know what a Rigelian Flugeltoerkenjammelscope is? Neither do I, and that’s the point. Yet within 100 years, when my piano came out of the Miller factory in Wakefield, Massachusetts, there was a thriving community in the Keweenaw, including immigrants from all over Europe. Looking at pictures of street scenes from Red Jacket in 1910 (Calumet today) you might be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at a street in New York. All those people clamored for the quality of life that such a possession would symbolize. Owning an instrument like that would tell the world that they had made it.

For the women who actually played the instrument—and it probably would have been mostly women—it likely meant so much more. Because it was one of the few things that young women were encouraged to do, it may have been a source of resentment for some. For others, it may have been a way to indulge their passions and express them to others without rebuke. It may have been a way to assert a sense of agency that they could not exercise in other aspects everyday life. It may have been a way to achieve, and for a lucky few, to then transcend a need for the approval of others.

I still don’t know who once owned this piano; who brought it to the Keweenaw; whose lives it may have touched. But when I finally go home and sit down at that keyboard, I will be thinking about who’s hands have played those keys before me. I will be much more aware of the spirits of Keweenaw’s past.