LaraWilder

Thanks Dusty, good suggestion!  Let's continue these wonderful comments in Lara's discussion thread she started just for it.  

These are wonderful stories. I wonder if subsequence comments could be moved to the Forum discussion Lara started on Family History and Tales of Walt Martin & Sunhearth so that they'll be easier to find in the future.

By the way, if I were given all the beer I could drink to sing songs for 24 hours, I think I'd fall asleep about 2 hours in.  Leadbelly I am not.

Thanks for sharing that Dwayne. My wife grew up in Huntingdon, PA about 33 away. I met Walt at a folk festival. I can't remember whether it was in Maryland, Virginia, or West Virginia. We talked and I mentioned I made a dulcimer and talked about my wife growing up nearby Roaring Spring. He invited us to stop by when we were going to visit her parents. We did, but didn't receive a warm welcome. As you may know I have one of his teardrop dulcimers. I am thinking of attending the Dulcimer Association of Albany's festival in March. If you will be there, I'll see you again.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Hi folks, thanks for welcoming Lara. She mentions that she has three dulcimers. What she doesn't say is that she built one of them at Sunhearth, under the watchful eye of Walt Martin. Her roots in the Martin family are deep.

Ken, the July 4th weekends at Sunhearth have an interesting history:

Walt was friends with a group of musicians centered around Penn State U, about 75 miles from Roaring Spring, where Walt and his Dad built the Martin homestead, Sunhearth, (upwind from the Roaring Spring village paper mill, thank goodness...).

Awhile after Walt started building dulcimers, he got into a free-wheeling conversation with these musicians, and said "I'll bet all the beer you can drink that you can't sing and play for 24 hours straight without repeating a song!"

Well they took him up on it. And along came everyone who had owned a Sunhearth. And Lara, her mother (who was Walt's niece), and me.

We all got sloshed, and Walt gladly paid for the beer. And we had one of those 12 fish and 5 loaves of bread stone soup three-day weekends. Sometimes I'd go down early to help Mike put up out-houses and get the electric lights strung, etc...

That weekend became a tradition for many years, until Walt and Helen wore out...

Lara, I don't know anything about the 4th of July gathering. As to the proper forum, I think the General Mountain Dulcimer forum would be the best place to talk about Walt Martin and Sunhearth dulcimers. I have a couple of magazine articles about Walt and Sunhearth and brochure or two. If you create a discussion I can share pdfs of them.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

thank you so much for the warm welcome!

I can definitely add to the history of Sunhearth and my time growing up there. I have amazing memories of being there… I miss it so much. Please let me know the best place for me to post these memories and histories. (And family lore, of course!)

Lara

Hi Lara, and welcome to the wonderful world of the Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer.  It's a good place to come, spend some time, learn about the dulcimer, and to meet some good people.  I've met and talked with Dwain several times at festivals and being a poet, I have his volume of poetry (anthology that he did with Bart White: Civilization in Crisis).

Ben

Welcome to FOTMD, Lara. It's good to have you aboard. I know your dad and he is an excellent builder. He offers good advice and encouragement to folks who want to build their own dulcimer. I have one of your great uncle's dulcimers. I look forward to your participation here. Perhaps you have some "dulcimer stories" that you can share.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Welcome Lara Wilder to Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer. So glad you joined. This is a great community of wonderful dulcimer people. We have a good bit of history on this site in addition to all of the music and techniques and building hints. Let us know if you have questions. We will try to get you an answer.