John Schnyder
935 Wheeler Road Asheville, NC
North Carolina Symphony Violinist

Lori Huberman and Meredith Gilliam (Interviewers)

Upon arrival in Asheville, North Carolina, the first thing that struck us was how impoverished but picturesque a town could be in the awe-inspiring beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A friendly neighbor directed us to Mrs. Israel's boarding house, on Victoria Street, where one could buy room and board for seven dollars a week.

After several inquiries, we walked up to an old farmhouse that seemed to be a bit worse for the wear, along with four acres of overgrown orchards. Mrs. Georgia Collins rents out the top four rooms of her aged home to John Schnyder, a violinist in the North Carolina Symphony, his wife, and daughter. Mrs. Collins, an eighty-four year-old widow, beckons us into the house and states, "Young Mister John is a good boarder and I enjoy having him and his young wife along with little Esther, she's such a darling, living in my house. They fill up a lot of empty silence in this place. They're upstairs. Just go on up now."

As we neared the stairs, the strains of the first violin part from C.P.E. Bach's Flute Concerto in D minor could be heard. When we entered the room, Ellie Baker Schnyder, John Schnyder's wife, made us feel welcome and invited us to sit on the wooden chairs in the corner of the room farthest away from the blanket on which their young daughter, Esther, took her afternoon nap. A crudely framed photograph, the only one they owned of the three of them together, was hung on the wall. Later the Schnyder's explained to us that it was taken on one of the Symphony's earlier performances in Wilmington. Ellie instructed us to call the two of them by their first names because they felt that since we were interviewing John, we should be like family, and promptly left to get John from the room in which he was practicing.

We stood, as John Schnyder, a young man who hardly looked his thirty-one years, entered the room. "Good afternoon," he said in a voice that flowed over us like a cello, "My wife tells me that you are from the W.P.A. [Works Progress Administration]."

"Yes, sir," we replied, briefly introducing ourselves and discussing our project. Then he began to talk.

Mr. Schnyder was the youngest of a family of five children, one of whom died of complications in childbirth. His father was the pastor at the First Baptist Church in Asheville, his mother the director of the Ladies' Choir in the church. "For a young boy who loved music, this was as good as it got in rural North Carolina," John said as he reminisced his boyhood. He didn't look much out of boyhood now with his young face and energetic ways. "My music is much wiser than I am," he said when we complimented him, as he stroked his Stradivarius violin. We asked him how he had such a violin considering that this was the Depression and Stradivariuses are expensive. The making of the violin didn't seem to match the state of the house that they were living in.

"Well," he began, "to tell you that would be to tell you my whole life story."

"That's what we're here for," we replied, and he was off.

"I was born on January 27, 1904. I was always surrounded by music between choir rehearsals and town gatherings. You could always go by my uncle's house in the evenings and find him singing Sweet By and By or The Yellow Rose of Texas on his porch. The first time it was recognized that I was musical was about the time that I was three and piped up during a choir rehearsal that it didn't sound right. The notes were checked to the piano and sure enough, the altos were slightly flat. The piano player at the church, who also was a close friend of the family's, decided to teach me how to play the piano. I picked it up fairly quickly, but never really enjoyed it. I also began to hang around Fiddlin' Bill, our next door neighbor, because the violin, or fiddle as it was called in rural North Carolina, fascinated me. I begged him to teach me how to play and he began to show me the fingerings and how to bow. On my tenth birthday, my mother took down a box from the attic. 'I know what I need to give you, but you must promise to work at it.' She said evasively. I looked at her inquisitively. It turns out that my many-great grandfather played the violin in Germany in a symphony that premiered many of Beethoven's works. He was the concertmaster and had one of those great violins. It had been passed down through the generations, but nobody had been musical enough in the family yet to receive the honor of playing it. I quickly drew the bow over the strings and a beautiful sound emerged. I had been made for this violin. I'm sure I surprised my mother with the ability to play because she didn't know that I had learned how already. As the story goes, the tone was not that of a beginner, but the sound of one whom had been playing for years. I always wanted the violin.

"So when I was ten, I seriously started the violin. Unfortunately for me, there were no talented classical violinists in Asheville at that time. So I continued lessons with the old family friend, the pianist, who knew how to play some classical violin. Not very well, now that I look back on it, but well enough for my purposes. I loved my teacher and thought of him as a musical genius, which he wasn't, just extremely talented. I quickly picked up the violin and practiced diligently. In my lessons, I learned classical, but whenever I played, so that anybody besides my family could hear, I played gospel or folk songs and called the precious violin a fiddle. At that time it was not violin that one played, but fiddle. If I added improvisations on the old songs that resembled classical none of the people in the town knew except my family, who didn't care.

"By the time I was twelve I had out grown my teacher, both technically and musically. I continued on my own, looking through old musical manuscripts that had been passed through the family and learning from the notes that were written on the music. My best friend was learning the guitar at that time and I decided to take it up as well. I quickly learned and then began to sing at get-togethers with my younger cousin who had a sweet voice that blended well with my boy soprano.

"At sixteen I finally came out as a classical violinist. Half the town scorned me and the other half begged me to play. My parents wanted me to stay in school until I was eighteen. So, I did and then got work at the Postal Telegraph Company and stayed there for several years.

"In 1928 I met Ellie and my father married us in January of 1929. She was twenty-one and I was about to turn twenty-five. She was working at Mrs. Israel's boarding house treating tuberculosis patients and decided not to quit until our first child was born. Little did we know at the time that she would never get to quit because the depression would force both of us to keep our jobs longer than we ever thought. I wanted to move to a place that had a decent symphony to play in. I was desperate for music.

"When the depression hit we were both young and naïve and assumed that it wouldn't hurt us. I guess that was what everyone thought. After the twenties when everybody was happy and the stock market was rising and rising. It seemed as though there was enough money for everyone. Soon, no one would be poor. Even musicians could make enough money to live with the stock market going so well. Luckily for me, I didn't have too much sunk into the stock market when it fell. My best friend, however, lost everything. He had all of his money in the stock market and had bought into companies that sold more stock than they had. Added to which he bought most of his stock on margin and the collateral was the other stock that he had which was on margin. When the crash came he lost everything- his car, his house, his job, and sunk into a deep emotional depression. He didn't have anything to turn to, as I had my music. That was my one savior.

"I said that I didn't have too much sunk into the stock market, but for a young musician with a family it was more than I could spare. We lost most of our savings, Ellie lost her job, and we realized that when our first child was born Ellie would still need to find work. What hit hardest for me was the realization that we would probably never get to move, never get out of this place that didn't have much for a classical musician. I would have to live with my music alone, I would never get to play with a group of well-disciplined players. But I figured that life would go on and that I would live without music. That first month was hard though. I couldn't look at the violin with out sinking into a depression, an emotional one. Eventually though I began to ease myself out of it. I could look at the violin and then I could play it again. I practiced just as much, but my heart wasn't in it the same as before. I wasn't striving for something anymore. I guess that was what happened to most people when they lost their money and jobs. 'Why go on? Even if the Depression ends you still have no job, no money.' And when the Depression kept going on and on, more and more people began thinking this.

"Ellie and I went about our lives and did the same things on the outside, but on the inside we both knew that things could never be the same as long as we couldn't continue on with our dreams. Ellie wanted to be a mother and have a family. And I just wanted to be in a symphony. To play as my grandfather did on this great violin. Then the 'What did we ever do to deserve this?' thinking came in and the answer was nothing, we did nothing. And that was exactly the problem if we did nothing to get here, in this desperate state, why are we here. Then the blaming came in 'Its all the bankers fault' or 'It's the farmers in the West's fault'.

"God has blessed us by bringing us to Mrs. Collins. Even if our rented rooms aren't much, they are home. Mrs. Collins's family has moved away now, and the farm is unused, but Ellie and Mrs. Collins keep a garden and can vegetables and fruit in the summer. We can only afford meat once a week, but we get by. Rent is only twelve dollars a month. Mrs. Collins has a dozen old beehives that Ellie helps keep, selling honeycomb. She is so calm she never gets stung. Nowadays she has a W.P.A. job at Eugene Rankin School sewing garments for thirty-six dollars a month.

"In 1931 Esther was born and she was our savior. Suddenly we had a reason to live. We named her after my sister who died as an infant and my parents did so want an Esther in the family. My heart went back into my playing, I decided to teach Esther to play the violin when she got older. But still something was missing: thinking about teaching Esther to play the violin when she might not even be musically talented was not the same as playing in a well organized group and taking Esther to work was not the same as being a full time mother for Ellie. But still it gave us something to think about in those long days of nothingness for I had lost my job at the Postal Telegraph Company. The depression began to really sink us. Could Ellie and the bees keep us alive and in a house until I could find work again? The only thing of value that we had was my violin and the thought of selling that was appalling. We didn't know what to do. The emotional depression began seeping back on us again. How could I go on without my violin? I brushed up on my piano skills and played the piano for my father's church. That brought in some money, but not nearly enough. It looked as though the violin was going to have to go.

"In 1932 things started looking up. I got a job at Altamont Consolidated Rules School. Not a fun one, but anything was good at this rate. I got only fifteen dollars a month. The most exciting part of the job was the dash to the office for pay as soon as the rumor got passed around that the checks were in because the first people to the office got paid until the money ran out. I began to wish that I were a track star instead of a violinist. Then the best thing of all happened. Lamar Stringfield started the North Carolina Symphony and it was in Asheville! We wouldn't have to move to be in it. It was my dream come true: finally, there was a symphony for me to play in. My life had purpose again. My playing had joy.

"In 1927 I heard that a symphony might be started. And one was, for a brief time, to give a demonstration concert. Then on February 19, 1932 the North Carolina Ten-Year Plan answered Lamar Stringfield's plea for a North Carolina Symphony to start. The idea for the Symphony was to attract tourism. The symphony, to my joy, accepted me. After only five rehearsals, we had our first concert on May 14 in Chapel Hill. In our first season we played mostly Beethoven, Stoessel, Borodin, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky. I always longed to play in a group like this and loved it. At that time we received a letter from Colonel Pratt from Budapest, who offered to help find a German or Italian conductor for the Symphony since most of the great symphonies of the U.S. had German or Italian conductors. I am proud to say that its always been a sense of pride for the Symphony to have our very own, native Lamar Stringfield as conductor. In our first two seasons, we performed in five cities. I was in seventh heaven except for one shadow. We weren't paid. I still had to work at that school with the dash for the paychecks. Although I must say I have become an extremely fast runner and almost always get there in time.

"In 1934 the Symphony applied to the FERA [Federal Emergency Relief Administration] and got a grant for $45,000, making the Symphony a relief project. This gave the Symphony enough money to pay the sixty-five of us for eight months. We were overjoyed at the time because more money was coming into the house and the Symphony paid me for something I loved to do.

"For now we have used up the money, but I think that the Symphony will eventually pay us full time. I have a wonderful wife, a beautiful child, and a job that I love. Things are looking up and we are the happiest that we've ever been."

Works Cited

"America from the Great Depression to WWII: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSW-OWI." Library of Congress. December 15, 1998. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html. (7 May, 1999).

"American Life Histories." Library of Congress. October 19, 1998. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html. (5 May, 1999).

Gilliam, Elizabeth Phillips. Phone interview. 10 May 1999.

"News and History." The North Carolina Symphony. http://www.ncsymphony.org/. (13 May, 1999).

Peale, Norman Vincent. My Favorite Hymns: And the Stories Behind Them. New York: The Peale Foundation, 1994.

Sperling, Beatrice. Touch Me Twice, Miami Beach, Florida: Beatrice Sperling, 1988.

Swalin, Benjamin. Hard-Circus Road: The Odyssey of the North Carolina Symphony. Raleigh: The North Carolina Symphony Society, Inc., 1987.