January 2010 – Edition 58

Briefly Anne was the sixth child of William George
Jerrems l and his wife Mary. Born in Chicago, she
was
named after two of her mother’s sisters. She married
Marquette (“Mark”) Ambrose Healy (born in
1884 in
Illinois) in 1907 and they had 3 children.

Mark’s business career revolved around the company
of Lyon & Healy, founded by his father
Patrick
Healy.
This article concentrates on the company and its
founder, who passed on to Mark a legacy which
ensured that Mark and his family had a secure
financial future.

Origin of the name “Marquette”.

Although the name Marquette has a French ring to it,
there is also a town of Marquette in Wisconsin. His
mother was born in Wisconsin, so perhaps he was
named after the town. However, the original Marquette
was a famous French explorer who was the first
person to trace the Mississippi River most of the way
down to the Bay of Mexico, solving the mystery of
where that River went to. Our reader
Marquette “Mark”
Healy (Mark is one of Anne’s grandsons) is not
completely sure where the name came from.

Brief history of Lyon & Healy

In the 1910 Census Mark described himself as a
manufacturer of pianos, for good reason. His family
owned a large company (Lyon & Healy Co.) which
specialised in making musical instruments.

The following extract from an article I found using
Google traces the history of the company. Although
Mark Healy has lent me a book about the formation of
the company by his great grandfather (I will refer to the
book later in more detail) the following account is
concise and brings us up to the present day:

Most music enthusiasts are familiar with the Lyon &
Healy name, if not the company’s history.

The Chicago-based company was an outgrowth of the
Oliver Ditson Company of Boston, a multi-faceted
concern that published music and distributed
instruments. Two of Ditson’s proteges from Boston
went to Chicago in 1864: George Washburn Lyon
and
Patrick Joseph Healy.

Despite their Boston roots, Lyon and Healy liked what
they saw in what would soon be known as the Windy
City and set up operations as the Lyon & Healy Co. In
the 1870s, Lyon & Healy introduced new lines of high-
quality guitars, mandolins, zithers, and later, banjos.
They wanted a distinctive name for these top-grade
instruments and chose Lyon’s first and middle
names: George Washburn, or simply, Washburn. The
company soon became a powerhouse, eventually
attaining the status of world’s largest music firm. Lyon
it appears was the musician and Healy the
entrepreneur. In 1889 the former retired and the latter
became the company’s president.

Washburn instruments won a bronze medal for
excellence at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition
(commemorating the “discovery” of the New World)
held in Chicago.

In the early years, Lyon & Healy produced primarily
guitars and bowl-back mandolins, sold under the
Washburn name. Sales of these instruments was
bolstered by an aggressive and imaginative
advertising campaign and by engaging illustrated
catalogs.

Patrick J. Healy died in 1905, ending his 16-year reign
as company president. His son Paul J. Healy served
in that role from 1911-1915. The last family member at
the helm was Marquette A. Healy, president from 1921-
1925 when many of the “Own Make” mandolins were
made.

Later in the 1920s, Lyon & Healy evolved from an
instrument builder to a musical wholesaler. In 1928
three different companies bought the major
components of Lyon and Healy so, by the end of that
year, only harps continued to be made by it – as they
are to this day. The name still commands respect and
most of the leading orchestras in the country have
Lyon & Healy harps, which list for as much as $45,000!

Mark sold his interest in the company in 1928, a year
before the stock market crash, which ushered in the
Great Depression. Hopefully Mark and Annie did not
invest the proceeds of the company sale in shares.

When Mark’s father died in 1905 at the age of 65 a
book was published about his life, which had the
classic “rags to riches” theme. The book of 122 pages
(which included 40 pages of tributes) was compiled
as an “appreciation” by relatives and friends, and it
contains many fascinating details which are beyond
the scope of this article.

Patrick was born in County Cork in 1840, being the
youngest of 13 children. His father was 75 when he
was born and lived to the amazing age of 103. The
family migrated to Boston from Ireland in 1850 and in
1854 Patrick obtained his first job as an errand boy in
a company dealing with musical instruments. He
worked his way up in the company, and in due course
the owner (Oliver Ditson) offered to set Patrick and
his
fellow employee Lyon up in a city of their choice
as an
outlet for Ditson’s company. Their company ended up
completely eclipsing the parent company. As they
say, “the rest is history”.

At the time Mark was only 24 and Lyon was in his early
40s.

The book says about Patrick that “his ideas were
many years ahead of his time”, particularly in the area
of advertising. In 1876 he paid the local newspaper
$15000 (a huge sum for those times) on advertising
for band instruments, and issued a large catalogue.
The shop also had a military band.

The Great Fire of 1871 burnt down the Chicago
business district, including the ornate Lyon & Healy
shop, however the building was well insured and a
new building was constructed. The next year Patrick’s
first wife (Mary Griffith), who he had married in 1863
died, leaving 4 children (James, George, Raymond
and Paul). He married Frances Hannan in 1882 and
they had 8 children (Mark, Mary, John, Vincent,
Frances, Anita, Columbus and Augustine), of which all
but one (John) survived infancy. Frances died in 1899.

Lyon retired from the company in 1889, and shortly
afterwards Patrick began the construction of a huge
factory to keep up with the demand for instruments. In
keeping with Mark’s principle of having “quality” in all
things relating to the Company the factory was built in
a residential area (where the land was more
expensive) opposite a large park, and it had flower
gardens around it. The output from this factory
continued at 100,000 instruments a year, which
Patrick said equated to “an instrument every other
working minute”, but I calculate the rate to be even
higher! Although Chicago became notorious for
industrial unrest, the employees of the company never
became involved in strikes.

Patrick again showed his flair for publicity in the 1893
World Fair in Chicago (known as “The Columbian
Exposition”), where he built a beautiful 2 storey
building to house an orchestra which gave concerts
every day for 6 months. A register book was kept,
showing that dignitaries from all over the world had
attended the concerts. At about this time he also
achieved one of his ambitions, to have his
representatives (who previously had regularly visited
all the principal cities of Europe, United States and
Canada) visit Australia, China, Japan and the
countries of South America.

Patrick did not merely turn out instruments, he wanted
to make his mark on the industry, exemplified by his
redesign of the harp, which had not been changed for
70 years. This was a labour of love, and its success
in its final form in about 1886 was demonstrated by
the fact that the famous composer Wagner endorsed
it and it became the recognized standard of the world.

I love harp music. If I ask Santa for a Lyon & Healy
harp for Christmas I am sure he could arrange it.

Patrick assembled a famous collection of violins,
which included a number of “Strads”.

Patrick had a prodigious memory and was held in
high regard by the business community and the
music world, demonstrated by the tributes quoted in
the book. Somewhat surprisingly for a man who
publicised his company so energetically, he was a
shy retiring man who avoided speaking in public. He
was also of small physical stature and had a ruddy
face. Although he applied to join the army during the
Civil War he was rejected because he was too short
and slight, but he was a powerful swimmer and loved
rowing, particularly at Lake Geneva in Wisconsin,
where he later bought a holiday house.

Mark’s business career

I do not have details of Mark’s business career. But I
do know that his father was well known for his policy
of employing senior staff who had come up through
the ranks and had developed under his tutelage. It is
therefore safe to assume that Mark started work at the
Company at about the age of 16 (the average age
boys were first employed by Patrick) and worked his
way up to being a Board member and (as referred to
earlier) the President of the Company in 1921.

Comparison with Nicoll the Tailor

Anne’s grandfather Alexander Nicholl (“Nicoll the
Tailor”) was equally as famous as her father-in-
law for
publicising his men’s clothing business. He opened
stores in 42 different locations. Patrick started his
business in Chicago at least 15 years before
Alexander, so the similarity between their approaches
was probably coincidental. Their main similarity was
that their companies made a lot of money.

Instruments manufactured by the Company

Googling “Lyon,Healy” also brings up websites
referring to organs, violins, banjos, side drums,
saxophones, tubas, grand pianos, and standing
pianos.

In the early 1900s the company made harp
guitars /bass guitars (one model was advertised as
a “Monster Bass Guitar”). These were so chubby that
they look like shortened cellos! Enthusiasts have set
up a website devoted to these peculiar L&H;
instruments:
http://www.harpguitars.net/history/month_hg/month-
hg-4-05.htm.

How to play the mandolin

The “entry point” mandolin sold for about $110, which
was a lot of loot in those days! An advertisement for
this instrument had that perennial optimism (in
common with all advertisements for musical
instruments) as to the ease with which a purchaser
could learn to play it:

‘Certainly you can learn to play this exquisite
Instrument. Just three or four simple lessons-and you
are well on the road toward a happy, life-lasting
accomplishment that will make your Lyon and Healy
mandolin more than ever a “pride and joy”‘.

Ah, nothing has changed! In an interesting marketing
approach a young woman is depicted in the
advertisement holding the mandolin.

When you see a musical instrument manufactured
by “Lyon & Healy” cast your mind back to Mark and
Annie Healy and Mark’s father who founded the
company, and remember the “Jerrems connection”
with the company.

Although we have readers related to Edwin’s brother
Henry Herbert, Helen is the first reader related
to Edwin.

Helen has supplied me with information about Edwin,
and soon we will have an article for the Journal in
the “Remember Me” series, about Edwin and his
descendants. What else could I have done when
Helen wrote to me “Hi Ray, what a great job you are
doing with the Jerrems family history”?

Helen’s interest has also stirred me into action in
recording the information I have assembled about
Robert’s other children (including Henry
Herbert). I have circulated this to our readers who are
descended from Henry Herbert, and we should have
an article on the subject in the near future.

Robert’s descendants in fact form the largest
component of the Jerrems family, but this numerical
size has not been reflected in the number of items in
the Journal. We have had articles in previous years
about some of the descendants of Robert in the
Journal (notably about Carol Jerrems the
photographer), but nothing of a comprehensive
genealogical nature.

It is exciting that we are still taking in new readers who
have important information to contribute. Perhaps
surprisingly, Donald and I now have more articles
ready for future Journals than ever before! To think
that when we started up the Journal I wondered how
long we could keep it going.