I am posting this story, because I can relate. I have the violin that my grandparents bought my dad when he was in grade school. I need to restore it again. I miss playing it. This is a good news story.
Reclaimed fiddle is music to her ears
Music professor thanks MBTA for locating lost violin
Valerie Rose Taylor played her reclaimed violin outside her home in Watertown. The Berklee College of Music professor had left the instrument behind on a bus after a long journey. (Kayana Szymczak for The Boston Globe)It’s cause for a celebratory jig or a rollicking solo: a misplaced fiddle on an MBTA trolley turning up safe and sound and its grateful owner applauding the T employees who were instrumental in the reunion.
On a Saturday late last month, Valerie Rose Taylor, a Berklee College of Music professor, was on the final leg of a lengthy trip home to Watertown when she left her violin on a crowded bus. A gift from her parents when she was in the fourth grade, the 1968 violin had put her on the road to a musical career, provided boundless inspiration, and through the years become a personal touchstone.
“It’s like leaving my leg behind,’’ Taylor, the 53-year-old conductor of the Lowell Philharmonic Orchestra, recalled yesterday, still amazed by the lost-then-found saga. “It’s what led me to my calling.’’
Tired after a long day at the Lowell Folk Festival, where she introduced the violin to children under a warm sun, Taylor did not notice the fiddle’s absence until the next morning. Once she had recovered from the initial shock and panic, she rushed to retrace her steps.
Assisted by numerous T employees — from a helpful bus driver in Watertown Square to a Harvard Square station clerk to transit police at North Station — Taylor wound her way to a bus facility in Charlestown, where the violin was returned to her.
In appreciation, Taylor sent top MBTA officials a heartfelt two-page letter last week, which the T released yesterday with her permission. The violin is worth about $2,000, Taylor said, but has enormous sentimental value.
“This is a letter of thanks, and I hope that copies reach every person involved in the rescue mission described below,’’ the handwritten note begins. “My heartiest thanks to each and all of you . . . and a hail to you at the top of the MBTA tree who manage an organization that has such sympathetic professionals in it.’’
Taylor made sure to thank every MBTA worker who helped her search, including “the lady in the smoked-glass booth who wrote me out a list of phone numbers to call’’ and the “people who decided that leaving it around an unattended car barn till Monday was probably a bad idea.’’
“Every step of the way,’’ she recalled yesterday, “people were there to help.’’
The fiddle was found Saturday evening by bus driver Mike Mercurio, who, after finishing for the day, spotted the case and returned it to a bus garage in Cambridge.
Because the instrument appeared to be valuable, Patricia Labitue, who supervises bus operations, had it moved to her office in Charlestown, which is open on weekends. There she kept it under lock and key Saturday night, then personally watched over it the next day.
“I figured it was probably very important to someone,’’ she said. “So I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave it unattended.’’
The case did not contain contact information, Labitue said.
When Taylor saw her violin, she lifted it off the ground and gave it a gentle hug, Labitue said. While she stopped short of hugging Labitue as well, she thanked her profusely for keeping it safe.
“You could tell it meant a lot to her,’’ Labitue said, adding that she was happy to help and touched by Taylor’s gratitude.
Taylor grew up in Texas, became interested in playing the violin in grade school, even though her parents were not musically inclined.
“My father played the stereo,’’ she quipped. “And my mother couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.’’
Still, they saw her interest and bought her a German factory fiddle, which she has played ever since.
After attending Harvard, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Slavic literature, Taylor studied under acclaimed conductor Frederik Prausnitz at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where she received advanced degrees in conducting. She has taught at Berklee since 1998 and now teaches conducting.
Two years ago, a similar musical reunion made headlines, when Grammy-nominated violinist Philippe Quint left his $4 million violin in the back of a cab in New York City’s Battery Park. The 1723 Kiesewetter Stradivarius spent the rest of the night on the seat of the cab before it was returned.
As thanks, Quint played a concert for the man who returned it and his fellow taxi drivers at the Newark airport.
Taylor can empathize. She blames her loss of the violein on many hours under a warm sun followed by a lengthy, laborious trip home.
“I think my brain was poached,’’ she said with a chuckle. “And once I had gotten to the last part of my trip home, I threw on the off switch.’’
When she realized what she had done, she was overcome by “blind terror and paralysis.’’ But MBTA workers were uniformly compassionate, she said.
Many pointed out that other riders have been known to leave important things behind on the T, recalling the man who left a raw turkey on the bus the day before Thanksgiving and the billing manager at Massachusetts General Hospital who left the records of 66 patients on the Red Line.
Looking back at the experience, Taylor said she hopes she and her childhood violin never part again. But she is heartened that so many strangers would rush to her aid.
“It was such an overwhelming experience, but it turned out well,’’ she said.
Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com. 
