Edmund Rennolds interview 4 (2004-08-26)

              VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
JAMES BRANCH CABELL LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS 
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT: TWENTIETH CENTURY RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

NARRATOR: EDMUND ADDISON RENNOLDS, JR.	
INTERVIEWER: KATHRYN E. COLWELL
Place:	6410 Three Chopt Road			No. of tapes: 2
	Richmond, Virginia	     			No. of sides: 3
							Length of tape: 118 minutes
Date:	August 26, 2004				Interview: 4 of 4	

Counter Index	Topic of Discussion
[Cassette tape 1 of 2, Side A, Fourth Interview 8/26/04]
0:00:54.4	Introduction
0:04:31.2	Emma Gray Trigg and her role establishing the Richmond Symphony
0:22:23.0	Financial support for the Richmond Symphony
0:26:02.9	The Richmond Symphony’s purchase of Lowe’s Theater as their concert hall
0:32:12.9	Mr. Rennolds’ attitude toward spending money
0:35:08.1	Branch family assets following the Civil War
0:38:56.7	Passages from John H. Claiborne’s book Seventy-five Years in Old Virginia
End of Side A
[Cassette tape 1 of 2, Side B, Fourth Interview 8/26/04]
0:02:41.0	Passages from Claiborne’s book mentioning Thomas Branch
0:04:30.0	Branch family during Reconstruction
0:07:27.6	Rennolds family during Reconstruction
0:10:20.0	The relationship between the Richmond Symphony and Richmond Professional
		Institute (predecessor to VCU)
0:18:47.0	Mr. Rennolds’ life-long interest in music
0:24:18.2	Mary Anne Rennolds interest in music
0:43:52.0	Discussion of the Berlin Orchestra
End of Side B
[Cassette tape 2 of 2, Side A, Fourth Interview 8/26/04]
0:00:24.0	The Richmond Symphony (continued)
0:03:39.6	Mr. Rennolds’ involvement with the James Branch Cabell Associates at VCU
0:15:07.8	Mary Anne Rennolds' monument at Hollywood Cemetery
0:18:32.9	Discussion of Ned and Mary Anne Rennolds’ bookplates
End of Side A
END OF INTERVIEW


	


0:00:00.0	Introduction
	Kathryn E. Colwell:  Today is August 26th.  This is the fourth interview with Mr. 
Rennolds.  Present today are his son and daughter, Bucci and Edmund; his niece Sarah Harrison; 
and Emile Zaffa, who is a companion here in his home.  We have been looking for the books that 
had been quoted in earlier interviews and also clarifying some things in the transcript.  Now we 
will go on to some new material.  
	The last time we saw each other, Mr. Rennolds, we discussed that today two good topics 
would be more about the Richmond Symphony, and its founding, and then also your involvement 
with the James Branch Cabell Associates, and a little bit about that organization.  I am sure that 
the children and Sarah will jump in with some other suggestions.  
	Edmund A. Rennolds, Jr.:	The symphony and that, but nothing about Palladio?
	KEC:	We can.  We surely can.
	EAR:	We’ve done Palladio.
	KEC:	We did Palladio pretty thoroughly.
	EAR:	Its (unintelligible) then.
	KEC:	Only if you want it to be.  Really.
	EAR:	The Symphony.  There were several efforts to start symphonies in Richmond that 
failed.   After World War II, there was a professor at the University of Richmond called John 
White.  He got the secretary of the American Symphony Orchestra League to come to Richmond 
and give a talk about how to start a symphony.  Finally came up with the idea of asking the 
conductor of the Norfolk Symphony to come up here and do some concerts, Edgar Schenkman.  
He agreed to come if we could raise ten-thousand dollars.  The idea was to have a starting season 
of three concerts at the Landmark Theater.  The first one was—  I have the date here somewhere.  
Edmund, deduct twenty-five from eighty-one.  What do you get?
	Edmund A. Rennolds III:  Fifty-six.
	Bucci Zuegner Rennolds:  Was it ‘58 or ‘57?  
	EAR:	I think it was ’57.   The first concert was in the fall of ’57.  The theater was then 
called the Mosque and seated five-thousand people.  It was astonishing to me to come to that 
concert and see the house practically sold out for this concert.  I think people were curious and 
they just wanted to see what it was like.  We had a really first-rate pianist, whose name I’ve 
forgotten.
0:04:31.2	Emma Gray Trigg and her role establishing the Richmond Symphony 
	KEC:	Prior to that first concert that first season, I was reading the article you wrote 
about Emma Gray Trigg that you were just referring to and you talk about the Richmond Music 
Club; was it? (“Emma Gray Trigg: The Music,” The Richmond Quarterly, Winter 1981) 
	EAR:	The Richmond Musicians Club.
	KEC:	Was the Musicians Club formed at the time?
	EAR:	Oh yes, it had been going for several years.  I was the treasurer for a good many 
years.  Mrs. Trigg was the president for a good many years too, of the Musicians Club.  If you’ve 
read that article, you can see the interesting things Mrs. Trigg was doing.  She wrote librettos for 
three operas and had a beautiful singing voice.  She gave some recitals, singing.  But the big deal 
about her was that she raised the ten-thousand dollars we had to have.  
	Sarah Townsend Harrison:  And you had nothing to do with that?
	EAR:	What?
	STH: 	You had nothing to do with raising money?
	EAR:	Of course not.  I had nothing to do with it. (chuckles)
	STH:  	One other thing too, about the symphonies that had been started, didn’t your 
Uncle Blythe start one in the ‘20s, a Richmond Symphony?
	EAR:	Yes.  It was the first.  It was one that went for three years.  He was the head of it.  
	KEC:	What were the dynamics like between the people that were supporting this?  
When you mention John White had asked the National—
	EAR:	The National Symphony Orchestra League.  It is a group that you can join and 
they’ll give you ideas and tell you what to do and how to do it and all that.  Very useful, very 
useful to us in those early years.   
	KEC:	When that gentleman came to Richmond to talk, how—
	EAR:	A woman.
	KEC:	A woman.  How did you assemble the group that heard her?  I’d like you to flesh 
out the personalities at the time.
	EAR:	We had some people whom we thought would be interested.
	BRZ:	Were these people from the Musicians Club?
	EAR:	Some of them, yes.
(Bucci relates information.  She is too far away from the microphone and the information is 
unintelligible.)
	BRZ: 	Class they were called.  It was an amateur thing and you wanted a more 
professional—  Right?
	EAR:	The Musicians Club would have soloists come from away.  Occasionally they 
would get a good one.  I mean not a good one, but a famous one.
	STH:	Where did Fritz come from?  Dr. Neumann.
	EAR:	He was at the University of Richmond as a professor.  He came out of 
Czechoslovakia.  He had to leave just before the war.
	BRZ: 	He was at the University of Richmond and he helped you all form a symphony 
and  
	EAR:	He became the first violinist.
	BRZ:	Wasn’t he the concertmaster?
	EAR:	That is the same thing.  He had a European background.  It was very useful.
	KEC:	And why do say that it was useful?
	EAR:	The knowledge.  He had two PhDs, one from the University of Berlin in business 
and one from Columbia in music.  He came out of a musical family in Prague.  He was really 
something.  He taught some of our children strings.   He was very helpful to us.
	KEC:	What are the names of some of the other people that were very involved at the 
time of the founding, in addition to you and Mary Anne?  I know that you	had some 
organizational meetings here in your living room.  Were there other people that had that same 
level of enthusiasm?
	EAR:	Yes, I think so.  I’ll tell you who was a big help, the Thalheimer family.  They 
took a gamble on us.  We made a deal with them where they would pay for our programs, the 
printing of them, providing there was a Thalhimer’s advertisement on the back page.  It was very 
helpful to have somebody with a prominent name, for them to do that.   
	What is Sarah doing now?  What is that green book?
	STH:	Would you like for me to look for Addison?  Walter Dulaney?  He [Emile] can’t 
find it.
	KEC:	(laughing) She likes a challenge.
	EAR:	She likes to rummage around here.  
	BRZ:	There a man who just recently died?  A doctor down at MCV who was playing 
with the symphony.
	EARIII:	Saul Cay.
	EAR:	Yes,   Saul Cay.
	KEC:	How do you spell Cay?
	EARIII:	C-a-y.
	EAR:	And Saul is S-a-u-l.
	BRZ:	And wasn’t Dr. Erb an original?
	EAR:	Yes.  James Erb, E-r-b.  He is still around the symphony in charge of the choral 
work.  
	BRZ:	His wife played the viola.  She just recently retired from the symphony.
	EAR:	It was interesting to me that she was born in Iceland.  How many people do you 
know that were born in Iceland.  [She] lived there the first twenty years of her life.
	BRZ:	How about Florence Robertson?
	EAR:	Yes.  Florence Robertson, a local pianist, was also important in our original 
group.
	BRZ:	Wasn’t there a man later named Givens?
	EAR:	Givens.  Yes.
	KEC:	As we identify some of these people, how would their role moving this new 
symphony forward have been a little different?
	EAR:	They had a lot of enthusiasm and friends.  They persuaded them to come and 
give money.   They weren’t on the board and it was very useful to have people like that involved.
	KEC:	The initial strategy, was it—  What, what was the initial strategy?  I don’t want to 
put words in your mouth.   Now we look at the Symphony and the variety of concerts they 
present, often times to find new audiences, the schools.
	EAR:	There was another man who was very helpful who was the head of music in the 
Richmond schools.  I can’t place his name right now.  He was enthusiastic and we started having 
children’s concerts.  He would get the busses to bring them, which was very useful.
	KEC:	So from the very beginning you had an outreach effort to children.
	EAR:	That is right.  Particularly if you have to fill a place that seats four- or five-
thousand people.  What he would do is a month before the teachers would be told what was going 
to be played and something about them.  They were supposed to tell the students before they 
came.  But you know all of that has dropped out of the school system now in Richmond.
	KEC:	For what reason?
	EAR:	Because he is not there.  
	KEC:	It took his diligence pursuing it?  So it wasn’t a matter of money.  It was a matter 
of priorities; when no one was there to move it along—
	EAR:	The first time someone took a picture of the Mosque, in front.  There must have 
been about twenty busses out there in front.  It was just exciting to see that and to know that they 
brought them.   Our fantasy was to grow, get bigger and so on.  
	Did you have a copy of the Mrs. Trigg article?  The problem was the local musicians.  
We had to bring about twenty people up from Norfolk and about ten from Washington.  Her job 
was, of course, to entice people to come here and to take care of them when they did come.
	KEC:	As I read about that, for a volunteer person supporting the symphony that is quite 
a chore.
	EAR:	Of course it is.  Her knowledge of where everything was in Richmond and so on.  
She’d go and get them; tell them where to live.  All of these things that were just fantastic to have 
a knowledgeable person in charge.
	KEC:	Your wife Mary Anne, what were some of the areas that she worked particularly 
hard with?
	EAR:	She—  What did she do?
	BRZ:	She worked with the musicians.
	EAR:	She was very sympathetic to the musicians, took their side on everything.  
(chuckles)
	STH:	Made life miserable for you as president.
	EAR:	You know, our children all took strings and they played at Sarah’s wedding.  
Remember that Sarah?
	STH:	I certainly do.  It was lovely.
	EAR:	—and at several other weddings too.  What else did you play for?  Remember 
what?
	BRZ:	At Christmas time we played at the nursing homes.  We had a little orchestra; 
another family that was going with us.
	KEC:	You were all on strings or did you venture, any of you, into piano?
	EARIII:	 All of us played the violin.  Louise played the piano.  Anne played the 
cello.
	STH:	Bucci played the mariachis.
	EARIII:	(addressing Bucci) You played the violin for a while.
	EAR:	I think the key to a lot of this was producing something that the paper would 
think worthy of taking pictures of.
	KEC:	Publicity is critical isn’t it?
	EAR:	That’s right, when starting something like this.  Of course Richmond—hard to 
believe now—had a society page that told you when people were going to New York or were 
going to have a dinner party and so on.  We also had a series of parties, before and after concerts, 
to get this thing started.  They don’t do that now.
	KEC:	The parties before and after, where would those be held?
	EAR:	People’s houses, usually.  We had some here.
	STH:	You usually did them here.  You’d put dry ice in the fountain and all the ladies 
would screech because they thought the ice (unintelligible).
	EAR:	Yes, we had  this fountain that had ice.  It looked like—I don’t know what.  
	KEC:	In which area?
	EARIII:  In the middle of the dining room table.
	STH:	And there was a rubber tree that went up to the ceiling that dripped down into 
everybody’s faces.  They loved coming here for parties.
	KEC:	I would imagine so.  Did you enjoy entertaining?
	EAR:	Yes.  Well my wife, of course, had to do it.  We started out having the governor 
come to the first concert and he’d come to the dinner party too.  I persuaded my mother once, 
who lived downtown, to have one of the parties.  I sat next to the governor’s wife and she said, 
“You know, I had no idea that on Park Avenue there was a house like this.” (laughter)
	KEC:	Your home.  I’ve driven by it and looked at it and it is not pretentious at all.
	EAR:	That’s right.
	STH:	You have to remember too, easy parking because she knocked down the house 
next door to make a parking lot.
	EARIII:  Which governor was that Dad?  Holton?  
	EAR:	It was the one that was in the business of—
	EARIII:  Almond?
	EAR:	What is that house at West Point?
	STH:	Ed Lauferty’s.
	EAR:	No.  The house is gone but there is a sign.
	STH:	Oh, right.  Eltham.
	EAR:	Eltham.  What is the name of the family there?  Bassett.  
	STH:	The wife was related to—
	EAR:	The Bassetts had a furniture company and she was married to Stanley, who was 
governor.  He had a furniture company too.  I said, “We drive by a sign that says the Bassetts 
used to live at Eltham.  Is that your family?”  She said, “Yes, my brother had a house west of 
Richmond and he called it Eltham after that.”  It was kind of an interesting house.  It is also the 
house that Mrs. George Washington was married, Martha.   Her sister lived at Eltham and George 
Washington used to stop frequently there on his way from Mount Vernon to Williamsburg.  Just a 
little tidbit.
	KEC:	The connections are fascinating.
	EAR:	There is a little book.  Have you ever seen that book on George Washington’s 
trips?
	STH:	No.
	EAR:	It took him three days to get to Williamsburg you know.
	KEC:	From Washington D.C.?
	EAR:	Yes.  He was on a horse and there were rivers you had to cross.  You had to find 
where they were—
	STH:	Couldn’t he have gone on a boat?
	EAR:	No.  He had to ferry across some rivers.  The Eltham place was one day from 
Williamsburg, so it was quite a convenient place for him to stay.  If it was Sunday they used to go 
to the local church, which is gone now, but there are some tombstones there.  I never have seen 
them; have you Sarah?
	STH: 	No.  I’ve seen St. John’s, but I’m not sure that is the same one.
	EAR:	No, it is not St. John’s.  
	STH:	That is where (unintelligible name) and all of them went, to St. John’s.
	EAR:	That is not on the right side of the river, is it?
	STH:	Yes, it is.  It is out from West Point.
	EAR:	Oh.  I don’t know what the name of the thing was, but anyway—
	STH:	I think we are diverging.  What do you all—
0:22:23.0	Financial support for the Richmond Symphony
	KEC:	Yes.  Financial support for the symphony.  Did you have the governor here and 
other legislators wanting them to support it and give it a higher public profile?  Were there any 
state funds or—
	EAR:	Yes, a little bit, city ones too.  At one of our dinner parties we had the governor 
and the mayor.  The governor’s wife had never met the mayor’s wife. (laughter)
	KEC:	They probably found this to be a very opportune meeting.
	EARIII:  Was that Holton?
	EAR:	No.
	EAR:	Harrison?
	EAR:	I don’t know.  Don’t name all of the governors; I don’t know who we had.
	KEC:	The state funding or the local funding—
	EAR:	—was very small.
	KEC:	So it was not ever anything you could count on?
	EAR:	That’s right.
	KEC:	Has that [the funding] grown any?
	EAR:	Yes, it has grown, except for about a year ago when it disappeared entirely.  You 
get your system set up and your budget and you’ve hired people and all of that, then they say on 
January 17th there’s not going to be any money.  It is a very bad situation.  I think that all of the 
arts have had that.  For instance the museum has closed a whole day because of that.
	KEC:	I walked into the Virginia Museum yesterday.  It said closed Monday and 
Tuesday.
	EAR:	I know it.  The Tuesday is the extra one.  
	KEC:	(pause)  I am thinking more about the funding again.  You have the subscriptions.  
Initially were there grants that were written for funding?
	EAR:	Yes.  We tried everything we could.  But the big deal came from the Ford 
Foundation.  You have to have a budget over one-hundred thousand.  We just barely got over 
that.  Norfolk was a little under so they couldn’t get it.  I wrote the grant for that and we got a 
million dollars.  They were going to give five-hundred thousand and we had to raise five-hundred 
thousand, to have a million dollar fund as an endowment.  I remember they gave their five-
hundred thousand in Ford stock.  It was ten-thousand shares, which was selling at fifty.  I used to 
watch it every day to see what it was doing.  One day it went down to forty-five and so it was 
only worth four-hundred and fifty thousand rather than five-hundred. 
	KEC:	I hope that in time it went back up.
0:26:02.9	The Richmond Symphony’s purchase of Lowes Theater as a concert hall
	EAR:	Yes, but we couldn’t sell it for a period of years anyway.  We eventually used 
most of that money to buy the Lowes Theater, where the Carpenter Center is now.  That operation 
was run out of the Symphony for a while, but it was found better that it would be a separate 
organization.  I think it was quite successful that way too.  You know, you get something with a 
different group of people that want to do something different and it turns out worthwhile.
	KEC:	Now Lowes Theater was not constructed as a symphony hall.
	EAR:	No.  It was a movie house.  There are a number of other cities that have made 
them symphony halls.  The one I can think of in particular is St. Louis.  Of course it only seated 
about half as many as the Mosque.
	KEC:	From the Symphony musicians’ perspective, where did they like to play?  What 
was their favorite venue?
	EAR:	I don’t think they liked the Mosque.  I hadn’t really thought about that.  They 
were just slaves.  They had to do anything we told them, you know.
	KEC:	I guess what I was trying to ask is—the acoustics, comparing the Mosque to 
Lowes to some other—
	EAR:	The acoustics to Lowes were not bad, even though it was constructed as a movie 
house.
It is kind of interesting what happens when you have a different place.  The year we are in now, 
the concerts are going to be given in three different places, each one seating a thousand or less.  
They are all churches: First Baptist, Second Baptist, and St. Michael’s Catholic Church.  They 
found out an interesting phenomenon.  The ticket sales have gone up, particularly at Second 
Baptist.
	STH:	People don’t want to go all of the way downtown.
	EAR:	Right.
	BRZ:	Especially on a Friday night.
	EAR:	And these older people will go to Second Baptist Church, have a nice parking 
place.  It is not far from where they live.  That is kind of an interesting phenomenon.  The 
Catholic church, which is where I go, you are in the round.  That is interesting too.  I have heard 
it said that whenever you change your hall your audiences are better the first year or two.  So I 
don’t know.  I don’t know what will happen when we go back to Lowes.  One of the troubles with 
Lowes is the parking was very awkward for older people.  Now we are going to have a brand new 
parking garage that is already being built.  They have the money for it too.  That thing will go up 
before anything else does or doesn’t.  
	KEC:	Going to that particular corner in Richmond, during the last few years, has not 
been an area that made one feel immediately safe.  There are other areas that have really 
revitalized.
	EAR:	Sarah and I went to that parking place.  Each time we got lost.  I only went twice.
	STH:	He has a secret place down an alley with no lights and going in the dark—
	BRZ:	My mother had found that.  She wouldn’t let anybody ride in the car to the 
parking place because she didn’t want anybody else to find out about it.  She’d have to drop 
somebody off at the door. (laughter)
	KEC:	And so Sarah was allowed to go to the parking place—  (laughter, everyone is 
talking at once)
	STH:	I had to fix my car.  Cost me eight-hundred dollars to fix the damn thing.
	BRZ:	And she just loved that parking place.  It was between the buildings.  
	STH:	Dark, dark!
	BRZ:	—everybody else was in line for the parking deck.
	STH:	You all also had a favorite parking place at the Mosque.
	EAR:	I know.
	STH:	Down another alley.
	EAR:	That is right.
	KEC:	I was going to ask.  Was it Grace and Holy Trinity’s parking lot?
	STH:	No.  They wouldn’t be illegal.  This was on the other side and down through the 
alley
	KEC:	Before we went on the Panama Mission trip, one of the ways to raise funds, 
which I guess the church does regularly, is to sell parking places for events at the Mosque.  There 
were many people that were accustomed—they thought it was just the best-kept secret in the city 
that gate was going to be up at Grace and Holy Trinity.  They’d come whipping in there and then 
they’d see us.  It was amazing how many people had to stop and contemplate whether they were 
going to part with five dollars or not.  
	STH:	Yes.  That is a good deal though.
0:32:12.9	Mr. Rennolds’ attitude toward spending money
	Are you a gentleman that likes a good deal?  That you get a kick-out of it.
	EAR:	I guess so, it depends.
	STH:	You couldn’t care less.
	KEC:	I am thinking of— Sarah is here to keep the conversation going—I remember the 
first interview, when we were visiting; Edmund and you were talking about going to see the 
coliseums, the Roman ruins in Turkey.  Libya.
	EARIII:	We were going to go to Libya to see the Roman ruins.
	STH:	And the Greek temple.
	KEC:	I had the impression that it was the only group of ruins that he had not seen.
	EAR:	It was what?
	KEC:	You had expressed an interest in traveling to Libya to see the Roman ruins; the 
only ones that you haven’t seen.  The reason that I am bringing it up now is at that time your 
children mentioned that you felt it was too expensive to fly business class or first class, which at 
this point in time, I personally think, that is irrelevant.  
	BRZ:	He doesn’t like the image of flying first class.  But he wouldn’t think twice about 
plunking down money for a bronze statue.
	STH:	He might like the comfort of first class too, but he doesn’t want to pay for it.
	BRZ:	He doesn’t like the image of people walking by with you sitting there.
	EAR:	Of course it used to be a large amount, two-hundred times what the other ticket 
was.  I just—
	KEC:	Have you always been conscious of, as Bucci has implied just now, about how 
you presented yourself to the community as far as your wealth or activities like that?
	EAR:	I’d never thought about it, I guess.  Do you all remember us thinking about it?
	BRZ:	Well you never bought an outlandish car that you flashed around.  He had the 
things that were important.  He didn’t not do it.
	EARIII:  Richmond is kind of understated.
	KEC:	It is.
	EARIII:	The old money is understated.
	EAR:	The old money is what?
	EARIII:	The old money in Richmond is understated.  It is not flashy.
	KEC:	Sometimes it is a family value that is passed down, that the wealth is irrelevant 
to.
0:35:08:1	Branch family’s assets following the Civil War
	EAR:	It depends on when the money was made.  There are some people in Richmond 
that have said that our family had some gold coins left over from the Civil War.  That they were 
supposed to have turned into the Confederate government and they didn’t do it.  
	KEC:	Why?  Okay, this is an aspect of Reconstruction that I am not familiar with.  
Individuals were to turn over their personal wealth to the Confederate government?
	EAR:	Before the war and during the war.  They were supposed to buy government 
bonds, do things like that.  I don’t know, but that is what I’ve heard.  Some of the women sewed 
the gold coins into their clothes.  Then they would rip one open and bring out a fifty-dollar gold 
piece.  Mrs. Pryor did that in Petersburg, Sarah.  	
	BRZ:	Wasn’t there a bale of hay or cotton somewhere stashed?
	EAR:	The interesting story to me is Mrs. Tyler, whose husband had been president of 
the United States and lived down at Sherwood Forest.  He was in the Confederate Congress, died 
during the war, 1862.  His wife, widow, was from New York.  She was a Gardiner from 
Gardiner’s Island.  She bundled the children into a boat with three bales of cotton and set out for 
Bermuda from Sherwood Forest. (laughter)
	EARIII:  She had a premonition that her husband was dying.
	EAR:	No, he was already dead.
	STH:	How far did she get?
	EAR:	She got there.  She ended up in England or somewhere.  Those three bales kept 
her going for three or four years.  The trouble was that McClellan’s army had come up the James 
[River] and the James was no longer Confederate.	It was enemy territory.  Where is that 
book that Claiborne wrote?  Is that around here?  I’ll show you one thing there.
	EARIII:  One of our ancestors had a bale of cotton that ended up in a warehouse in West 
Virginia.
	EAR:	In Charleston, West Virginia.  Yes.  That was a Rennolds that did that.  This is 
the book, Seventy-five Years in Old Virginia. (by John Herbert Claiborne)  One of the troubles 
was—that you don’t stop to think of—was that if you were at Appomattox and you surrendered 
Grant allowed the officers to go home with horses, but not the enlisted men.  I guess there were 
not enough horses.  The enlisted men, there they were walking from Appomattox to somewhere.
	KEC:	And with no horses probably when they got home.
0:38:56.7	Passages from John H. Claiborne’s book
	EAR:	This man was a doctor and he—kind of interesting—  Did I ever show you this, 
Sarah?
	STH:	No.  I’ve heard of this book but—	
	EAR:	He tells about the problems of walking from Appomattox to where he was going.   
He’d left his wife and children; who had immigrated out of Petersburg and were somewhere in 
the country.  He was trying to find them.
	STH:	He was walking or was he on horseback?  
	EAR:	He probably had a horse because he was an officer.  Anyway, it wasn’t easy.  
Sometimes people would be nice and give them some food.  Even General Lee had the same 
problem.  He came on a horse from there to Richmond.  It took him three or four days.  This is 
really interesting because there is a Branch involved in it.
	STH:	Oh yes.  This is the Branch where he loans him some money to get home.  
Wasn’t there five gold pieces in Grandmother’s dress?
	EAR:	Yes, that’s right.
	STH:	I think that is lovely.
	EARIII:	Is this the trip to Raleigh?
	EAR:	Yes.  “Mahon, (unintelligible),Blakeman and I directed our course for 
Clarksville, Virginia, while others of the party turned their steps toward Petersburg.  We reached 
Clarksville about dark and received a warm welcome from Mrs. Mahon, as may well be 
imagined, and after a nice hot super went to bed.  I for one more dead that alive.  I not only had 
endured the fatigue, exposure, and peril of the retreat, but my (unintelligible), which I had ridden 
rapidly for two long days, was the roughest riding animal that I had ever backed.  It was equal to 
riding on a wooden horse.  That was said the night following the surrender.  It seemed to me that 
the events of a lifetime had been crowded into that short week.”  But anyway, there is a whole lot 
about the Mahons and then, “The next morning I took the road to Lewisburg, North Carolina, 
twenty-five miles distant.  During the day I met many of Lee’s old soldiers trudging, their weary 
way home to different portions of the state.  Also several very fine teams belonging to the 
quartermaster’s department, which had been out for weeks foraging, but their drivers seemed to 
be at-sea as to what they should do or where they should go.  One man, a quartermaster sergeant 
who had a splendid team of four mules, said he had been for two weeks foraging and was just 
ready to go back to the army when the news of Lee’s surrender came to him.  He begged me to 
take the wagon and team and give him a receipt.  Said he was going to leave them that day or the 
next with anybody that would take them and make his way home a foot as best he could.  He 
lived in one of the far southern states.  Of course, I had no more right to the team than he and no 
more use and I declined.”  (chuckles)
	KEC:	It was just utter chaos for most people, wasn’t it?
	EAR:	“At mid-day I came to a camp, which had only been left a few hours, maybe the 
night before.  Among the odds and ends that had been abandoned was a bolt of fine imported 
jeans.  This was left by accident I presume, but I picked it up and tied it behind my saddle.  From 
this was fabricated the only underclothing that I had for weeks; all of my clothes having been 
burned or lost during the retreat to Appomattox.  About six o’clock I reached Lewisburg and rode 
up to the house where I had sent my wife and children two years before and soon had my loved 
ones in my arms.”  Well anyway—
	EARIII:  Who is writing this?
	EAR:	Claiborne, Doctor.  “…and now alone riding on without one single comrade, 
unheralded without country, without home, without bread, without faith, I was a stranger even to 
my little children.  I leave this picture, let some other finish it.  …The war was over, the war with 
men but not over with this scalping crowd of cowards and carpetbaggers which followed its 
wake.  No that foul block of harpies who hovered over the little left of the starving women and 
children polluting it with their noise some snatch.” 
	KEC:	You have always taken such pleasure in reading and learning.  I know Edmund 
has commented on the—
	EAR:	On what?
	KEC:	You take such pleasure in learning.
	EAR:	Yes.  “The hardships and exposure of the last two weeks and the hopelessness of 
the future brought on an attack of sickness and I was detained for nearly a month at the home of 
the fellow with whom I had boarded my family for two years.  I had fortunately paid their board 
in kind as it was turned in, that is in bacon and flour, until about middle of June.  But as soon as I 
was able, I went to Raleigh seeking some opportunity of getting back to Petersburg and of further 
providing for my family.  On reaching Raleigh, I found an old friend and fellow townsman, Mr. 
Thomas Branch, who had been refuging with his family in that city for a year or more.  He took 
me to his hospitable house where with him and his estimable wife I found good cheer.  The house 
was filled with strangers.  Representatives of both armies, but there was no ripple of trouble 
between us.  One of my roommates was the Federal General Ames of Massachusetts, who had 
distinguished himself in the taking of the forts below Williamsburg, Wilmington.  Like another 
Massachusetts general, Barker, he was kind and generous.  A large body of Federal troops was 
quartered in Raleigh at the same time but they too seemed particularly quiet and sensitive to the 
feeling of the citizens.  Having no other clothes, I was compelled to wear my uniform and I did 
not ever pass a Federal sentinel that he did not face about and present arms; a considerate 
attention that I entirely appreciated.  I told Mr. Branch that I was seeking some means of getting 
home to Fredericksburg; taking my family there.  He handed fifty dollars in gold to one of his 
younger sons.  Bid him to go to someplace in the city and exchange it for green backs.”
	KEC:	That would be Thomas Branch?
	EAR:	“He turned the proceeds over to me, which was the first dollar of Federal 
currency I ever had.  Before I could get away from Lewisburg, the place where my family had 
been refuging, a core of the Federal Army passed through the town on route to Washington.  To 
which place the whole army had been told to rendezvous for a grand review before they were 
disbanded or mustered out.  They made a halt, or part of it, for several days in Lewisburg.  And 
the general camped with his staff in the yard of the gentleman’s house at which we were staying.  
They held themselves apart from the inmates in the house and placed a safeguard in charge of it.  
He was a poor miserable young boy in feeble health who if he was armed did not know where the 
gun was half of the time.  He took great pleasure in playing with my children, insisting on 
dividing with them anything he could get and anything good which would tempt them.  And they 
were not…”
0:47:39.0
END OF SIDE A	
[Cassette tape 1 of 2, Side B, Fourth Interview 8/26/04]
(Mr. Rennolds continues to read from Seventy-five Years in Old Virginia)
0:02:41.0	Text from Claiborne’s book mentioning Thomas Branch
	EAR:	…“In a few days I received a message from Mr. Branch to join him at Franklin 
town, the station for Lewisburg at that time.  And that we could get as far as Ridgeway on the 
Raleigh and Gaston Road and then he would have a carriage, which would take us across the 
country to Petersburg, or rather to Blackstone White’s, which is now Blackstone, on the northern 
and western roads from which point the road was open to Petersburg.  On getting to Ridgeway, 
we found the carriage to be a wagon and two horses and a riding horse awaiting us.  With Mr. 
Branch was one of his younger sons, I’ve forgotten which one, Mr. David Leonard of this city, 
and the colored driver.  In his company I began my pilgrimage home—or to the place I called 
home some four years before—well knowing that there was no home left me, but with a brave 
heart to build me another one there or somewhere and to gather again under one roof my loved 
ones driven away by the cruel fortunes of war.  On the second night of our transit across the 
country, we reached Mr.Askins’ and received a warm welcome.  As this was only some twelve or 
fifteen miles distant from my father’s in the county of Brunswick, Mr. Branch kindly lent me his 
riding horse the following day.  I left my fellow voyagers, they going on to Blackstone and I to 
Rosemont, the residence of my father.  As my father had not seen me in many months and as he 
had not heard from me since the close of the war and knew nothing of my fate, the joyous 
surprise with which he received me, may be imagined but not described.”  
0:04:30.0	Branch family during Reconstruction 
	EAR:	Anyway, I’ve wasted time talking about that. 
	KEC:	It can be a nice segue to talking about the James Branch Cabell Associates 
because your love of books is very, very clear just in the number—
	STH:	He reads so well.
	KEC:	He does.
	EAR:	Thank you.  He mentions in the early part of the book that he has met Thomas 
Branch and that he was a merchant there.  
	KEC:	The act of generosity on the part of your ancestor is also very nice to read about.
	EAR:	The fifty-dollar gold piece.
	KEC:	That was a considerable amount of money.
	EAR:	It was.  What would it be worth, about five-hundred dollars now, five-thousand 
dollars?  All the banks had failed.  Of course people had put money in Confederate money 
anyway so it didn’t much matter whether the banks failed or not.   But the thing that was worth 
money was those bales of cotton.  I think the Branches probably had something like that.  
	KEC:	The Branches had been commission merchants, correct, selling to plantations?
	EAR:	And if the warehouse was not destroyed, there probably was some stuff in there 
that they could make money on.
	KEC:	Is anyone aware of the location of the warehouse in Petersburg?  Where that 
would have been?
	EAR:	I think they know where it is.
	STH:	(unintelligible) on that tour that we took.
	EAR:	Yes.  In the old days they usually had everything on the ground floor and an 
apartment upstairs where they lived.  We saw one of the apartments and it was beautiful, had 
lovely woodwork and all.  
	KEC:	It had been refurbished or restored, the building has, and is still being used?
	STH:	Actually the warehouse, I think, was destroyed.  
	EAR:	But there must have been something on the ground floor.
	STH:	We saw where they lived and shopped up the street.  Right there by the round 
building, the Market.  It was right on a prominent corner there.  They had offices.
0:07:27.6	Rennolds family during Reconstruction
	EAR:	My other family, the Rennoldses, had a bale of hay [cotton] in Charleston, West 
Virginia.  I don’t know how they happened to have that.
	EARIII:  Cotton.
	EAR:	A bale of cotton and they—   Of course that became part of the North and 
nothing happened to it there.  I guess everybody just scrambled as best they could.
	KEC:	It certainly sounds that way.  As you read about these experiences that people 
(unintelligible), etc.  I don’t think one can visualize how difficult it really was.
	EAR:	I have a comment from my great-aunt who lived near Fredericksburg.  There was 
a battle right there where they were.  They had to leave and go across country to somebody else’s 
house.  When they came back, the property had been looted and all.  Somebody had taken the 
family bible, written his mother’s name in it, and he was going to send it back to her in the North.  
It got dropped in the yard.  I don’t know why, but it did.
	KEC:	As you were growing up did the family talk about experiences?
	EAR:	No, curiously enough, they did not.  As I said the great-aunt lived in 
Fredericksburg.  We used to go and see her occasionally.  I wish we’d had sense enough to ask 
her more about it.  Fredericksburg was right badly hit.  They were—  Do you know the house 
Kenmore?
	KEC:	Yes.  I was just going to ask you, that house was not damaged?
	EAR:	Well the—  I’m descended from Caroline Gordon, who was my great-
grandmother, who is one of the daughters from there.  I think probably that it was a little bit out 
of town.
	KEC:	At that time it would have been? 	
	EAR:	There was a house called Chatham.  Do you know where that is?  It was across 
the river on a hill.  It was occupied by the Yankees and they were firing at Fredericksburg itself 
from there. (Mr. Rennolds begins searching in a book.)    I think that I must have missed 
Kenmore.  Some place—  I don’t know, this wastes time.  You are not going to use any of this.
	KEC:	Someone will find it interesting.
0:10:20.0	The relationship between the Richmond Symphony and the Richmond 
Professional Institute (predecessor to VCU)
	  KEC:	The symphony.  We’ve talked around about different things.  I think that I 
interrupted you trying to have you provide a little more feel for the personalities of some of the 
people involved.  Are there some things that you would like, some observations that you would 
like to make about the symphony or your experiences?  How you feel it influenced your family, 
your association with the Symphony?  How it might have enriched your family life?
	EAR:	I’ll tell you in Richmond you had to have a theater where people could hear 
music and go to it and have it become part of your life.
	KEC:	Had you attended many symphonies prior to the founding of a symphony here?
	EAR:	No.  Where would I have done it?
	KEC:	I thought maybe when you were in New York State that you would have traveled 
to one of the symphonies there.
	EAR:	No.  I had not done very much.  
	KEC:	One of the things that was fascinating to me in regard to the founding of the 
Symphony, you mentioned the Professor at the University of Virginia, but you did not mention 
any affiliation with Virginia Commonwealth University.
	EAR:	It was the University of Richmond not Virginia.  	
	STH:	John Long, Longworth, Longstreet—  What was his name?
	EAR:	John White.  He was with the University of Richmond.  What was the other thing 
you said about something just now?  Oh, VCU was very small then.
	STH:	 RPI.
	EAR:	It was called RPI [Richmond Professional Institute].
	KEC:	And its primary focus was—
	EAR:	It was there but the—  It was interesting, we had an idea that we would try to get 
four very good players; two violins, a viola, and a cello, and have them all be teachers at RPI.  
That would help pay for them to come to Richmond because we paid very little in the way of 
salary.
	STH:	How about John Powell?  Didn’t he have some influence?
	EAR:	No.  Not really.  He was gone most of the time.
	BRZ:	Who was the Colonel?  Colonel—
	STH:	Meyers.
	EAR:	General Meyers.  Well anyway, somebody told me, I think, that the kind of mind 
that played good chamber music would not be the kind that would be any good in a symphony.  
That of course was completely wrong, but I didn’t say so.  
	KEC:	Someone on staff at VCU said that?  
	EAR:	I don’t remember.
	KEC:	Your comment was it in correlation to trying to get people to be professors?
	EAR:	Yes.  These people.  Then this man turned up called Smetana.  Does that name 
mean anything to you?  It’s a wonderful Czechoslovakian composer.  A lot of his music is very 
well known.  Almost as well known as Dvorak, who also was with that—
	EARIII:	 “The Bartered Bride?”
	EAR:	Yes, but this is Smetana.  Dvorak did “The Bartered Bride.”  Didn’t he?
	EARIII:	I thought it was Smetana
	EAR:	Maybe it was Smetana.  Anyway Smetana was very prominent.  This fellow 
was—his great-grandfather was Smetana’s brother.  He had a quartet in Prague, which was very 
well known.  But he got in trouble with the authorities.  They put him in jail for a while.  He had 
been given a cello by the President of Czechoslovakia, before the Russians came in there.  He got 
out of Czechoslovakia with a lot of trouble.  Somehow the cello got out too.  He applied for a job 
at RPI.  They wouldn’t take him because, I don’t know, he didn’t have a degree at a college or 
something like that.  He was—
	KEC:	So qualified?
	EAR:	Yes.  Later something happened and they did take him on.  They had a 
celebration for the tenth year that he had been there, at RPI.  I said to whomever was in charge of 
music, I said, “You were very reluctant to take this man.”  And he said, “Well, we’ve made some 
mistakes;” or something like that.  But they probably couldn’t.  I think the State must have strict 
rules about who you can hire and whatnot.  This fellow was terrific.  The students wanted to be 
with him.  Of course he played in the Symphony.  He was a—  But you know, RPI at that time 
was mostly students from small towns in Virginia.  They would come for four years and then go 
back to the small towns.  But to be in wonderful, glorious Richmond and they—  It made me so 
mad that they didn’t insist that the students go to concerts.  The Mosque was only two blocks 
away and we would let anybody in for a dollar, a student in for a dollar.  And then they’d go back 
to wherever they came from and then that was that. They had missed—  The teachers should have 
made them do it but they didn’t.  I still don’t understand why but it didn’t happen.
	KEC:	They did not have a liberal arts philosophy.
	EAR:	That is right, at that time.  Things were very different then.  They really have 
changed now.  VCU helps sponsor this program in memory of my wife that does chamber music.  
Those chamber music concerts are the best of their kind.  To have them come six times a year to 
Richmond adds a lot to the things that are here.  
0:18:47.0	Mr. Rennolds’ life-long interest in music
	KEC:	In this article that was written in 1982 (“Music begins at Home for Symphony’s 
Founders,” Richmond News Leader, August 26, 1982)—it was an article about your wife and you 
and your involvement in the Symphony—you both talk about the importance of music in one’s 
life.  Would you like to expound a little bit on that?
	EAR:	I agree with it entirely. (laughter)  But it was hard to do it in Richmond when I 
was young.  
	KEC:	Hard to hear music?
	EAR:	Yes and be involved.  I remember my mother arranged for me to have some 
piano lessons.  She had to come and yank me out of St. Christopher’s to do that.  I was “the one” 
who had piano lessons at St. Christopher’s, which was not a very pleasant way to be when 
everyone else was doing something different.  So that is the background that I had.  Even though 
my family wanted me to have more to do with music, but it just wasn’t around here.  Later I went 
to the business school at Harvard.  In those days the Metropolitan Opera would come to Boston, 
about two weeks at the end of their season.  Then they’d go to Atlanta for a couple of weeks there 
and then spread around.  I went to hear “Tristan and Isolde” in Boston, with the two fantastic 
people that were in it.   They were not the thinnest people in the world and as lovers, with Tristan 
so overweight (laughter), it didn’t produce the best picture.  But I swear, once they opened their 
mouths you forgot where you were and you forgot who they were!  (laughter)  I was in the top 
balcony.  It is something that I completely remembered.  I later went to “Tristan and Isolde,” 
about twenty years later, at the MET in New York.   I was talking to somebody next door and I 
said I hadn’t seen—  What’s that woman that lived in Sweden?
	EARIII:  Joan Sutherland.
	EAR:	No, long before Joan Sutherland.  You’d know the name if I could find it.  What 
I’d remembered from that seemed better to me than what the Metropolitan Opera was doing at 
that time.  Isn’t that amazing?  It was—  She later got in trouble because they said she—
	STH:	Ingrid Bergman.
	EAR:	No.  —played for the Nazis.  Ingrid Bergman was a movie somebody.  It was 
[Kirsten] Flagstad.  
(There is knocking at the front door.)
	EAR:	Who is that?
	EARIII:	My tennis partner.
	EAR:	Flagstad. The man was equally good.  You know Wagner required a special 
voice.  What are they called, alto tenors?  It would have been difficult in America to have had 
anybody with that training, but you could get it in Europe, in Germany.  Melchior was the man.  
Melchior and Flagstad.  (laughter)
	KEC:	Oh my!  Where in the world did those names come from?
	EAR:	It was really a very remarkable thing.  The only opera I’d ever been to was—
occasionally something would come to Richmond and they’d do—  What are the two—
	STH:	The Mozart ones?
	EAR:	—that are lost in the forest?
	EARIII:  Hansel and Gretel.
	EAR:	Hansel and Gretel that was the only thing I’d ever seen in the way of opera.  And 
to be catapulted into Tristan and Isolde with Melchoir and Flagstad was about as far different an 
experience as you could get. (laughing)  We don’t do Tristan in Richmond.   You’ve got to do it 
right.
	(addressing Edmund)  Are you leaving us?
	EAR:	No.  I’m just switching—  (Edmund hands the video camera to Bucci.)
0:24:18.2	Mary Anne Rennolds interest in music
	KEC:	While we are speaking about music, I think Sarah could add to a conversation, 
between the two of you, about Mary Anne and her involvement in music.  (addressing Sarah)  I 
am sure you knew your aunt so well; her [music] development and how Mr. and Mrs. Rennolds 
together shared—
	STH:	   [It] was a common interest.  I don’t know when she started playing the piano, 
but she   did she not?  Also John Powell?
	EAR:	Yes, there was a well-known pianist here.  I don’t know if you have heard of 
him.
	KEC:	We talked a little about John Powell the first time.
	STH:	I assume you’ve seen her portrait.  That was her in her moment of glory as far as 
I am concerned.  Of course she took up the violin and viola later, but that was because the 
children all played.  And Ned would turn pages.  Isn’t that right? 
	EAR:	Sometimes.  Sometimes I’d get to accompany them a little bit if they were 
desperate.
	STH:	They had two pianos, one there and one here, (She points to the front corners of 
the living room) and they could do four hands and Ned would perform.
	KEC:	Um hum.  So would you do impromptu concerts when there were guests for 
dinner or when the family was around?
	EAR:	Occasionally.  
	BRZ:	Every evening.  And you talked about him being pulled out.  We were all pulled 
out on Saturday mornings for a series of lessons, one after the other.  We had to leave wherever 
we were.
	KEC:	Didn’t a professor come here to the house to teach you children?
	BRZ:	Dr. Neumann.
	KEC:	Okay.  And so you each had your appointment time and you better be there?
	BRZ:	Um hum.
	EAR:	Then we had a resident musician for a while.  Madame Altvatter, who had a 
strong Prussian background.  
	STH:	Bucci was very young then, but Bucci was her star.  
	KEC:	Tell us a little about those years.  I assume this woman that lived in the home.  
She was a governess.
	EAR:	She wasn’t really a governess.  She was supposed to be a music teacher, piano.
	STH:	You basically gave her a free place to live.
	EAR:	She came as a refuge, a widow, with a nine-foot piano.  (laughter)
	KEC:	Most people travel a little lighter than that.
	EAR:	Well.  It was an interesting background.  The Austrians home was 
Czechoslovakia.  These people had interesting backgrounds.  They lived in a castle.  They had 
been there since 1100.  When World War I was ended, the local people threw the Germans out, 
including them.  
	EARIII:	She was thrown out of England too because during World War II she had 
Nazi sympathies.
	EAR:  	She went over to England and Ireland and—I’m not sure what happened—ended 
up in Richmond.  She had a mother—  Anyway, she got sent to school in Dresden.  Imagine.  The 
mother would come and take an apartment for a couple of months.  She studied opera and things 
there.  She even had a map of the opera house in Dresden where the seats were and all of that.  
She didn’t work out very well here.  (The expressions on Bucci and Edmund cause everyone to 
laugh.)  
	STH:	But she was here for a long time.
	KEC:	Was she here several years?
	STH:	Yes.  How many years was it?
	EAR:	I don’t know.  But we had a three-car garage in the back and we made that over 
into living quarters.  The piano was there.  You all probably went out to be taught.  But anyway, I 
think, isn’t that what made Mother do strings?
	EARIII:	 I think she did strings because I couldn’t take piano from the lady any 
more.  So she said, “Do you want to take violin instead?”  I said, “okay.”  So I started the violin 
that way.  Mother wrote a piece for the newspaper telling about how she saw me learning the 
violin.  It was like a flower opening up.  You could tell that she was intrigued by that.  Also on 
the subject of Mother, when she died in ’89 Clarke 
Bustard, the music critic here, wrote a very nice column about her saying that she was the bridge 
between the musicians and the sort of elite, the financial elite here in Richmond.  She lived in 
both worlds and went back and forth trying (unintelligible) at the parties they had and entertained 
a whole lot of people here, including governors and mayors and a lot of people who— 
	EAR:	You know the funniest time is when we went to Florence for a month.  (laughing) 
Madame was supposed to monitor the children during, all six children.  (turning to Sarah)  Were 
you involved?
	STH:	I don’t think so.  
	EARIII:	 You were here one time I know.
	STH:	I was here a lot.
	EAR:	I don’t know how in the world we could go off for a month and leave six 
children.
	STH:	Well, you had Margaret.
	EAR:	Yes.  We had a very good black maid that was also here.
	KEC:	Did she run interference for you kids?
	STH:	She provided everything that they needed; knew when they had to be where.   I’d 
like to add one touch about her piano career.  She and her sister, who was named Helen Pinder 
Budd, went to Harken Junior College in Philadelphia.  It is very close to Bryn Mawr.  Mary Anne 
was taking piano lessons out there and she had a gentleman teacher.  She went to her first lesson 
and she came right into Helen Budd’s room and said, “Quick, help, I think I’m pregnant because 
he touched my hand.” (laughter)  Isn’t that wonderful?
	KEC:	It sounds as if your wife was a—
	STH:	A free spirit.
	KEC:	Okay, that wasn’t the word I—  Sometimes when one cannot find the word 
themselves a better one comes up.  It sounds as though she was willing to look at things 
differently; to take a stance that might not necessarily be popular with you or with others that 
were on the Symphony board.  I’m thinking of her representing the musician’s perspective at 
times.  
	STH:	Well she did that kind of with Schenkman; when she wanted to get rid of 
Schenkman.
	EAR:	We had a terrible row with the conductor.  Since Richmond was doing better than 
Norfolk, he moved up here.  Our friend, who was the first chair, couldn’t stand him.  Mary Anne 
took a violent dislike to the conductor.  
	BRZ:	They had a lot of disagreements?
	EAR:	Yes.  She started going to the rehearsals to see that he wouldn’t say anything 
disagreeable to the first chair.  Imagine?  (laughter) What kind of reputation would that give?  
Finally—I was chairman—we had a series of presidents who really did the work, one of them 
was—  The conductor would—a technique that he would use against us was—that he would 
threaten to resign.  There were always three or four people on the board who said, “Oh no.  You 
don’t want to do that.”  One time Doug Fleet said, “We accept the resignation.” (laughter)  But he 
really didn’t mean it.  There was a terrible row; articles in the paper and all that.  The musicians, a 
lot of them had hated Schenkman anyway, but they all took his side because he was a musician.  
It was really a terrible problem.
	KEC:	How long did it take to resolve that?
	EAR:	A couple of months I guess.  But you know it is a funny thing, we really didn’t 
have all that much trouble getting a conductor.  
	KEC:	What do you credit that to?
	EAR:	I think that the schools were graduating a lot of musicians, a lot of musical 
people.  There weren’t really enough jobs for them.   Symphonies were being started up, but there 
weren’t enough to take care of it.  We had a number of qualified candidates.  Three of them 
reached the top level.  We had them all come to town the same day and they all played the same 
piece.  I forget now what it was.  It was amazing.  Everybody agreed on the one that we picked; 
the musicians, the public, just anybody that heard them.  He was a Frenchman.
	STH:	Houtmann.  Jacque Houtmann.
	EAR:	We had him for a number of years.  What did we do then?
	STH:	George somebody.
	BRZ:	Manahan.
	EAR:	George Manahan.  By that time maybe fifty people would apply.  What we did 
was—I think we had six concerts in our season—we got six different people to do each one a 
concert.  
	KEC:	As an interim measure?
(Mr. Rennolds is distracted by people talking in the hallway.)
	EAR:	Who is that?
	KEC:	It is Edmund going to play tennis.
	EAR:	Is that all you’re doing is playing tennis in the middle of this important 
conference?
	STH:	Why don’t you (unintelligible) Edmund?
	EAR:	I know.  Why didn’t you stop him Sarah?
	STH:	Because, I was too busy smoking. (laughter)
	EAR:	So we got Manahan, who was a very good man.  It is funny each one had a 
different technique.  Schenkman said that he wanted to go over all of the famous concertos and 
symphonies so that it would be a background for the people in Richmond that hadn’t heard 
anything like that before.  During that ten-year period, they really got a good background.
	KEC:	Did the board influence the selection of pieces for the next season at all?
	EAR:	I don’t think any of the conductors wanted that to happen.
	KEC:	I can see where it wouldn’t be a popular thing.
	EAR:	Yes.  You know it is a funny thing; I was at several meetings where we were 
taking with him, “Why don’t you do so-and-so?”  He would say, “You know, that takes ten more 
musicians than we usually have and we can’t afford it.”  Remarks like that, you just feel like an 
idiot that you wanted to hear something.  So that kept us down.  He had to plan a program based 
on what else was being done, what had been done the year before, and all that.  There is a real 
technique to the thing.  Several of people, including the present one, would love to do opera.  
	KEC:	Is there vocal talent in Richmond that could support that?
	EAR:	I think that the man who does the Virginia Opera—
	STH:	Peter Mark.
	EAR:	Peter Mark is very, very skilful at finding youngish talent that is good.  Really 
unusual.  Bucci is on that board and they just had a terrible row about that.
	STH:	Couldn’t the Symphony do opera along with the Virginia Opera?  
	BRZ:	The Symphony is going to play with some of the operas.  
	STH:	So the Symphony cannot produce their own operas?
	BRZ:	No, because a production company has to do it.
	STH:	So you would say that the people want to hear opera, want to do opera?
	BRZ:	The conductor would like to.
	EAR:	Yes.  I think that—  Don’t the Symphony musicians play for the last concert 
down there?
	BRZ:	Right.  They are starting to use the Richmond Symphony.  The Virginia Opera 
plays in Norfolk as well as Richmond and previously sent all of the Virginia Symphony from 
Norfolk.  Starting this year they are going to use Richmond.  
	KEC:	—for opera that is presented in Richmond.
	BRZ:	—and Norfolk.
	EAR:	You see, when you have rehearsals four or five times, it is much cheaper to let 
them keep on doing it.  
	STH:	Don’t they perform in Alexandria too, George Mason?
	EAR:	It is not Alexandria. It is in
	STH:	Northern Virginia.  George Mason University.
	EAR:	This is now the fourth conductor that we have had.
	STH:	And you were president, or chairman or whatever you were, for how many—
	EAR:	I was only president for three years.
	STH:	You were chairman.
	EAR:	I was treasurer to begin with, then I was president, and then I was chairman for 
five or ten more years, much too long.  An organization like this has got to bring in young people.  
You cannot have the old ones doddering along.
	KEC:	You mentioned that there are a lot of young musicians that are graduating that are 
very good.  Is there also the interest among the younger professionals? 
	EAR:	Not as much as we’d like.  A lot of people who come down here to work now 
and who had been used to music in whatever town they came from are very helpful.  They will 
participate.
	KEC:	Earlier you mentioned that Bucci was on the Virginia Opera Board, are any of 
your other children involved in leadership roles?  I know they are involved as musicians.  Doesn’t 
Anne play with the Symphonia?
	EAR:	Anne plays in another group that plays here the Philharmonic.  She has done that 
for a couple of years and enjoys it thoroughly.  
	STH:	David is on that Carpenter Center thing isn’t he?
	EAR:	Yes.  He was a director of the Carpenter Center too.  So they participate a little 
bit but haven’t been active in this symphony membership thing.
	STH:	The old block is hard for the kids to measure up to. 
	EAR:	One of the troubles—this is kind of interesting—when the thing was started 
almost fifty years ago there was no such person as an office manager.  It didn’t exist.  Now if you 
need one there will be a dozen people who have been one somewhere else who will apply.  
	KEC:	You are saying that it is not difficult to find reliable help, knowledgeable help?
	EAR:	People that know what to do. 
0:43:52.0	Discussion of Berlin Orchestra 
	 I had an interesting experience.  I had a fellow that lived with me for a year who was a 
timpanist.  It was really interesting getting his point of view about everything.  
	KEC:	He lived here at this house for a year?  What is the difference between a 
timpanist and a percussionist?  
	EAR:	They are the same.
	BRZ:	A timpanist may play more of a kettledrum kind of thing.  A percussionist may 
play more of a triangle.  (laughs)  I don’t know.
	EAR:	This fellow has for the last couple of years been going to Berlin to take lessons 
from the timpanist of the Berlin Orchestra, which is probably the best orchestra in the world.  
He—  What was the point I was going to make?
	STH:	He wants to be in the Berlin Orchestra.
	EAR:	I thought of the Berlin Orchestra as a lot of doddering old men with beards.  But 
they won’t even hire anybody over say twenty-five years old.  I think what has happened in 
Germany and the Continent [is that] a lot of these places have these wonderful people who are 
getting out, who are wonderful musicians.  The fellow that—  I can’t remember his name.  What 
was his name?
	BRZ:	Jim Jacobsen.
	EAR:	Jim Jacobsen.  The fellow that he was studying with was twenty-four years old 
and he was the timpanist for the Berlin Symphony.  Jim was about, about forty-five, which is 
much too old.  He could never get into the Berlin Symphony.  
	KEC:	When you mentioned Berlin, I was wondering—you have said that your wife and 
you have done tours of Palladian homes in Europe—have you ever done the same kind of thing 
with symphonies?  Have you visited a city just because, like Berlin, because of its outstanding 
symphony?
	EAR:	No, we haven’t.
	STH:	You would go to operas.
	BRZ:	But you’ve always gone to the symphony or the opera wherever you are.
	EAR:	If they happened to be where we were.  Mary Anne’s been dead fifteen years and 
I have taken a number of opera tours.  You can get somebody to—  There are some wonderful 
tours.  There was a wonderful one at Budapest.  I’ve done it in Prague and also—  There are a 
number of ways you can do that.
	KEC:	I would think that since you are so active in the symphony here, you have been, 
that visiting other symphonies is also very instructional for you; besides being enjoyable.
	EAR:	That’s right.  A couple of the children lived in San Francisco for a while.  We 
went out there to the opera and things there, which was very interesting too.
END OF SIDE B	
[Cassette tape 2 of 2, Side A, Fourth Interview 8/26/04]
(Sarah says farewell and leaves.  Mr. Rennolds has a folder with various documents about the 
Richmond Symphony.  He gives several articles to the interviewer.)
0:00:24.0	The Richmond Symphony continued
	EAR:	I don’t know what (unintelligible) but our musicians had a strike for a couple of 
months.  This is a letter that somebody wrote about that, which is I thought very interesting.  You 
can have it.  (unintelligible) see the musicians’ strike.
	KEC:	How was the strike resolved?  I assume that you had to be involved with that.
	EAR:	No.  I actually was out of the picture then, but I worried about it a lot.  I thought 
that letter was interesting, telling about it.
	KEC:	The importance of the cultural environment within a city—  Do you have some 
other things there on the Symphony that you had wanted to share?
	EAR:	Yes.  This is—
	KEC:	Encore, their publication?  (scans the document)  “The Rennolds Society,” tell 
me briefly—
	EAR:	It is just for money raising.  I think they are supposed to be people who have 
agreed to leave money in their wills.   
	KEC:	Marvelous.  And it was named in honor, I assume, of you and your wife Mary 
Anne, but you were not instrumental in forming the Rennolds Society.
	EAR:	No.  It was done by (unintelligible).  I still go to meetings of the Foundation, the 
one that manages the endowment.  It has about five-million dollars.   It means that in a year that, 
unfortunately, we have a deficit there is some way you can call on it instead of closing.
	KEC:	You are quoted as saying in this article,  “…The Symphony was an all-
consuming adventure for Mary Anne and me in those early years, and our involvement helped 
stimulate an interest in music for all of our children.  I can’t imagine not including a provision for 
the Symphony in my will.”  It is just intrinsically you and you have shared that passion with so 
many others and enriched their lives.
	EAR:	I think it has been a wonderful and enriching thing for the town.  
0:03:39.6	Mr. Rennolds’ involvement with the James Branch Cabell Associates
	KEC:	Your involvement with the James Branch Cabell Associates.  
	EAR:	James Branch Cabell was my mother’s second cousin.  He was quite 
controversial.  Do you know anything about him?
	KEC:	Generally.
	EAR:	He was kind of a Medievalist.  He wrote a book called Jurgen in 1921, or some 
year like that.  Boston said it was a bad book.  It couldn’t be sold in Boston.  
	KEC:	It couldn’t be sold or wouldn’t be sold?
	EAR:	Couldn’t.  Of course that immediately made a terrific reputation for James 
Branch Cabell.  Nobody had heard of him before.  
	KEC:	Did you know him?
	EAR:	Yes, I knew him [John Powell].  He was a very good musician, a pianist.  My 
wife studied with him for a while.
	KEC:	He was the instructor?
	EAR:	Yes.  He retired to Richmond from his career, lived on Plum Street.  When Marry 
Anne wanted us to get a piano, Mr. Powell gave us a letter of introduction to Mr. Steinway, 
imagine, in New York.  So we went up there and picked this piano out, which is in the downstairs 
room now.  Mr. Powell was so well known that if you go in the sales place for Steinway, which is 
on Fifty-Seventh Street in New York, they have this room with these portraits of Padatruski and 
various musicians and included John Powell.  When the New York Philharmonic went abroad for 
the first time—it was after the First World War, the very early twenties—they took Mr. Powell to 
play a piano concerto every other night.  The alternate nights were a violinist, Albert Spaulding.  
You could see the reputation that he had.  He unfortunately—I guess this is something that 
happens to Southerners—he was very pro-white.  That was kind of difficult in the musician’s 
field.  He retired fairly early and came down to Richmond.  He was a very interesting man.  He 
had done a lot of touring in Europe and all.  Did you ever hear of someone called Leschetizky?  
No reason you should.  Mr. Powell had studied with Leschetizky in Vienna before the First World 
War.  Leschetizky had this awful method—one of my teachers taught it to me—of how you had 
to hold your hands, like this.  It was enough to ruin anybody’s efforts to play the piano.  
	KEC:	You were positioning yourself sort of all scrunched up with your hands—
	EAR:	He formed this group in Richmond, the Leschetizky Society.  Everybody had to 
have either studied with Leschetizky or studied with somebody who had studied with 
Leschetizky.  
	KEC:	Did Mary Anne agree with that?
	EAR:	Yes, she was in it.  —but no not particularly.  She was in it because of Mr. 
Powell.  He would give concerts here at the Woman’s Club about once a month.  He would talk 
about a piece and then play it, which was really very, very unusual to have somebody of his 
caliber doing that.   About fifteen or twenty years ago a letter came from Steinway saying, “We 
don’t want the picture anymore.  What do we do with it?”  
	KEC:	I find it interesting that they would even write the letter.
	EAR:	We didn’t know what to do with the thing.  Somebody said, “He used the 
Woman’s Club to play.  Maybe we can get the Woman’s Club to take it,” which they did.   Do 
you ever go to anything there?
	KEC:	Every once in awhile I have an opportunity to.
	EAR:	Look for his portrait, which is a magnificent portrait.   It really is a wonderful 
portrait.  The man that did our paintings said that it was hard to paint anybody at a piano—of 
course he painted Mary Anne at a piano—because the piano gets in the way.  If you look at this 
one of John Powell, it is really a stunning picture.  And so it came back here.	
	BRZ:	When was that?
	EAR:	About twenty years ago.  Funny what fame does isn’t it?  What was the point I 
was going to—  Oh, you were talking about James Branch Cabell—   He was about the same 
vintage as John Powell.  They knew each other and what not.  
	BRZ:	How did the group get started?
	EAR:	The what?
	BRZ:	The [James Branch Cabell] Associates?
	EAR:	Mr. James Branch Cabell’s brother was the senior partner in the firm that I was 
in, Robert Cabell.  James Branch Cabell was married twice.  His second wife was Margaret who 
had been an interior decorator in New York, quite successful.  She was his widow.  They had a 
house on Monument Avenue.  They didn’t have a great deal of money.  She was sick and had to 
have nurses and all of that for years.  When she died the money was practically all gone, but she 
left in her will that the house, which was still there, went to VCU.  
	KEC:	That it would be sold to establish an endowment fund?
	EAR:	Yes.  It is worth some three-hundred and some thousand dollars now.  I am one 
of a group that administers that.  Every now and then the library needs something, a special book 
or something and we try to help them if we can out of the income of a few thousand dollars.  Mrs. 
Cabell had also given a room in the library, which is supposed to have the furniture that was in 
Mr. Cabell’s library.  So that’s how I got involved with that.
	KEC:	How often do the Associates meet?
	EAR:	About twice a year, isn’t it?
	BRZ:	They also have a lecture trying to get interest in something that might be 
associated with James Branch Cabell.  Now it is more Southern writers.  [They are] trying to help 
the library.  The library is such a dynamic place and trying to get people in and out.  It is at the 
center of the university.
	EAR:	Of course they had named the library after Mr. Cabell.  I don’t want to sound 
disagreeable about VCU, but they needed a background, for publicity and all, of something that 
had been in Richmond for awhile.  I don’t think they need it now, but they did then.  
	KEC:	You felt it was motivated somewhat by that?
	EAR:	Yes.  That had something to do with the name.
	KEC:	The activities of the Associates then, when you provide money for rare books or 
something of that nature, are you predominately associated with the Special Collections area as 
opposed to the library as a whole?
	EAR:	Yes.
	BRZ:	I think originally we were supposed to collect a lot of James Branch Cabell 
material.  Now they have branched out to other special collections.
	KEC:	It is a very necessary area to have extra funding.
	EAR:	Yes.  I think it has been a useful thing to the library.
	BRZ:	Certainly fills a niche.
	EAR:	So that is what that is.  Anything else? (laughter)
0:15:07.8	Mary Anne Rennolds' monument at Hollywood Cemetery
	KEC:	One more thing if you have a little energy.  I went to Hollywood Cemetery to 
visit the different monuments that represented the Branch, and Addison, and Rennolds families 
and your wife’s tombstone is quite striking, unusual.  
	EAR:	Yes.
	KEC:	I would like you to tell me a little bit about [it].  I assume that you, unless she 
requested something like that before her death—  
	EAR:	No, she didn’t.  This stone came from Dutchess County, New York.  It is marble.  
We have a friend that was assembling things like this for a terrace, for a terrace at his place.  He 
was building a terrace connected to his house and putting the—
	KEC:	Excuse me, I am misunderstanding—
	EAR:	What is his name?
	BRZ:	Cliff Carpenter.
	EAR:	Cliff Carpenter
	BRZ:	He is up at Elmwood.
	EAR:	He said that he would be glad to give us one of the stones if we picked it out.  We 
tried to pick one out that had enough space to put an inscription on it.  That is how that thing got 
here.  Now the question is how do you get something like that from Dutchess County to 
Richmond, Virginia?  Some very smart somebody said you just go to the people that sell 
monuments in Richmond.  They’ve got to get those monuments down here.  How do they do it?
	KEC:	Right.  They will find a way.
	EAR:	So that thing came down.  It has space on the other side for me. 
	KEC:	What is the inscription for Mary Anne?  I have forgotten.  It is difficult to read 
[in the photograph] because of the shadows.  I thought you might know it by heart.
	BRZ:	It is “Au coeur valliant”  
	EAR:	Oh.  “Au coeur valliant, rien impossible.”  “To a valiant heart nothing is 
impossible.”  It is a French phrase originally.
	KEC:	Is that a phrase that she loved?  It represented her obviously.
	EAR:	I think it represented her.
	KEC:	What represents you?  If it has to come down to a phrase?
	EAR:	Oh! (laughter)
	KEC:	I’m glad that I am asking the questions.
	EAR:	I don’t know.  Bucci, my youngest child, will have to do it, come up with 
something.  
0:18:32.9	Discussion of Ned and Mary Anne Rennolds’ bookplates
	This thing is also on my bookplate.  Have I shown that to you?  
	KEC:	No.  I have not seen that.
	EAR:	Bucci, do you mind taking it off the wall?
	BRZ:	In the library?
	EAR:	It is over there near the fireplace.  There is a man called Jacques Coeur in France 
in the 1400s.  He used that motto, “Aut coeur valliant, rien impossible.”  He got in trouble with 
the authorities and lost his property, but the house is there in a town somewhere.
(Bucci brings the two framed bookplates of Ned and of Mary Anne Rennolds.)  
This was done by an Italian.  I saw in a fancy magazine that you could do it up.  I said I wanted 
the bull and the bear and the fox, which is our family crest.  I also wanted a loggia by 
Brunelleschi.  I put a bird in there too.
	KEC:	(laughing) Why not Palladio?
	EAR:	Well, I wasn’t involved with Palladio then.  This was fifty years ago. 
	KEC:	Okay.  [It is] still very classical in scale.
	EAR:	It was a woodcut.  Mary Anne saw it and she designed her own.  (laughs) 
	KEC:	(examining Mary Anne’s book plate with Bucci)  It appears that we have water 
for sailing.  Oh, there is a boat.
	BRZ:	There is the cottage.  She flew an airplane.  She loved to sail.
	KEC:	Is that the number of your boat?
	BRZ:	Fourteen sixty-seven, was that the Penguin?
	EAR:	Yes.  And then she has musical notes around the thing.
	BRZ:	She loved horses and her initials are M-A-P.
	KEC:	 Where are the musical notes?
	EAR:	They are a frame around it, aren’t they?  
	BRZ:	I see diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades.
	EAR:	That is for bridge.	
	KEC:	She just had a good time with this, didn’t she?
	BRZ:	I don’t know if that is the clef.
	KEC:	I think this is representative of her music.
	BRZ:	She is skiing.
	KEC:	Oh my.  It looks as if she had a terrific time.
	EAR:	She was a sports woman, which I was not.   I was a “couch potato,” which was 
difficult in Richmond in those days.
	KEC:	You mean other men of your era did not pursue the intellectual interests that you 
found—
	EAR:	Yes.  They called them “couch potatoes.”
	KEC:	I couldn’t disagree more, but— (laughing)   It wasn’t as though the mind was 
turned off when you were sitting in a chair or on the couch.
	BRZ:	 Well he used to do everything athletic, played tennis, skied.
	EAR:	They always included me in everything but I just wasn’t terribly good at it.
	KEC:	You can’t be good at everything.  I think what is so wonderful is that the things 
you felt passionate about you pursued.
	EAR:	Mary Anne’s brothers, one of them was the University of Virginia’s—a star on 
the baseball team.  The other one was the same thing only on the football team.  Of course now 
those people are all paid.  They come from some little town somewhere and get a full scholarship 
to do it.  People you know usually aren’t on the teams now.
	KEC:	They are often from another state.
	EAR:	Yes.
	KEC:	I think that probably you have already talked longer than you anticipated talking 
and so I am going to end.
END OF INTERVIEW
		 


Edmund Addison Rennolds, Jr.		 

45