A Business Card Tells a Story: Robert Bruce Tomlinson

During my usual perusing of eBay searching for Tuscarawas County material, I came across a simple business card from the early 20th century for a New Philadelphia piano tuner. What I discovered was that the individual was far more than what his business card claimed.

The card reads simply “Bruce Tomlinson, Fine Piano Tuning and Repairing” along with his West Fair Street address in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Since I was able to determine the house where Bruce lived, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about who this man was and how he came to be a near neighbor of mine so many years ago. Bruce’s branch of the Tomlinson family began when Pennsylvania-born Solomon Zachariah Tomlinson (1789-1877) brought his family to Ohio from Virginia in the 1820s.

One of Solomon’s eight children was a son named Adam Clark Tomlinson (1827-1906) who trained as a boot and shoemaker. After his marriage in 1848 to a cousin, Mary Tomlinson (1829-1908), the couple settled down in Adamsville, Muskingum County, Ohio. The family was living there when the American Civil War began and despite having three children when the war began, Adam served in the United States Army’s Signal Corps in the waning years of the war. One of the couples’ children was a son named Robert Bruce Tomlinson (1859-1930).

Whether Bruce excelled in music at school, in the home, or in later educational pursuits is difficult to ascertain. When Adam Tomlinson died in 1906, the inventory of items retained by the Tomlinson family did not include any musical instruments. Regardless, Bruce must have been musical from an early age. Even while working in his father’s Adamsville general store Bruce was performing and directing bands both there and elsewhere. Bruce married Selina “Lina” Thompson (1861-1950) in Muskingum County in the fall of 1881 and, shortly after, they relocated to Zanesville, Ohio.

Bruce became the band director for the local city band, originally known as the Seventh Regiment Band, and then later under a number of other names. During the Spanish-American War, the band was mustered into the Ohio National Guard as the First Regiment Light Artillery Band but never entered Federal service. When not directing the band, Bruce worked as a freelance piano tuner and repairman in Zanesville, Ohio. It was Bruce’s reputation as a competent and energetic band leader over twenty-plus years that brought Bruce and Lina Tomlinson to New Philadelphia in the spring of 1923 and Bruce to the directorship of that city’s Great Eastern Band.

The Tomlinsons rented a home on the 400 block of West Fair in New Philadelphia and Bruce tuned and repaired pianos while overseeing the Great Eastern Band. This would have been the time period that Bruce’s business card, listed on eBay, was printed. During Bruce’s tenure with the band they played frequent concerts and events throughout the region and the state. He also offered his services to other local bands, including a new band called the New Philadelphia Concert Band in 1927.

Bruce became increasingly ill during the early winter months of 1930 and was diagnosed with stomach cancer. It became increasingly difficult for him to eat and after two months of suffering, he died of starvation on December 16, 1930. Robert Bruce Tomlinson was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Zanesville, Ohio. After her husband’s death Lina moved to California where she lived with her daughter’s family until her passing in May 1950. It is always amazing what there is to discover from something as simple as an old business card.

© Noel B. Poirier, 2024.