Each Tuesday we'll have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes (as is the case today) that will be a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times it will be an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it will be a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century.

Today it's the transcript of an interview by WPA (Works Progress Administration) writer Sara Wrenn, who interviewed Portland violin maker Robert Robinson on March 13, 1939, when he was very near the end of his life. (To read the interview and associated materials, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001994/ or Google "Library of Congress Reminiscences of an Old Violin Maker.")