When she saw the piano, Patty Natti said, it sang to her.
It also reminded her of an absent friend.
The piano in question is a Kranich & Bach. The friend was the Rev. Myron Bullock.
While browsing Scotti's piano studio last January, Natti, a cantor, and Annette Dion, an accompanist at Holy Family Parish's St. Ann Church couldn't help but notice a large form hiding under some moving blankets.
"We weren't interested in the piano we were looking at anymore," Natti said. "It did not have the character this one has."
So while Dion played, Steve Scotti told them the tale of the 121-year-old piano.
Built in New York City to be featured in the 1893 World's Fair, the piano was recently the product of an eight-year-long restoration by Cape Ann house painter Rick Williams, who found it while working on a home in Annisquam. The piano is now valued at more than $100,000 and the parish is buying it.
"Instead of putting it on the market, Rick wanted a place to come see it," Natti said. "He doesn't play, but he's attached to it. It has this magnetism."
Natti knows of such magnetism, having been a longtime parishioner and health proctor of Father Bullock, who passed away last year after a battle with lung cancer. "The more I looked at it, the more I thought about it, the attraction it had was kind of how Father Bullock was."
Natti knew then the piano had to go to Bullock's former church, St. Ann. "The décor of the church matches the piano. It looks like the piano was made for the church."
Natti raised the deposit to buy the piano through an anonymous donor and the piano has been turning heads at St. Ann ever since the end of February.
"People love it. They ask, 'Where did it come from?'" said Holy Family's co-pastor, the Rev. Ronald J. Gariboldi. He tells his parishioners the parish is trying to raise the piano's purchase price within the next six months to keep it in memory of Father Bullock.
"His greatest desire was to be at Mass, always," Gariboldi said of his predecessor. "The piano is right in front of where he used to sit."
"I think when people find out it's for Father Bullock, they'll want to be part of the giving. He was a very special man. Such a calming voice, such a shepherd. The piano has the same feel," Natti said. "He was known through the entire town. People would have thrown themselves under a bus for him — you couldn't hold him down."
Father Gariboldi agrees about Bullock, who once flipped his car and had the police take him to the baptism he was headed to before they took him to the hospital.
"He took very few days off," Gariboldi said. "He was a very dedicated priest."
When asked what she believes Bullock's reaction to all this would be, Natti, who hopes to raise as much money as possible in time for the first anniversary of Bullock's passing April 17, smiles.
"I think he'd shrug his shoulders and shake his head as if to say, 'Can you believe this?'"
Those interested in helping may call the Holy Family Parish office, at 978-281-4820.
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