The Westinghouse Orchestra - second photo

Another photo of the Westinghouse Orchestra, with my grandfather on the skins. not the Westinghouse logo on the bass drum.

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About my grandfather and his band

Today (August 26, 2006) would have been my grandfather's 98th birthday. He passed away in September, 1978 when I was just a month shy of ten years old. I remember my grandpa vividly. He was an easy-going guy with a great sense of humor. He was quite the jokester. Walter Henry Fensch was born in Mansfield, Ohio, the second oldest of four children (Edwin (the eldest), Walter, Oscar and Hildegard). He graduated from Mansfield High School in 1925 — the middle of the Roaring 20s. In the early 1930s, he performed with the Westinghouse Orchestra as a drummer. Big band swing was just starting to trickle out of big towns such as New York City and Chicago, reaching smaller towns eager for hot, new music ripe for dancing. In 1934, he formed Walt Fensch's Ambassadors, which was billed as playing "Slow, rhythmic music... and sometimes they get hot." His younger brother Oscar played the trumpet in the band. One of the lines that my grandpa's band used in their handbills was ...
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