We’re doing research on a harpist named John Prosper Ralston who lived in the Seattle area and Alaska in the early 1900s. His writings claim he studied back east with “the great harpist Paganini.” Anyone ever heard of Paganini? or John Ralston?
At one time John had 13 harps and lived in Australia where he mined opals. His articles about his adventures travelling with his harps and opals appear in several issues of The Wide World, a Magazine for Men published, I believe, in Britain. We have, to date, only found one article — in 1931.
His dream was to build the world’s best harp — and he spent much time attempting his dream, although there is no evidence that he ever achieved his goal. He lived for a while in Montreal in 1943. We last heard of him in the 1970s in British Columbia where he sold his last remaining harp.