In 1925, shortly after Mellie and Gram celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, Mellie Dunham was encouraged to enter a fiddling contest.
The event, the Pageant of Progress, was held Oct. 13, 1925 at the Lewiston Armory.
Audience applause determined the winner; Mellie Dunham was easily the favorite.
Emboldened by this success, Dunham wrote to Henry Ford who was putting a great deal of energy and interest into reviving the traditional music and dance of his youth.
Ford had already located 38 old time fiddlers and had invited them to play in Dearborn, Michigan, where he had built a ballroom for dances, hired a dance teacher, and employed a dance orchestra.
