T. M. Turner

Thomas Memory Turner (July 17, 1847 – September 2, 1917) was an American composer, band leader, and music professor. He was known to his friends as “Mem”. He was once assistant director of the Stonewall Brigade Band of Staunton, Virginia, the United States’s oldest continuous community band sponsored by local government and funded, in part, by tax monies. His father A. J. Turner was director. They were mustered into the Stonewall Brigade under Stonewall Jackson of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Turner served through the Valley Campaign, the Seven Days Battles, and was at the Battle of Cedar Mountain. Memory trained several cornet bands, and spent several years directing the band at the Western Lunatic Asylum. He tuned pianos for most of his life. Early years in Staunton Thomas Memory Turner was born on July 17, 1847, in Middletown, Virginia to A. J. Turner and Kate Aby, and moved to Staunton with them in the mid to late 1850s. Civil War Turner served in the Confederacy for much of the American Civil War. His father A. J. was a band leader in the Stonewall Brigade Band in the Stonewall Brigade. Thomas Memory was a musician alongside his father in the 5th Virginia Infantry fro