The following was written by my late wife Elaine. She wrote a long book, a diary really, from which this is one passage:
My Weekly Piano Lessons
My weekly piano lessons began in 1941 in an upper flat in Detroit from our church organist and traveling piano teacher. This is when my lifelong love of playing the piano, including all the practicing, began; I was 7.
I practiced on my mother’s upright Brinkerhoff piano, the only one of that name I ever saw, and she kept it until she sold her furniture and went to live in Florida. She bought a Kimball piano in Venice, and I wished that she could have kept the old Brinkerhoff which was a superior piano, but I think she decided to just get rid of everything and reduce the costs of moving.
When we were kids, My brother and I had giggly times while we secretly made fun of Mom’s soprano friend whenever she came to sing with Mom’s piano accompaniment. I’m happy for them both that they could share the special experience, but there was something very funny, for silly kids like Ron and I, about sopranos singing in our living room. Her voice inspired Prince, our dog, to “sing” along, with his head raised, howling like a wolf, probably from hurting ears.
Songs my parents taught us, from their childhood: “I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard,” a song I learned from my mother:
I don’t want to play in your yard
I don’t like you anymore
You can’t holler down my rain barrel
Or slide down my cellar door
Past history is in those words. “Rain barrels” were to collect soft rainwater for washing clothes, and for other uses, and you can still see heavy old slanted cellar doors around. Opened, they expose a stairway down into the root cellar completely buried in the ground and our house in Warrenton had one. Ours had a dirt floor and rough-built shelves which held many jars of fruits and vegetables preserved during busy summers of canning.
“Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing,” an English song hit printed in London, 1932, was a favorite of Ron and I when we were kids, and I have her sheet music copy. Sometimes I include it in incidental music I play for programs, and many of the old folks remember it.
Dad used to sing “The Little Shirt My Mother Made For Me.” He learned it while growing up in Alderney. We found a set of words from the Internet, but it isn’t the same as Dad’s. His version included a verse about “I can’t forget the day that I was born, in the little shirt my mother made for me.” Then a verse about “When I began to crawl, in the little shirt my mother made for me.” Then a verse about “On the day I went to school, in the little shirt my mother made for me.” Then several more verses, ending with something about “… going off to war, still wearing the little shirt my mother made for me.”
I think it was one of those folk songs that’s different everywhere it’s sung, depending on the singer’s experiences retold in the song.
Dad often played his harmonica by ear, mostly hymns.
Later he bought a Wurlitzer accordion from Grinnell’s – a well-known music store in downtown Detroit – and taught himself to play that; also by ear. He often played it in the dark, not needing written music for the hymns he knew so well. He mastered the three left-hand chords (the I, the IV, and the V), which I’ll tell you all about if you ever want to know, so hymns could be harmonized nicely – even if the three chords were all the player knew for the left hand.
He played right hand melodies by ear. Way to go, Dad! We had some 78 rpm records; Dad’s favorite music for listening was march music, and the “Colonel Bogey March” was his favorite. I could hum it for you; it was featured in background music of the movie, Bridge on the River Kwai.
To be continued…
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About the Author: RD Blakeslee (1931 – 2024) built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.
Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family
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