What family keepsakes do I treasure?
from the Wayback Chronicles
You can hear me read the post here and listen to our children singing at Grammy’s memorial. https://lesliesf.substack.com/p/what-family-keepsakes-do-i-treasure
Mar 09, 2025
I received a Storyworth subscription from my husband for Christmas this year. Truthfully, the gift felt daunting, frightening, and irritating. Kind of like a demand to do something. I was a little ashamed of those feelings, having struggled with expressing gratitude where gifts are concerned. I wondered, with repulsion and fascination, about this strong aversive response. I took my resistance and curiosity about it to the I Ching, which gave me excellent advice. I also had a session with my Somatic Experiencing practitioner, which resulted in a breakthrough. It became clear that “being told what to do” is part of an old wound. Being given an opportunity to reflect upon and write about my life is NOT “being told what to do.” I feel excited and happy to hold my life experience warmly and respectfully. Thank you to James Leslie Frank, my friend, ally, cheerleader, dear companion, and husband for encouraging me and gifting me a no-way out writing adventure. And now, I feel ready to write.
When I think of family heirlooms that I treasure, the most truthful thing I can say is the gift of music. I think of heirlooms and keepsakes as material possessions. And while I am living with some lovely linens, furniture, jewelry, household goods, plants and clothing that belonged to my parents and grandparents, none is as precious to me as the experience of music in my life.
My mother Patricia grew up during the depression and lived through World War II. Her mother was widowed when my mom was nine years old with two other siblings who were seven and 13. The little family experienced a kind of poverty that we might not called “grinding” but there was quite a lot of deprivation.
Nevertheless, my grandmother, Lovedy Mae, made sure her children attended Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in Huntington, West Virginia every Sunday, where they were exposed to beautiful organ music, choirs, and the singing of the hymns by the congregation. I think my mother may have had piano lessons for a little while and she remembered taking dance lessons. Though she couldn’t formally sight read a score, she had acquired the skill of playing the melody line with her right and and reading the chords with her left hand. Despite nearly 10 years of weekly piano lessons, I am just now learning this trick.
For my father, G. Wayne, music was a really big deal. His mother, Eva Ruth, had hoped to become an opera singer and she insisted her two boys, Harold and Wayne, be in the paid boys choir in the Clarksburg, West Virginia Episcopal church. They garnered a nickel per week while wearing frilly frocks. So my dad was a paid singer from an early age. He continued in choirs and singing lovely baritone solos for weddings and funerals until his 80s.
I don’t know if my dad ever had much musical training, but he wanted to learn to play the piano and so he took lessons as an adult. It was kind of sweet and a family joke that he could only play one song, “America”. The one that starts out “Oh beautiful for spacious skies”. I can still remember him playing his one song and singing with earnest fervor to his own accompaniment. Dad was never one to spend money on cars or other luxuries, but in the 70’s he bought an ebony Steinway baby grand that my brother is still playing.
I grew up with a record player and vinyl recordings of many beloved Broadway musicals of the 60s and 70s. We also went to church every week and all of us kids were in choirs. I began taking piano lessons in second grade and continued through high school. As a young adult, I had the great privilege of singing with the Mendelssohn Choir of the Pittsburgh Symphony. What a thrill to have Andre Previn, Loren Maazel, and Michael Tilson Thomas walk through the door of our practice room for the conductor’s rehearsal. The Mendelssohn Choir years also yielded a trip to sing in Carnegie Hall and a very nice boyfriend, between marriages two and three.
While I hated being in piano recitals, I really enjoyed accompanying choirs and soloists. Today I can sit down at the piano and play almost any hymn you put in front of me. Though I don’t think it’s a big deal, Jim is amazed that I can sing and play the piano at the same time. Hymns have been my dear companions for decades. I swear, I will be out of my mind in the nursing home, but still able to sing all four verses of any hymn, from memory.
Piano lessons were something of an organizing principle in my family, so when our children came along, music lessons were a priority. It wasn’t always pleasant, but because I didn’t lose heart, each child can sing and play with others.
Our four children were able to beautifully sing an a cappella benediction for both my father’s and mother’s funeral. I can think of no heirloom more precious than the gift of music, which my parents gave to me, handed down from their folks, and that I passed down to their grandchildren, in a full circle to sing them home.
