What an Old Piano Remembered

On this episode of Our American Stories, it was scratched, heavy, and imperfect, but to Joy Neal Kidney, the old upright piano her mother left behind was priceless. She remembered the sound of hymns and simple songs filling the house, her mother’s hands steady on the keys. Years later, when the piano became hers, every touch of the keys carried those moments back. Joy shares the story of her mother's lasting memory through one prized possession.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including your story. Send them to Ouramerican Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites. And up next another story
from one of our regular contributors and listener, Joy Neil Kidney.
Joy is the author of Leara's Letters, the story of

(00:32):
love and loss for an Iowa family during World War Two,
and today she shares the story of her old upright piano,
passed down to her from her mother, and Joy listens
to our great station in Des Moines, who take it away?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Joy, it's been in the family for six decades. Most
of our history with this musical instrument is good, except
one really bad one. Uncle Delbert found the dusty piano
about nineteen fifty two in someone shed near Perry, Iowa,

(01:09):
while he was doing some wiring for them. He knew
that Mom was looking for a piano, so my sister
and I could take lessons. How much did they want
for it? Forty five dollars. He hauled it to our
farmhouse in his electricians van. He and Dad lugged it
into a corner of the front room, which had a

(01:30):
linoleum floor. A plush, plum colored devenport and chair, a
blond black and white television with a TV lamp on it,
and in the winter, a tall brown heating stove. When
she was a girl, Mom envied the kids who took
piano lessons. She'd attend their recitals in Dexter, and a

(01:55):
couple of those girls eventually became her sisters in law.
Dad enjoy hearing his sister's practice for lessons. One of
those sisters played for their wedding. Even Grandma Leora, Mom's
mother took lessons as a girl, riding a horse over
dusty country roads into town for her Saturday lessons. So

(02:17):
piano lessons were our fate. Sis Gloria and I took
lessons from Eleanor Chapler in Dexter, at first getting out
of school once a week to walk to her house
for lessons. Missus Chapler had a baby grand piano, a
dog that licked our legs, and a parakeet that much
of the time had the run of the house and

(02:38):
plucked the feathers out of its tummy. Mom made sure
a dad got to hear us practice pieces from our
red John Thompson books, and even though piano recitals always
accompanied planning season. My dad never missed one. When Gloria

(03:01):
was nine years old, her recital piece was Chinese lullaby.
Missus Chappler, who dressed up and wore red lipstick for
recitals with a hat on her plain bobbed Hair announced
that Gloria's piece had six flats. Gloria turned the pages,
but she never glanced at the music. She knew it

(03:22):
all by heart. Gloria and I began to practice hymns
for Sunday school, all the while on the old upright.
We played duets everything from deep purple to a patriotic
one that rocked the pumpkins decorating the top of the
piano at a four AH achievement night. One by one,

(03:44):
the old ivories gave up their glue. Mom found someone
who would install plastic ivories and even black in the
sharps and flats. When we got older, we began to
complain about having to practice. Started saving the day's dishes
to bargain with either practiced the piano or do the dishes.

(04:06):
We practiced. Mom happily did dishes while being serenaded by
live music, often parking on the end of the piano. Bench, dish,
towel in hand, singing along. That was until my boogie

(04:29):
woogie stage, not the kind of music Mom had envisioned about.
Junior high age, I began to pound out WC handy pieces,
Jogo blues, bassin street blues, beat me Daddy's eight to
the bar, over and over. An hour of handy is

(04:51):
a workout physically and emotionally, and for Mom spiritually. She
later admitted that my heavy handed blue and boogie days
drove her into the garden, but missus Chappler put up
with it gracefully. Of course, she only had to stand
it for half an hour a week. She let me

(05:11):
choose my recital pieces from Frankie and Johnny my freshman year,
and shortened bred the next before I finally graduated to
Chopin and Rockmaninoff. Years later, after marriage, after my husband's

(05:34):
years in the Air Force in Vietnam, we bought our
first house. My folks gave us the wonderful old piano,
but water tour to get it from the Iowa farmhouse
to a Denver suburb. Here comes the bad episode. Five
years and one son later, we moved back to Iowa.

(05:55):
The heavy old gal had lost its two back wheels
in the move, so it tilted back. My husband leaned
his shoulder and head against the wall to pry the
piano from it so I could slip hims under to
replace the wheels. He ruptured a disk in his neck,
leading to surgery to fuse a couple of vertebrae. But

(06:17):
he recovered and decided that he still liked the piano
well enough to take it apart, strip off the dark
greeny texture, and refinish it. It wasn't long before Sundan
was taking lessons and practicing on that same ponderous piano.

(06:37):
She has an uncertain future. The last time the piano
was tuned, we learned that she has a cracked sounding
board which cannot be mended. So the instrument holds a
silent corner in our main room, usually crowned with family
pictures those boogie woogie days. Just a remembrance.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
And a great story by Joyneil Kidney, and great job
on that, as always to Monty Montgomery, who did the
production on the piece. Joy Neil Kidney's story of an
old upright piano. Here on our American stories, folks, I

(07:28):
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(07:49):
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