A Portrait of my Mom

Mom would have been 114 years old February 28th, 2024. She wrote the last chapter in her book of life at age 96.

The church was filled at her funeral service, a testament of her good life and many friends. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren sang and played beautiful music on the piano and violin, as a final fitting tribute to her and the great love of music in our family nurtured by her for a lifetime.

The daughter of a funeral director always needing a pianist, she began young as a church pianist and filled that role for about 84 years, accompanying singers, funeral quartets, and children and grandchildren at music contests and programs. She was still playing piano in the nursing home where she lived a couple of her last years. She was also walking in the halls with a friend, typing letters each day, keeping up with great–grandchildren’s lives in college or wherever they were. Also entertaining the staff with her music and stories and a big smile. They loved her because she loved them. When she died, they kept her room door closed, too sad to see her missing.

A favorite memory was of her playing accompaniment to the silent movies in her town in the early days.

Our son, Steven was always fascinated remembering that she was born in 1912, just weeks before the historical wreck of the Titanic, the “unsinkable” ship in our family.