The Things We've Handed Down*

My parents recently gave us my Grandma Gregerson's piano that had been in their house since the 1970's.  My sister, Liz, was so kind to have the piano moved up from Salem to our home.  I did a bit of research into the piano to find out more about it's history.

It's a Steinbach and Dreher upright piano.  Steinbach and Dreher was a small, family owned firm that built pianos in very small numbers. Their factories were in Rockford, IL (Chicago).  The piano was built circa about 1915 and is made of Honduran Mahogany wood.

I love the delicate ornate features on the sides of the piano.

While this is the factual history of the piano, there is much more to it than that.  This piano has a sentimental history. 

My mother was born in 1933.  My grandmother Margaret became ill with some complications from the delivery and had some significant postpartum depression.  She ended up moving to Portland to live with her sister for a year to recover.  My grandfather hired someone to help care for my mother and her older brother during this time.  I can only imagine how stressful a time that must have been for my grandfather.  He had a young son, a newborn, a full time job as a mechanic and the Great Depression had hit.  After Margaret recovered, she returned to Boise.  My grandfather bought her this piano to help raise her spirits.  We speculate that he must have bought it from someone who needed the money as times were hard then.  A purchase like this must have been a big deal for them given the time and circumstances. 

Margaret played the piano beautifully.  She could play by ear as well as read music, which was evident from the large stack of sheet music that arrived with the piano.  Margaret came to live with us after she had a stroke in 1978.  While many of her abilities were affected by the stroke, her ability to play the piano was not.  I got the feeling that the piano still brought her comfort even after all those years. 

Rudolph (Rudd) and Margaret Gregerson
Newlyweds in Yellowstone Park 1925

Rudolph and Margaret Gregerson
Pasadena, CA 1926

I took piano lessons for 11 years and played on this beautiful old piano.  It's been enjoyable to revisit some of those pieces I worked so hard to master as a young person.  I'm amazed at how some of it just comes back more easily if I don't think about it than if I do - in a funny sense memory kind of way.  My daughter seems to have an aptitude for music.  She sits down and figures out tunes that she knows and plunks them out on the piano.  Hopefully we'll soon have her in some lessons so that she can learn more.  I'd like to think that there is a little bit of her great grandmother's gift in her.  "The things we've handed down*" - both literally and figuratively.

My sister, Jean, wrote an interesting story about my grandparents and how they met at Yellowstone Park in the 1920's.  I took the images I used above from her story.   I'm looking forward to taking my kids to Yellowstone Park sometime soon.  I think must be a magical place for our family.

*One of my favorite songs from the soulful Marc Cohn

LYRICS: THE THINGS WE'VE HANDED DOWN

(Marc Cohn)

I don't know much about you
I don't know who you are
We been doing fine without you
But we could only go so far
Don't know why you chose us
Were you watching from above?
Is there someone there that knows us
Said we’d give you all our love
Will you laugh just like your mother
Will you sigh like your old man
Will some things skip a generation?
Like I’ve heard they often can
Are you a poet or a dancer?
A devil or clown
Or a strange new combination
Of the things we've handed down
I wonder who you look like
Will your hair fall down in curls
Will you be mama's boy
Or daddy's little girl
Will you be a sad reminder
Of what's been lost along the way
Maybe you can help me find her
In the things you do and say
And these things we have given you
They are not so easily found
Oh, but you can thank us later
For the things we've handed down
(Things we've handed down)
You may not always be so grateful
For the way that you were made
Maybe some feature of your father's
That you'd gladly sell or trade
And one day you may look at us
And say that you were cursed
But all the time that line has been
Extremely well rehearsed
By our fathers and their fathers
In some old and distant town
From places no one here remembers
Come the things we've handed down
The things we've handed down
The things we’ve handed down