My father was an English professor. My mother was a professor of music and a church organist. They were always busy, always doing something interesting and new. My father told great stories with vivid and humorous depictions of human nature. My mother’s stories were more factual (you see, she came from a family of lawyers…) but she also loved ridiculous puns.
- Recordings from Lloyd Perkins’ memorial service: Lloyd was married to my father’s favorite cousin, Dorothy May.
- Uncle Harold’s road trip: My mother’s uncle was an inventor and an engineer. He went to MIT for his masters degree, and he decided to drive there from Oakland California in 1924. As you will see, the road was quite bumpy: freeways had not been invented yet.
- Grandmother Fisher was a composer born in 1900 who also played cello in the Pittsburgh orchestra. Her first job was playing music for silent movies (it’s a really fun job if you like improvising!!) She also learned to play the ukulele and performed for Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaii at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. The queen was a gifted musician and composer in her own right. When I was a small child, my grandmother gave me the ukulele she played for the queen.