Grandma's Piano

Grandma's house is always my favorite place to be at Christmas time.

There's family, good food and lots of stories. Grandma told a story none of us had heard before. When she was a girl, she had a board that she knew had come from an organ. She would set the board up on some logs and would pretend that she was playing a keyboard. Her uncle saw her doing this and told her parents to buy her a real piano! Her parents bought her a piano for $175, which seems like it would have been a lot of money in those days.

Apparently, her strict German grandparents didn't like her practicing the piano because they felt it was a waste of time. So, the piano was kept in her bedroom. There was a small stove her mother would light to warm the room. Grandma would practice in that room to avoid bothering her grandparents! She took piano lessons from a woman who traveled to Mason City from Loup City. The teacher held lessons in the house where my grandma now lives! Grandma described entering the room from another door that has since been closed up. The children would wait on the couch or the stairs that led upstairs. The piano sat in the corner, the same corner where her piano sits in the photo above! 

That piano has always been in that spot. The pictures that line the top have always been the same. I'm sure that I have annoyed grandma many times with my piano playing, especially when I was in the "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater" phase. I really can't imagine grandma's house without that piano. I'm so glad to know a little more about it's history!