My Grandmother's Piano

My Grandmother’s Piano

I have amassed quite a collection of antiques over the years.  Some were purchases at yard sales and others taken out of the neighbor’s garbage.  Some were bought at expensive antique stores, while some were picked at the Duxbury Massachusetts Transfer Station, also referred to as “The Treasure Chest” (Duxbury is across the bay from Plymouth and sits on the originally land granted to Miles Standish).  Most of my pieces, however, were inherited from grandparents and other relatives.  Each of these items has a higher emotional value than what they are worth on “Antiques Roadshow”.  Just looking around my room there is: a collection of maroon “leather bound” novels, an elaborate vanity my aunt gave me when she moved to Florida (the matching armoire is in the living room because it is too heavy and too tall to carry up the stairs), my grandmother’s bedroom furniture I inherited when she died. The room would be a beautiful if I could ever keep it clean. 

Downstairs, on the other side of the living room, behind an oversized couch is my favorite piece of furniture.  There sits my great grandmother’s John Wanamaker piano. It belonged to my great-grandmother, Joann Woodward (of the Quaker Woodwards of Moorestown).  She married William Rhawn, descendant of the banker of the same name (as in Rhawn Street and the Rhawn mansion, Knowlton, in Philadelphia). My grandmother, Sally, and her siblings took lessons on it as a child.  My own mother and aunts played the piano as children.

 No one in my house knows how to play it.  I still wish I had asked my grandmother for piano lessons. It is currently being used to display picture frames.  Usually, when visitors walk in the house, they ask about the photos and don’t notice a piano.  The woman in running shorts is my grandmother.  She died of cancer.  The piano belonged to her.  The other photos are of my cousins, my cousin’s children, my brother, and I. After my grandmother died and my grandfather moved, he gave the piano to my cousin for her small children. It sat in her dining room. When she moved, she put it out for trash.  I couldn’t let her throw it away; it was like putting part of my childhood out on the curb.  So, my mother and I went and moved it into our house before the trash men came. I paid two-hundred dollars to have it tuned.  Unfortunately, some of the keys still don’t work properly.  The repairmen said it would cost several thousands of dollars to have the innards of the piano replaced so it would work properly.  Someday, when I can afford it, I would like to have the piano restored.  I may never learn to play it, but I want my children to enjoy banging on the keys, as I did as a small child visiting my grandparents’ home.