Crackerjack Bonus Epilogues: Part 2, All Children Should Be Taught Music

In my previous blog post, I mentioned that I wrote two different epilogues for my book, Crackerjack Bands and Hometown Boosters: The Story of a Minnesota Music Man. I ultimately decided against including either one in the final manuscript.

I wrote the second epilogue in October 2017, shortly after I had attended a writing retreat led by Minneapolis author/teacher/writing coach extraordinaire Kate Hopper. As I write this blog post, I am once again on a retreat with an amazing group of women, led by Kate.

I don't expect to write yet another book epilogue while I'm here, but I am open to exploring other topics that arise during our discussions and exercises. Until I have a new essay to share, I present here, for your reading enjoyment, epilogue #2:

CODA – "All Children Should Be Taught Music"

On a crisp October morning three years after my last visit with Ted, I woke up thinking about Islea. I checked the time: 6:15. My alarm wouldn't go off for another half hour. But my mind was already in writing mode, so I slipped out of bed without disturbing my slumbering husband or the dog, Waffles, who was curled up like a doughnut by Steve's feet. Elias would get up in fifteen minutes and shower before heading to school. If I moved quickly, I would have a brief window of time to myself to record my post-sleep thoughts.

I had spent the previous weekend at a retreat with a dozen other women writers, where we discussed the importance of telling our stories, and found strength and support in sharing our experiences. I also spent time rethinking parts in my book where I made connections between Islea and myself. So it made sense that my great-grandmother would rise to the surface of my thoughts this morning.

While the coffeemaker burbled, I opened my laptop and prepared to add a new scene to one of the chapters. As I dug through my notes and reread an old blog post, a famous pianist reintroduced herself to me: Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler.

Pianist Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler

Oh, yes, Fannie. In 2014, while researching G. Oliver's stint in Tacoma, I had stumbled across a newspaper article about Fannie and her music career. The 1910 Tacoma Times article jumped out at me because of its headline: Famous Woman Pianist Says All Children Should Be Taught Music. It described Fannie as "one of the greatest pianists in the world," and yet, I had never heard of her. I looked for information about her online and learned that she was born a decade before Islea and studied piano in Chicago and also in her native Austria, under the Polish composer Theodor Leschietizky, who was known for saying, "No art without life, no life without art."

It had bothered me that such an accomplished woman could be nearly forgotten a century later. Now, as I sipped my coffee, I reread Fannie's words about teaching music to children:

"Four boys are tying a can to a poor dog's tail. The little girls farther up the block are quarreling over who had the most turns at skipping the rope. Then along comes a band. You know what happens. The boys chuck the can and hurrah. The little girls drop the rope and slip away, eyes and feet dancing. They follow the band as far as they dare.

"And how do they come back? Everybody knows that, too. Their faces are bright, the bad temper is gone and they go to playing a different set of boys and girls. And yet people don't think it's necessary to teach the children music.

"Reading is splendid, of course it is," she went on. "So is seeing the beauty of the world about us, and as we see it through a master's eyes on his canvas—all that has a wonderful effect on us. But harmony—music—why, the tots begin to hum before they want to read. It's the only thing that takes us out of ourselves. The effect of the band on the children shows how inborn the magic of it is. And a band—well, the better the music, the better the effect.

"Every home is better for a piano in it. Every child's life is better for studying music."

Her words resounded in me again as I stood at the counter and typed them into a Word document, while the soft strains of a classical piece played on the nearby radio.

What I appreciated even more about Fannie this time was the reminder that she advocated for music education while also juggling her career and raising a family, like Islea—like me—and that she did it while defying society's expectations.

The newspaper article addressed this, noting that Fannie's marriage to Chicago attorney Sigmund Zeisler "just after she had begun to conquer the world, caused consternation in the musical world. But she did about that as she did about going on being a musician when she was told she had not the strength—she did as she pleased. And when she had a fine little son and the home world seemed complete she again wanted more worlds to conquer. So back to studying she went."

There it was: the inspiration I needed to write my scene. Forget about coffee. What I needed to conquer the world was already in my genes. The words would come.