My great grandmother, Carmela, but best known as Millie, was born in Manhattan to two Italian immigrants. She lived in New York City her whole life, moving from Manhattan to Brooklyn, and along the way she met her husband Tony. In Brooklyn, she gave birth to her daughter Pamela, my Grammy. My grandmother grew up in Brooklyn, and eventually moved to New Jersey after she got married. There, she had her daughter, my Aunt Lisa. After splitting with her husband, Grammy took Lisa and moved back to Brooklyn with Millie and Tony, where she had her son, my dad Anthony.

One of my great grandmother’s dreams was to have a piano in her home, and she shared this dream with her husband and daughter. She wanted her home to be filled with music, hoping her family would be able to learn to play. In 1973, my great grandmother, great grandfather, Grammy, and my aunt and my dad all had agreed to move out of their 2 family home in Brooklyn to a house in Staten Island together. They bought a house and were planning their move, when Millie passed unexpectedly from a heart attack. Her heart- wrenching passing led my great grandfather and Grammy to buy a different house, as they couldn’t bear to live in the one they had picked out alongside her. Even though she passed before she could live out her dream of having a piano in her home, my Grammy and Tony fulfilled it by purchasing a piano once the family had moved into their new house in Staten Island. They bought the Baldwin upright piano brand new in 1974, about a year after they moved.

Though I wasn’t able to find how much a Baldwin upright piano would have been worth in 1974, a Yamaha upright piano would have been around $2,500, so it was most likely around a similar amount. The beautifully carved wooden piano stands at 58 inches wide, 40 inches high, and 25 inches deep, weighing about 500 pounds. It claimed its place in my grandmother’s living room from 1974 until she passed in 2019.

The piano’s first handler was my Aunt Lisa. Grammy signed up her daughter for piano lessons at the house. While my Aunt Lisa was being taught, her brother listened intently. One day, Grammy and Lisa were about in the house, away from the piano, when they heard it being played. “Isn’t that a tune you’ve been learning?” Grammy asked Aunt Lisa, as she recalls. My dad was found to be playing the song Lisa had been learning, completely by ear. Of course, Grammy signed him up for lessons as well after that. My dad was naturally musically talented, and still plays the piano beautifully to this day thanks to my great grandmother’s wish. 

When I was a kid, I remember being at Grammy’s house and listening to my dad play on that piano. On every Christmas Eve spent at my Grammy’s, he’d play the music for our family sing-along and while all us kids opened our presents. I remember my brother playing Fur Elise for Grammy, but jokingly speeding up turning the song into chaos, causing Grammy to exclaim “Play it nice!”. 

After my Grammy had passed, my family was faced with clearing out the many memories that house had held. The Baldwin upright piano was moved from its home of 45 years. Despite us already having a piano in our home, my dad of course took ownership of the Baldwin. Now, our piano sits in our living room across from my Grammy’s.