Playing Piano

This will be backdated to 1982

The picture on the left was in 1982 I believe, the ones on the right were in the 1980 Dropbox folder. Both Wendy and I took piano lessons from Lorraine Peckham for years. We would ride our bikes up past the church to her home (having to go past a house that had Dobermans that would lunge at the fence and bark at us ... scared me to death!) I remember we'd be required to practice 30 minutes a day, and I think lessons were once a week. Recitals were held in the chapel at church.

As for the boys ... Scott didn't ever take lessons, but Chris did for about eight months. Some friends in the Delta Club Group had a son that played "The Entertainer" on a TV talent show. That inspired Chris, but then he lost interest and wanted to quit. Mrs. Peckham said it was too bad, because she felt he had a natural ability. I remember Chris thought that if he knew how to play two songs, he could still use that to show off to girls (I think his plan was "The Entertainer" for his first, and "Jessica's Theme from Man From Snowy River" for his second.

Derek seemed to have a natural talent as well, learning to play by ear, and taking lessons for a short time in high school. I really never remembered him playing and was pretty surprised when he ended up quite the musician (see Derek in Concert). He has quite a few piano spotlights on his Instagram account, as well as his cover albums.

Back to the 80s ... Recitals always stressed me out! I'd practice and practice, and get semi-memorized, enough that sometimes I'd zone out, and then not remember where I was in the piece. In my later years, I always said I was more of an accompanist than a pianist. I could follow a singer (or I was the singer) but was never very technical. I'd always ask my piano teacher to play through the music once before I attempted, as I really struggled with reading the timing.

There were some programs saved from recitals over the years ...

In the 1979 program, you can see the Westra girls at #12, #14 (duets), #23, #27 and #35. How long was this recital? I actually remember the name Palace Garden and Grandfather's Clock (while not really remembering the melodies). Wendy did some classical pieces and 5th Avenue Poodle. Glancing through the program, most of the names of the other students are familiar to the Westra siblings (friends, neighbors, other kids in the ward). Apologies for the quality (or lack thereof, this is actually the improved copy)...

... another program, this time from 1983. This recital doesn't look nearly as long as the one in 1982, AND it was broken up into two separate performances to trim it down even further (good move!) I don't remember "Solfeggio in C Minor" but "Moonlight Sonata" is a famous number.

It wasn't just recitals ... we would play in school, girl scouts, family reunion talent shows, in church, etc.

The program below was from Woodstock Elementary, 1979 (2nd grade for Jen).
I wonder what song I played?

This piece (Hungary) wasn't listed in these saved programs, 

but I remember this as a recital piece, and I still have the music.

 I've even attempted (unsuccessfully) to try and play it again. 

You can see it being played HERE (not by me, but you can imagine)

A few of the classic Westra music books ... interesting to note, you can see the price (middle/bottom half on the blue cover) ....$1.25. That was for the book, with six long pieces in it! The Burgmueller has a price of $2.50 printed on it. The theory book (ugg, theory!) was $3.95 - you can also see it was purchased at Day Murray Music down on State Street (it's still there, it's where we bought most of our music). Hungary (above - single sheet) had a price tag of $1.95 ... as of 2022, it's $5.99. Inflation, etc.

Here's a little sample of the Burgmueller music ...

This totally brought back music memories!

https://youtu.be/YmrAIf5WlaI

... and the Sonatinas (I went with #3, most memorable to me)

https://youtu.be/42qx4zVyjmw

Are any of the grandkids taking piano lessons now?  Wendy's were for a while (blog mention here). I did an email search (in the WriteOn blog) and found taking lessons mentioned ... Adria (2010), Adria&Rella (2014) and Ani (2021) ...

It would be interesting to compare the types of music (I assume classical is still a big part), prices, and how music is purchased (most sheet music can be found and downloaded online, printed off immediately at home). How much is technology used in teaching today? As all the YouTube links above indicate ... I would no longer need my piano teacher to play the piece for me so I could hear the timing. Progression of piano playing over the years. 

Anyone up for playing "Chopsticks" ... or perhaps a duet of "Heart and Soul"??

Mother's Day!!

Sunday May 9, 1982: (Wendy)

Happy Mother's Day! Mom came home from the hospital today with baby Derek! He is four days old! We gave her all the presents. I gave her a basket and a wooden "MOM," and magnets, and some coupons. Derek is sooo cute!! We went to Grandma's for dinner.

A Derek Delivery

On Wednesday, May 5th 1982, the expectant parents went to St. Marks Hospital in Salt Lake at 7:00 in the morning. Labor was induced at 8:30 a.m. and it lasted eight hours. Derek was born at 4:08 p.m. He weighed 6 pounds 9½ ounces and was 19½ inches long. He needed to stay under the lights for jaundice.

I asked Mom to write up her memories about each of the kids births for this blog (2020): Because of our experience with Cory, I had to go into the hospital at least a couple times when he was nearer to term. They would hook me up with an IV with Pitocin (?) I think and induce labor and track it for a while to see how my body was handling it. It took a few hours. Then my doctor wanted to induce me a couple weeks early, since that was the point when Cory had died. So I remember us going to the hospital early in the morning for them to induce labor. I had heard that induced labors take longer, especially done that early, before your body is quite ready, so he wasn't born until about 6 p.m. that evening. 6 lbs. something. I had my first epidural with him. They didn't do routine ultrasounds back then, like they do now. But I chose to have one and to have the amniocentesis procedure done. It is not without risk, but I really needed the peace of mind it could bring. If there had been a problem with the baby, we would not have aborted anyway, but chances were high that all would be normal, so I could relax a little more with the pregnancy. So I think Derek is the only one of our 8 where we knew the sex before our baby was born.

On one of the pages of the baby book, Dad wrote up some of the expense totals for the time ...

• Margie/Dr.Brown(OB) $685
• Margie/St.Marks (Hospital) $1056
• Margie/Dr.Morris (Anesthesiologist?) $346.50
• Derek/St.Marks (Hospital) $525.10
• Derek/Dr.Carr (Pediatrician) $130
• Derek/X-Ray $6.50

Total costs charged $2749.10 (no notation of what insurance covered and what was out of pocket).

It would be interesting to have the medical bills from all the births to compare ...

and to compare to the costs when the Westra kids had their babies, and to today!

There was a page in the baby book with all of the siblings holding baby Derek ... sans Jen! Where was the picture of me holding the baby? I KNEW it existed. I guess I had taken the picture for my personal photo album (but Wendy has her photo in her album too, we usually got double prints). These had not been in the Dropbox folder for the year (until now) so I wonder if there are still some negatives out there that didn't get converted with the rest. There are a LOT of photos of baby Derek (the folks hadn't gotten around to taking pictures with baby Kellie and didn't have any of Cory, and I'm sure that played a part in the plethora of pictures now). 

More notes from the baby book ...

• Likes to sleep on tummy
• Not good in infant seat for very long at all. 
• Sleeps good at night, but not great during the day, just small cat naps
• Sucks his two middle fingers of his right hand
• Blessed June 6th, 1982

There is a "Gifts and Goodies" list in Dropbox, a scan of the "births" section from the newspaper (they give the home address of the families ... that would not be acceptable in today's society!) and a couple other snapshots and memorabilia. There was also another blog post about Derek Memories on his last birthday. 

Here's the DMarie TimeCapsule

Happy Easter!!

Sunday April 11, 1982: From Wendy's journal (almost 14).

Happy Easter!! I didn't get a new Easter dress, but I got new Easter shoes. I didn't have a hard time getting up this morning like I usually do! I got dressed and then we went in to look in our Easter baskets full of candy! We got a big chocolate marshmallow egg, M&M's, jelly beans and candy eggs hidden around the house. Shane is 5 and still believes in the Easter Bunny so we have to be careful what we say around him! Also, for Easter each year we get to choose any kind of cereal we want to get for Easter. I chose Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch and Lucky Charms. Chris ate both his boxes of cereal in one day!

We went to church and learned more about the real meaning of Easter with Christ and His Resurrection. Today we gave our mutual teacher some candy and flowers. We had all pitched in money to do it. We saw a movie about Christ in Mutual. After church we went to Grandma Burgener's house for dinner and we had ham sandwiches and some decorated hard-boiled eggs and cookies and candy! It was delicious!

Great Grandma Bohne's 90th Birthday Party!!

(Wendy) We went to Fairview to celebrate Great-Grandma Bohne's 90th birthday! It was a big family reunion. We had a talent show and I played "Saturday's Warrior" on the piano.

Carousel Kids

 

After Wendy and Jenny outgrew the baton lessons, Jenny still wanted to perform. Mom signed her up for a cute little song and dance group called Carousel Kids. It was Spring of 1980. Jen still has a cassette tape of some of the songs the group sang (she doesn't have a cassette player though ...) Here's a few of the songs/lyrics she remembers, even 40 years later!

Mom/Margie didn't remember any of these songs (below), 

but she remembered the group performed "Wells Fargo Wagon" ...

• Walking in the Sunshine: "Tell the blues that I've got news I'm putting on my walking shoes and I feel fine. Ummmmm. Come on in and watch me grin I'm letting all the sunshine in, I've got the time. Ummmm. To go walking in the sunshine. Taking it easy. Living my life now one day at a time. La la la la la la la la la la la, la la la la la la ..."
• Ain't Gonna Rain: "Raindrops and teardrops someday when the rain stops I'll find me a new place somewhere in the sun. I'll find me a new place I'll share with someone, and it ain't gonna rain anymore."
• Good Friend: "If you let me, I could be your good friend. If you let me, we could walk together. We're not so different you know. Though we may have different dreams. When they fall apart. We hurt the same it seems...
• The Inventor's Song: "When you're spelling the word, America, don't forget to dot the i, for the inventors, don't forget to dot the i." I still remember MANY inventors because of this song.
• There was a Man: " John Smith, there was a man! Hi Ho Diddle Aye Oh! From Kentucky he began, to make our country grow-ow-ow-ow, make our country grow. Brigham Young, there was a man, hi-ho-diddle-aye-o, down in Utah he began, to make our country grow-ow-ow-ow, make our country grow."  I don't know if this "There was a MAN" would be considered politically correct today!
• Are You For Independence: This went through the first 13 colonies ... "Connecticut, are you for independence? Are you for the pursuit of happiness? For life and liberty and freedom? Connecticut votes yes!"

The bottom three songs are all "America" themed songs, and some years ago, Jen found an album with them on (America Pie, the Peter Pan Chorus) and was able to get MP3s she has in her Itunes library (along with Music Man! A favorite record from the Westra childhood). And in 2017, Colton's class sang one of the songs during a school program (and he said the other two sounded familiar as well). 

In the pictures above, the girl with Jenny was Natalie Lewis, a gal down the street (a year younger than Jen, Natalie's brother Jason was Jen's age) and they were in this singing group together. Jen found a couple mentions about the group in her journal (she didn't write much when she was not quite 10 years old) ...

April 12 Today I started a singing group. I go every Sat. at 10:00

May 17 Singing program and I was so good my grandma gave me $1

Jen would continue to sing - high school musicals and madrigals, community theater, and another song/dance group in college!

California Dreaming

June of 1980 the Westra Family went on a family vacation to California to visit the Griffiths.

Wendy (age 12) wrote this poem to describe the trip~

Our Trip:

We drove to California in our car – we drove very long, we drove very far.

We drove past houses cities and cars. It seemed like we were going clear to Mars!

We drove past churches and hotels. We stopped in Nevada at Scott’s Motel. 

The weather here was very cool, so we were glad for an indoor pool.

Then on and on our trip we did go – until we finally arrived in Sacramento.

We got there on the thirtieth of May, to enjoy ten days of fun and play.

We went to a park called Fairy Tale Town, where there were slides and castles and a king with a crown.

We had a picnic and played all around, and went on a ride that went round and round.

The next day was Sunday and we went to church meetings. We were sure glad to have a nice greeting. 

On Monday we went to San Francisco, and do you know what we rode on, do you know?

We went on a trolley car and boy was it fun! Then we ate lunch and sat in the sun.

We saw a museum full of neat things – fishes and snakes and Indian rings.

We went to the beach and saw lots of waves, and we found lots of seashells to keep and to save.

Today is June second, it is no longer May, but boy it sure was a really fun day! 

On Tuesday we went to the park and the zoo. We fed all the animals and the little squirrels too! 

On Wednesday we played games such as tennis and bowling, where the ball went flying and the ball went rolling.

Scott was not necessarily being a teenager and stepping out of the photo. 

This picture was damaged in the scan and cut off. 

Thursday we went to Marriott – with our things all ready and our things all set. 

We rode the Demon and the Tidal Wave – and we even got little booklets to save.

We rode on Willard’s Whizzer and that’s not it, we rode on others and just couldn’t quit. 

I thought the Demon was the best, I thought it was more fun than the rest.

But the other rides were a total blast too, and there was always lots of fun stuff you could do.

We also watched a show about Bugs Bunny, you know, and one called “To Fly,” another great show.

Today was SO fun – riding rides in the sun! 

On Friday we went and water skied. Uncle Arnold had the boat and the things we would need.

I’d never done it before, I didn’t know how, but I did it! And boy was it fun – wow! 

We ate there on the island, there in the sun – and we played in the water and had loads of fun!

Saturday we went to a restaurant and ate – we even got seconds on a new plate!

But what I liked best was the vanilla ice cream – topped with toppings and nuts, see what I mean?

Sunday we got ready to go back home. Oh! I felt like I was going to moan!

But I missed my house, so I was kind of glad – I missed my friends, so I wasn’t too mad.

And again we drove past houses and hotels, and we stopped again at “Scott’s Motel.”

Then we drove again and arrived back home, and I will always remember our trip by this little poem!

By Wendy Westra (age 12)

Jenny wrote in her journal too ... not quite as much ;)

A few more photos and adventures from the trip ...