envision
Daddy playing his beloved saxophone in the same venue where Noel Coward, Rudy
Vallee and Caruso used to perform.
Left to right: Sylvester Ahola (1st trumpet), Harry Robbins (drums), Irving Brodsky (piano, arranger), Andy Richardson (2nd trumpet), Ben Oakley (trombone), Reggie Batten (violin, leader), Barney Sorkin (saxes), Dave 20
Thomas (banjo), Claude Hughes (saxes), Jim Bellamy (brass bass), Jerry Hoey (saxes), Jack Cressy (saxes).
A year later, Daddy was ready for a new musical adventure and sailed back to New
York City. This time, he was more persistent in his search and landed a job with Emil
Coleman’s orchestra at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was 1931, and he was just twenty-
eight years old.
While playing at a wedding reception in New York, Daddy’s eyes found those of my
mother across the room. It was love at first sight for both of them. “With that porcelain
china skin and flaming red hair, she looked exactly like the photographs of Ava
Gardner,” Daddy would say, his eyes sparkling. “What could I do? And that figure. It
wouldn’t quit. Can you believe it? I’ve loved your mother since she was seventeen years
old.”
When I listened to Daddy exclaim over my mother’s natural beauty, I would sigh to
myself. Why hadn’t I inherited her genes, instead of his? Even in her housedresses, she
demonstrated a flair for fashion, color and design. Even with her nearsightedness, she
could whip together a stunning outfit fashioned from bed sheets. And she didn’t have to
wear an abundance of makeup to cover flaws. Even into her mid-nineties, Mother looked
years younger than her age. She could have been a movie star herself. And yes, after
Daddy’s story of their first meeting had been repeated without change well into my teen
years, I did look for a photograph of Ava Gardner to make comparisons with Mother in
their wedding picture. It’s true that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but I did see
some resemblance.
Mother’s story is all the more remarkable to me when I consider that she had
contracted bacterial meningitis at age eighteen. At that time, there were no available
antibiotics. Penicillin wasn’t widely used until the mid-1940s. My grandparents were told
their daughter wouldn’t survive the night. Well, she obviously did, but the young girl in
the bed next to my mother’s died of the same disease, and this event had a profound
effect on Mother. Because her life had been spared, she developed a sense of compassion
not only for the sick and dying, but for the living. She taught my siblings and me to have
an attitude of gratefulness and generosity and to always be kind to others.
Several years before Mother’s stroke-induced inability to speak, she shared a dream
she had experienced while in the hospital, fighting for her life at this young age. She said,
“People were trying to pull me over a wall, but I wouldn’t go, Carol. They kept tugging at
me, and then I saw a brilliant light emanating from a tunnel. I wanted to investigate, but
something held me back.” She told me about this incident only once, but from what I’ve
read and heard, it seems consistent with those of many others who had a near-death
experience. I have to believe it wasn’t her time to leave her earthly life.
Because of the depth of his love for Mother, my father took care of her and all her
expenses while she recuperated in the hospital and, later, at home. They married shortly
after her recovery. I remember asking Daddy, when he was recounting this story to me
for the umpteenth time, “Did you and Mommy have a song you liked more than all the
21
others you’ve played?”
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