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By: Jim Fitzpatrick |
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Email: jim@nunica.com |
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Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer. |
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Along Brandy Creek By Jim Fitzpatrick
The Coopersville Observer Beginning of April, 2009- - No. 103 |
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The piano in the front room arrived on the farm sometime around fifteen years ago, not long after the construction of the house was completed. It has been there in the same spot along the east wall since it was hauled in through the back door and positioned there on the carpet. The house was new, the carpet was as new as can be; the piano was not new, although it sure did and still does look as if it recently arrived from the factory. In gold lettering on the cherry wood background just above the pearly white keys are the words “Grinnell Bros., Detroit”. It was likely manufactured in the nineteen forties or fifties.
When the farmers wife was a very young girl living in Farmington, her mom and dad bought the piano from another family living in the Detroit area. When she and her sister were growing up they both learned to play the piano well. Mrs. Westfall was their teacher. Somewhere in time the piano made its way to Grandma’s house not too many miles away.
One day the grown up woman met a guy from the farm across the state between Coopersville and Nunica. The two of them got married, they built the new house; but, they had no piano. A couple of years later her dad called on the phone one evening, told them that there would be a delivery truck arriving at their back door in about two hours. And, “Oh yes, be sure and have a hundred dollar bill ready to give to the driver and his companion”. The dad still living near Farmington, having spotted a Grand Rapids area delivery truck in a local restaurant parking lot, went in and made the deal. “You drive to Grandma’s house and load up the piano for a hundred dollars; on your return to GR you go on a few extra miles to the west and collect another hundred dollars at the farmer’s back door.”
And so, the Grinnell Bros. piano made its way across Michigan to the farm where the young woman and her two growing up children play it almost every day. The farmer? – He couldn't play a tune if he tried! |
