Happy 90th Birthday Today to my Mother!!! 

(aka Gifts for Piano Players)

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Maria Brody can not be separated from her Violettes Piano Purse , nor from her cat. Her husband, 1 grandson and 1 granddaughter were talented pianists. (Hopefully the grandchildren who are now both studying physics, make time to play again in the future). People where ever we go, notice her piano purse. So the bags are not only great gifts for piano players, but they are gifts for wives, mothers and grandmothers of piano players.My Mom had some piano lessons as a child, but she was a ballet dancer. She danced in the Vienna Opera House at age 12. She was "caught" in World War II, escaping to England at age 13. She came from a "well to do" non-religious Jewish family, who had to escape Vienna. Her father was able to pay off Hitler's men temporarily, but her family took off in different directions...After graduating from the London School of Economics with an Economics degree, she took the RMS Aquitania ship to America to be reunited with her mother in New York City in 1947. She lived there for a year taking Modern Dance lessons from famous Dancers Jose Limon, Dorris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. Then she moved to Cambridge near her brother, who was attending MIT. She met my Dad at a dance and they married in 4 weeks. So she turned down a dance troupe offer to travel for "stability" with a (difficult, but brilliant talented) Harvard man. She had come from a difficult family and went thru difficult times escaping the war. Who can blame her for diving into a marriage. (It was a difficult one!)My father was so dominant, and my Mother was devoted to satisfying every whim of everyone (like many of us mothers). We, her 4 children, never completely knew who the real her was. She probably didn't know for quite some time either. (She took many writing classes, and one time wrote that her feelings are flapping in the wind. She says they aren't anymore.) We do know however that she can not pass a street musician without dropping money! She is a big supporter of the arts. We know that if we had any kind of a desire to take any kind of lessons, she made it happen. She taught her first 3 children (and all the children in the Seattle neighborhood) dance lessons in our house. She is creative - when she was in her 20's, she loved making pottery and painting whimsical scenes on tiles that were assembled into tables. Later she sewed a lot of my clothes. When I was in elementary school, she taught herself and me to sew. And she was a great cook. Our family foodie tastes have been passed on thru the generations. And I almost forgot - she was always wanting to go camping. Being in the mountains was of utmost importance to her being. In fact, last year I took her on an overnight camp out in Pisgah Nat'l Forrest, North Carolina, and she loved it. I filled the entire back of the minivan with mattresses and soft things. We slept on top of a giant pile of soft things in the tent like in The Princess and the Pea story. (One of the best sleeps I ever had!)She worked in my father's doctor's office as a nurse and secretary for most of my upbringing. She loved the people she met and she loved helping to care for them. She went to night school to get a nursing degree so that she could give shots... in my father's office. A few of the patients still send her Xmas cards!

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Who is my Mom? Now we know because she lives with me in Tennessee.

• - As always, she can survive on cake alone, and will whip up whipped cream to eat with a spoon from a cup!! (Her Austrian heritage!)
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• - She is always reading a diverse selection of books - science, politics, romance, culture, religion and even poetry!
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• - She often runs upstairs to her room for PBS programs in the evening whether about Math, science, a Biography, any history series, opera, ballet or a symphony. Yes - she jumped up from the dinner table one evening saying she must hurry - there is a program about math on! Duane and I looked at teach other. I think it was actually on Galileo.
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• - She insists on "carrying her weight" around the house doing laundry, dishes, watering flowers, sweeping the porch and begging me to let her cook.
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• - She wants to treat our cat like she took care of her husband, serving it the best food, constantly. She gets lots of exercise letting him in and out all day.

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Perhaps she is having 9 lives. Happy Birthday Grandma!!

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If you have any memories of her leave them below. Thanks!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I guarantee, she would be thrilled if you bought our Gifts for Piano Players  for the Pianists, their mothers and grandmothers and the Piano Teachers on your list !