Aunt Syl, mother’s sister, played the piano by ear. Given what I know of Sylvia’s standing in the family, or what I know of her perception of her standing in the family, my guess is that there was only enough money for one daughter to receive piano lessons. Ruth, being the oldest, took the lessons. Sylvia had access to the piano, probably listened to Ruth practice and, in her can-do way, taught herself to play.
My early memory is begging her to play Stormy Weather. “Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather. Since my man and I ain’t together, it just keeps raining all the time.” I was not more than 5-6 years old. Aunt Syl was already a nurse and living in New Jersey and married to a man named Abe Rosen. She left for nursing school Rosh Hashana 1929, six months after I was born, so I only got to hear her play when she came to Richmond for visits.
I can still picture scenes in Grandma and Grandpa Radman’s big house on Clay Street (near the corner of 11th Street, demolished at least 20 years ago for a new highway-connecting road). I’d sit on the bench next to her, while she played popular songs, and sing with her. There came a day when she got stormy about playing Stormy Weather, and told me she didn’t like the song and wasn’t going to play it any more.
I think she and Abe Rosen got married in that house. (Right now I don’t know the year.) Ruth and Leonard had had a huge wedding in the Richmond Hotel. Aunt Syl and Abe got divorced after five years. Things probably weren’t too good for a year or two before the divorce. Maybe that’s when she stopped playing Stormy Weather for me.
What made me think of this: instead of going to shul tonight, I’m in my office preparing to read the parsha, but doing a double crostic before I settle down. The first clue was “A 1933 song by Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler (2 wds.)” The answer was Stormy Weather.
