My mother’s accordion

On February 23, 1956, my mother Inez, age 30, bought a La Tosca “New Piano Accordion” from Vorbach Brothers, Inc., in Queens, N.Y. Here is a copy of the receipt.

My parents married in 1960 and my mom gave birth to me in 1965. I have just one memory of my mother playing that accordion: in the foyer of our home in White Plains, New York. There were neighbors and friends enjoying a party. My mother removed the instrument from its latched case, slung the straps over her shoulders and began to play. I stood in front of her and watched the magic. She was happy, smiling, exuberant. I felt proud to be her daughter. My family moved from White Plains to Cape Cod in June 1979 and my mother died the following May. I was fourteen. Lost in profound grief, I forgot about the accordion.

In 1989 I took a road trip west and when I visited my childhood babysitter at her home in Urbana, Illinois, she brought my mother’s accordion out of a closet. I had erased the accordion from memory. Once reminded, I felt surprised that my mother had given the instrument away and saddened that she hadn’t saved the accordion for me, her daughter; the instrument was a part of her.

Thirty years later I received an email from Urbana, Illinois. My childhood babysitter could no longer play the accordion because of arthritis; she wanted me to have it. I wasn’t ready. I am now fifty-five years old—the same age my mother was when she died—and I am ready. On Monday, June 7, 2021, I embark on an instrumental road trip across New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana to reunite with my mother’s accordion in Urbana, Illinois. People ask, “Do you play the accordion?” I answer: “I will!”

Thank you for sharing this adventure with me.