Memories In A Trumpet Case: A Memoir for This Father’s Day
—by Louise Calvert-Dale
Home from winter in South Carolina, spring cleaning and downsizing are calling to me. On the second shelf in our downstairs storage cupboard sits an old instrument case, with Dad’s trumpet. It’s been there since 2008, the year that he died. Is it time to give it a new home?
As I examine the case, I notice that the leather is broken, cracked, probably close to 90 years old. It is secured by two wrinkled and crumbling straps and a catch. I release the lock and peer inside. It is lined in red-wine-coloured velvet, like a coffin, and has the scent of mold and age. The bottom holds the trumpet, and on the other side of a divider, the mouth pieces and the dented mutes. There are black impressions of the mouthpieces on the inside of the lid. They remind me of all the ways Dad left imprints on my life. I imagine Dad’s squeezed lips or embouchure, on these mouth pieces. I am transported back in time to my childhood.
My piano is in the basement and I am practicing scales. Dad is upstairs trying to reach the high notes on his trumpet. Our cocker spaniel, Queenie, is howling. Dad has chosen to play now, to try and drive Mum crazy. The memory reminds me of what a jokester he was. It makes me smile.
I lift the trumpet out. Engraved on the brass bell, or end of the instrument, are the words Silvertone, the HN White Company of Cleveland. I discover that these trumpets were sold by the Sears Company in Toronto. I wonder how much it cost at that time and how he was able to afford it. I notice that one of the valves seems to be stuck. But the finger buttons are still intact, made with mother of pearl. I hold the trumpet in my hands now, with reverence. This isn’t just an old instrument. It is an artifact which tells a story of people, of a time and place in history. It tells the story of a man, his life, his struggles, and loves set to the background of a musical era coming to an end, the swing era.
I find myself going through old albums, where I see Dad as a teenager playing a bugle. He is in his cadet uniform. Did Dad receive any formal music training? So many questions left unanswered. I know Dad only played music part-time, being influenced to choose a secure sales position and solid income.
This was the 1930’s and the big hotels in Toronto were hiring swing bands to play in their lounges. It was through one of these weekend gigs that Dad (Tom), met Margaret Sullivan. She was the beautiful hat check girl at the King Edward Hotel. Looking through boxes of old photos, I find an attractive young couple clearly in love and probably in their twenties. I wonder, did Tom just strike up a conversation with Margaret one night as he deposited his coat and fedora? Did he ask her to join him after his session? What did they do on their first date?
Mum came from an Irish Catholic farming family and was the only daughter to go to Toronto to the Catholic girls’ school, Loretto Abbey. She studied at Toronto Normal School hoping to secure a teaching position. But positions in Catholic Schools were filled by the nuns. So, Mum got work where she could in order to pay her bills. One of those jobs was at the King Edward Hotel. What was it like for a young single woman from the country living in the big city? Mum’s younger sister also joined her in Toronto and when she met the drummer of the band the couples became a foursome. Mum and Dad were married in 1939.
These were the war years, and Dad enlisted in the Royal Canadian Service Corps Band. In one photo he stands proudly in uniform holding his trumpet, probably at Camp Borden. In another, Mum’s wearing a fox fur collar. They look older. What must it have been like for a young couple who dared have hopes for the future at that time? My mother had continuous miscarriages. Dad avoided being shipped overseas by coming down with an acute case of appendicitis.
Eventually the war ended, and my parents moved in with my widowed grandfather in his small bungalow in Toronto’s west end. In 1948 I was born in that house, an only child and a Daddy’s girl. One of my favourite photos is the two of us on the front porch when I was about seven. We are both smiling and holding our instruments, he has his trumpet and I have a toy bugle. I am poking Dad in the ribs with my elbow.
I discover the video made for Dad’s 93rd birthday. The images, scanned photos, represented Tom’s long, fulfilling life to include his childhood, meeting and marrying Mum, Tom as a parent, his pets, his cottages and love of the outdoors, my Mum’s final year, and Tom’s love of travel with my step mum. The musical backdrop represented the swing era, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Arty Shaw, Count Basie. These were the tunes he played and that he and Mum danced to. The closing piece however was by Abba. “Thank You for the Music” was chosen because of all the joy that music and Dad played in my life. My tears still fall as the film concludes with this song and a close up of Dad’s trumpet standing proudly on a table.
As I write these words, the phone rings. A local band leader and music teacher is coming to assess Dad’s trumpet. It is possible with some refurbishment that it will be gifted to a young student protégé. If this happens, I know Dad would be pleased. Today I am so thankful for Dad, for his love of music and for the privilege of sharing family memories, stories stored in a 90-year-old instrument case.
