A Crescendo of Joy

By Flora Crump

My grandfather, Golden Webb, was a skilled musician who could play almost anything anyone requested on his violin or old upright piano. When he purchased an organ, there wasn't room in his small home for two large instruments, so my mother inherited the piano. I was 10 or 11 years old when it was transported 25 miles from Salt Lake City to Riverton.

Since its style wasn't as fashionable in the '50s as it had been in the '20s, my mother had the piano reduced in size, remodeled and refinished. On this piano I learned the real joys of music. I discovered that each little note positioned on a music staff also represented a position on the keyboard, and when my fingers stroked the correct combination of keys, a beautiful sound would come forth. Even if it was with only one finger at first, I could now play my favorite tunes or make up my own. I played simple duets with my mother and sisters, and mother taught us to sing in parts like she could.

A few years later, the piano was moved a second time, this time into the basement of the wonderful new home my dad was building just a few yards from our present one. The job of moving it must have been even easier since the piano was now much smaller and the house didn't have a top on it yet. My dad and a few men lowered the piano into the room that was to become the family room. It became the first piece of furniture in our new home.

It sat faithfully in its place for many years and participated quite actively in the musical education of six children. And it quietly watched as each one grew up and eventually moved away. While it sat lonely and a little neglected, it apparently gained some weight.

Years later when my mother asked if I would like the piano in my own home, I was overjoyed. Not only had that piano belonged to my beloved grandparents, but it was the source of so many memories. Now my own children could make the same wonderful discoveries I did.

My enthusiasm was matched with blank looks and shrugged shoulders, definite gestures of indifference. What a disappointment. But because they were such good boys and they loved me, my husband and sons halfheartedly examined the possibilities of getting the piano up my parents' basement stairs and into our home. Their unanimous conclusion was that it was too heavy; the stairs would never hold the weight; and the door was too narrow to fit it through. I wasn't convinced. I committed to pay a professional piano mover to do the job.

I called a local company, and the representative expressed great confidence. Not only did they have all the right equipment, but they had never met a piano they couldn't move. They couldn't do it. Their two young he-men movers could hardly roll the piano across the floor toward the stairs, let alone up the stairs.

My parents dismantled it as much as possible. They took off the front legs, removed the mirrored top and stripped off the front panel that covered all its inner workings. It stood there shivering like a skeleton with its bony ribs and stringy tendons shamelessly exposed.

I wanted a second opinion. We called another piano mover and again explained the situation, adding that a previous company had failed. They were even more assuring than the last. With the most efficient equipment and the most capable crew, they could move anything in any situation. And indeed they did! Four of the friendliest and largest men I had ever seen huffed and puffed, sweated and strained and got that piano up three stairs.

When the stairs creaked, they froze. They rolled the piano back down and said they didn't dare go any farther. The old wooden stairs would collapse long before the piano reached the top. They apologized and went home.

I was now convinced that Grandpa's piano was destined to remain on the lower level of my parents' home forever. A year went by.

As Christmas of 1993 was approaching, and everyone started tossing around little hints about what they would like for Christmas, I joined the game. My request was for a new or used piano. Little did I realize that someone was really listening and planning. On Christmas Eve morning I left the house to tie up my usual last-minute "loose ends."

 I assured everyone that I would be home early in the afternoon so we could all be together to enjoy Christmas Eve.

 The minute the door closed behind me, my husband, Sam, and three sons took action. They would get Grandpa's piano out of my parents' home and into ours as a Christmas surprise for me. The task would be accomplished long before I got home in the afternoon.

 My dad had reinforced the basement stairs and had invented a roller apparatus to help hoist the piano up one step at a time. They wedged a come-along, which is a hand-operated winch, on boards against the outside door frames. They wrapped the piano with wide straps that they attached to a cable and to the come-along. The piano had to be tipped sideways in order to get it up the stairwell and out two doors.

 Two hours passed as the piano moved, inch by inch, up the stairs. They called a nephew and a brother-in-law to help. If either the cable or wooden wedge holding the come-along were to break, the piano would go crashing back down the stairs and take the men with it. When it got hopelessly hung up at the top stair and door frame, my brother-in-law got under the piano and lifted it, Jean Val Jean style, with his back while the others worked to free it. After almost three hours, the piano rested at the top of the stairs. Another hour and it was home.

I drove in just as the piano was exiting the pickup truck on big planks and entering my front door. My arrival home before the piano was completely settled didn't spoil the surprise. I was there to see six tired, happy men complete what had been an impossible task until this day. And they were there to see tears spilling down my cheeks and my head nodding in disbelief.

Despite what they had been through, and the danger to which they had been exposed, they were all very jolly as the spins of this accomplishment floated around and through everyone and came to rest in our hearts. I watched my husband express genuine thanks to our dear family members for their valuable help, and I realized that three little families had given up almost a whole day without their husbands and fathers to make a Christmas miracle happen for me.

For weeks I couldn't sit down to that piano without weeping with joy realizing that it was finally in my home and how it got there. And now as another generation of children has almost emptied my nest and I find myself alone more often, my piano is my cushion, my company, my outlet for expression. I have often reflected as I lovingly stroke its keys or dust its bruised and scarred surface just how much Grandpa Webb participated in turning what was an impossible task into a memorable Christmas miracle.