This story is about my mother, Mary Dennis Corser. She is a passionate, creative musician. She rarely asks for anything, but what she wants most for Mother's Day is to win the contest for this piano restoration. Mary was a child prodigy. When little Mary Dennis was young, she knew of a piano that her neighbors owned. She could hear it and even saw it in their house once. She craved to try it and found the courage one day to knock and ask her neighbor if she could play. No one answered, but realized that the door was open and decided to invite herself in. Mary couldn't resist the urge to sit down and play. Just by ear and on her own she began to sound out the notes to church hymns she knew. After some time, Mary realized that she should go before getting caught and felt as though she had gotten away with her little escapade. What she did not know is that her neighbor heard the sound of the piano from a different part of the house and spied on her the whole time. This wonderful person told my grandfather what his little girl had been up to and insisted that he buy her a piano. My mom describes this moment like "Christmas" to watch the front door swing open and watch the very first of her pianos "float" inside the door with my grandfather on the end pushing it from behind. Mary Dennis went on to win many awards, a State Title for a Music Scholarship, she played at the Utah Symphony Orchestra and studied under the mentorship of Maurice Abravenel and Gladys Gladstone. I believe my mother could have moved on and had an incredibly successful career as a concert pianist, but instead she chose to be my wonderful mom. I hope that she knows how grateful I am to her for all of the sacrifice she made to raise all 6 of us and winning this contest would show her. My mother bought her WM Knabe & CO. piano when she moved here to Utah. For all of my life, we had lived in the Baltimore Metropolitan area in Severn, Maryland. It was a poetic irony that this 8 foot concert grand was matched with my concert pianist mother in Utah because the grand piano was also from Baltimore. Mom told me that it must have been an expensive procedure to treat and ship her piano from Baltimore to Utah because it must be treated to handle moving from humid to dry air. It is a mystery to us both of the piano's true origins, but I know that it must have been glorious, playing for thousands since the piano was built in 1889. Perhaps that would make a good video journey that my mom and I take together and find out. My mom fell in love with her dream piano when she remarried my father. He loved her so much and I know he listens to her still. Her piano is her solace every day. I could even call it a bond of sorts because the piano loves to be heard. It would make them the happiest concert piano/pianist to restore this magnificent piece to it's rightful glory.
