Meeting Gertrude

Like so many people, I like to dabble a bit in genealogy. Growing up, I didn’t know much about my father’s side of the family. He told my brother and me what little he knew, but it wasn’t much.

Unlike a lot of people I’m less interested in statistics and who begot whom than I am in anecdotes of distant relatives. I started looking at web sites and eventually found a distant cousin who filled me in on some information, and she now keeps the clan informed through a family Facebook page.

Recently she posted a fascinating account of a distant aunt (maybe she’s another distant cousin; I haven’t quite figured it out yet). Gertrude was born in 1905 and grew up in Philadelphia. She took piano lessons as a child, and was trained in classical music. She was a telephone operator and eventually worked as a hostess in a restaurant.

She must have led a rather quiet life, but at the age of 72 she became known as a café entertainer. She abandoned her classical piano studies and learned to play contemporary songs by ear, and from what I read about her she apparently knew about 300 songs and could play and sing for hours.

A septuagenarian party girl!

I found a couple of articles published in 1986 in two Philadelphia newspapers following her death at age 80.

 From the Philadelphia Daily News: “(Feb. 22, 1976 Gertrude) was at a party and her version of "Dark Town Strutters Ball" was played on the piano. In the group was Judy Wicks, then-manager of La Terrasse restaurant in University City. They went to The Frog for a midnight dinner. They went back to La Terrasse for a nightcap.

“In a March 1985 interview with Daily News feature writer Dan Geringer, (Gertrude) recalled that "audition" at La Terrasse.

"’I played for one and a half hours, dear," she said. "She liked me and she liked my style, and from then on it was parties, parties, parties. Saturday night. Sunday night. Parties, parties, parties. And it was fun, dear. I've made a lot of fun for myself in my life. And they tell me I've made a lot of fun for them, too.’

“She and Wicks became close friends. (Gertrude) played at La Terrasse on holidays and at special events for the next eight years. The restaurant normally featured classical music. But (Gertrude) picking out the blues and ballads and pounding the jazz of the '20s, '30s and '40s with a smile and glint in her blue eyes cast a mood few could forget. Her unique sounds could throw a loop and pull the audience through a warp in time to sense a French Quarter music hall, a Harlem speakeasy or a Philly dance club.”

Gertrude cut a record album, one of those long-playing ones. On the cover is not a photo of her, but an artist’s rendering of a lively-looking older woman with a broad smile and twinkling blue eyes. There was an unopened copy of that album for sale on eBay. I bought it. It should arrive soon.

From what I’ve read about Gertrude, I wish I could have known her. She told the Philadelphia Inquirer: "I want to play till the last day I'm on earth. I can't imagine living and not playing. I want to do it till the end. Then if I go," she said, blowing a kiss to an imaginary crowd, "Goodbye? It's been fun! I've had a good time! Oooh! I've had a wonderful time, dear."

There’s so much I would love to be able to talk to her about. It’s impossible now, but in a few days I’ll be able to hear her play and sing.