Most of the information in the beginning of this post I really do not remember – however – thanks to my family telling me at least this beginning story so many times – it sometimes seems like it is an actual memory.

My life adventure with music started inside the little mission church in Bunch next to the house where I was born. The church did not have a nursery – so – during worship services – Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, and Wednesday evenings – I sat on the piano bench next to my mother who played the hymns for worship. Legend says that at some point on a Christmas Eve I reached up and played along with the melody during the singing of Silent Night. I do remember my grandmother telling this story many many times. I also remember that as the years went by – from time to time my grandmother would make me a year younger when she told the story – a story that I remember hearing often until her death in 1989.

So while I do not know my true age at the time, I am convinced that I must have been younger than five years old – because – at age five I began my formal study of piano. My teacher was a Benedictine nun – Sister Gabriel (not sure of that spelling). Each day during the week following my lesson my mother supervised my practice – in essence repeating the lesson every day. Sister Gabriel was very gentle and kind. However, what I remember most about her was that at the end of each lesson she would have a sweet treat for me that she had saved from her meals in the dining room.

My grandmother also purchased my first piano so that I would have an instrument for my practicing. She also helped us buy my first new piano when we moved to Kansas during the summer before I entered sixth grade. I will relate some more stories of this piano when I am writing about my time in Kansas.

We remained in Oklahoma through my fifth grade year. When I was in the fourth and fifth grades my mother completed her undergraduate degree at what was then Northeastern State Teacher’s College in Tahlequah.

Most of my early memories of church are from the little mission church in Bunch. My grandfather would preach in both Cherokee and English, and we believe that my grandmother was the first woman ever licensed to preach by the Oklahoma Conference of the Methodist Church. I will never forget the first time I attended church at a church other than the one in Bunch. I remember being sad that all churches were not multi-ethnic and multi-lingual – little did I know – and – today I am aware of what a privilege and a blessing it was to begin my spiritual life surrounded by the loving Native Americans in the Cookson Hills of Oklahoma.