Fond memories of a cello

Winter weather with snow may have been slow in arriving on the North Fork, but it hit hard in recent days. On Saturday I checked on about seven friends and neighbors. They all reported really frigid temperatures Saturday morning and most had a foot of snow or more on the ground. Temperatures reported ranged from minus 21 degrees to minus 33. Many folks just stayed in and fed the stove until evening.

At 5 p.m. the entire North Fork began gathering at the beautiful Bob and Jackie Graham home. Several years ago the Grahams hosted a Christmas party that was so great it has become an annual event and will soon be a North Fork tradition like Caldwells’ Halloween party.

As with all North Fork parties the great food and friends and neighbors are the basic ingredients flavored with the setting. I’m sure Bob and Jackie spent hours on the Christmas decorations and there is no lack of Christmas spirit among North Forkers.

The O’Hare, Walker, Boveng, Powers, Caldwell quintet aided by John’s guitar and Lois’s keyboard and Richard Hildner’s fine voice led the crowd in singing a wide range of Christmas songs that would have made Bing Crosby and Gene Autry jealous.

Last year I noticed that Bob Graham owned a cello and asked him if he played. He said he played at it and I told him that I had inherited my granddad Wilson’s cello but that no one I knew played it and it had spent recent years sitting in a corner at my house and I would love to see it fixed up and played again. Bob did fix it and neighbor Lee Zimmerman played for everyone including “Little Church in the Wildwood” that Granddad always played as the last song of the evening.

When Granddad died the cello came to me with his handwritten note taped to the back. It said, “Give this to Larry, I received it as a gift when I was 10 and enjoyed many happy hours playing it with my brothers. Keep it in the family if possible.”

It is now many years later — I think the last time I heard it played was at Kintla Ranch about 1948. My Granddad lived for years after that, but lost his right arm to cancer and the cello sat in his living room until it came to me.

Since it is playable again and still no one in my family can play it, I have left it at Graham’s and hope he can find someone who will love it and play it. It is now about 120 years old and should be enjoyed. I think Granddad would approve.

All of this nostalgia has me thinking about family and the North Fork. Maybe I can come up with a new fish story for next week.

Larry Wilson’s North Fork Views appears weekly in the Hungry Horse News.