Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories. With Marysville and Union County celebrating Bicentennial anniversaries in 2019 and 2020, respectively, these articles help depict what life was like in those early years.
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The pony girl
In 1906, my future mother, Zoa Tracy, celebrated her 10th birthday. She was sure she was going to get something special as a gift, because she had seen her parents whispering about it for weeks. She felt sure it was a pony. She had told her parents how much she wanted one.
She tried to convince them that she was old enough to care for a pony herself. Of course, she was only 10 years old, but she told them she could feed and water it herself. She would groom it and keep the stall clean. Oh, how she wanted a pony.
When her birthday arrived, she did get something very special, but it wasn’t a pony. It was a piano. I’m sure there were a lot of girls her age who would have preferred the piano, but not my future mother. I think she was more of a “pony girl” than a “piano girl.”
Her sister, Berna, was 15 years older, and she was a gifted violinist. I think their parents thought it would be nice if my mother could learn to play the piano, so the two girls could play together.
Berna was part of a group of Marysville girls who performed “musicals” at private homes, mostly on weekends. Sometimes it was a string trio – a violin, a viola and a cello. Other times a pianist was part of the group.
The homeowner would invite friends and neighbors to attend the performances. They would borrow folding chairs from their church, and then they were ready for an evening of musical entertainment.
That piano remained in my grandmother’s house for about 50 years. Both of my older sisters took lessons on it from a lady named Clara Poling, and so did I, quite a few years later. None of us were very good piano players, but we all would sit at that piano now and then and try to play “Chopsticks,” or something like that.
The only person in our family who never seemed interested in that piano was my mother. I can’t even remember her trying to play “Chopsticks.”
Maybe she realized that she, like me, had no musical talent. On the other hand, I suppose it could have been some of the disappointment from when she didn’t get the pony. I mean, as nice as that piano was, it couldn’t hold a candle to a pony.
Three years later, in 1909 on her 13th birthday, my mother did, indeed, get her pony, plus a handsome pony carriage to go with it. They are pictured here. She was thrilled, and she drove it all over town. She visited friends, went shopping and even drove it to North Lewisburg to visit relatives.
Yes, my mother was always more of a pony girl than a piano girl.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at bill@davidwboyd.com