Any obit of Mildred Hastings should include her many years as a private piano teacher as well as her gentle and kind and imaginative demeanor. We lived not far from her on Temple Road until I was 13 or 14. I took piano lessons from another teacher but came upon Miss Hastings when I walked to town on errands for my mother one winter day. She was using a tiny square iron garden spade in an attempt to shovel snow from her front walkway. I offered to help her and we worked for about ten minutes. She finally declared. “Never mind this. Let’s go inside and play some duets!” Surprised at her willingness to abandon such a necessary and practical task, I nevertheless agreed. She whipped out a duet book as we went at it for quite awhile, playing away. I eventually had to leave to complete my errands before it got dark outside but I’ll always be grateful to her for treating me, a kid, as a fellow musician.
Amazing woman. I would have loved to have had her as my piano teacher. My piano teacher was a nun who sat next to me with a 1 ft ruler ready to whack a hand that played the wrong note.
Any obit of Mildred Hastings should include her many years as a private piano teacher as well as her gentle and kind and imaginative demeanor. We lived not far from her on Temple Road until I was 13 or 14. I took piano lessons from another teacher but came upon Miss Hastings when I walked to town on errands for my mother one winter day. She was using a tiny square iron garden spade in an attempt to shovel snow from her front walkway. I offered to help her and we worked for about ten minutes. She finally declared. “Never mind this. Let’s go inside and play some duets!” Surprised at her willingness to abandon such a necessary and practical task, I nevertheless agreed. She whipped out a duet book as we went at it for quite awhile, playing away. I eventually had to leave to complete my errands before it got dark outside but I’ll always be grateful to her for treating me, a kid, as a fellow musician.
Amazing woman. I would have loved to have had her as my piano teacher. My piano teacher was a nun who sat next to me with a 1 ft ruler ready to whack a hand that played the wrong note.