Miss Celeste's piano

Peg (Norton) Foster takes her seat one more time at the keys of the piano her father bought her for Christmas back in 1958. Foster left the piano behind when she married but last summer donated it to the Tiskilwa Historical Society, where it is now on display. (BCR photo/Barb Kromphardt)

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TISKILWA — It was 1945.

While the wars in Europe and the Pacific raged through their last terrible months, children in the Tiskilwa area flocked to the dancing school run by Miss Celeste, she of the fishnet stocking fame. And two weeks after victory was declared in Europe, the children performed their first spring recital.

The first spring recital given by the students of the Cirode Studio of Dancing was on May 21, 1945, at Tiskilwa High School.

Joe Long, Dickie Brown, Ricky Keener and John Elliott Thompson danced as Russian Cossacks, and Barbara Krumbeid, Ellen Schori, June Walker, Betty White, Diane Fawcett, Susan Scully, Jane Scully and Alyce Giesenhagen performed to the song “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

It’s been a long time since Celeste Cirode blew into Tiskilwa like a cultured breeze. No one’s quite positive what brought her to town, but Mary Beth O’Neill, now Morrissey, remembered she was related somehow to the Pettigrew family, who lived in Tiskilwa.

Cirode was a dancer, and not just any dancer. She was a member of the Dancing Masters of America, the Chicago Association of Dancing Masters, and the St. Louis Dancing Teachers’ Association.

And so Cirode opened the Cirode Studio of Dancing.

“The area was really fortunate to have someone of that caliber come in and give lessons,” Morrissey said.

Area girls of all ages, and some boys, came to the studio to learn the basics of tap and ballet, accompanied by the most interesting piano.

“It had been Tiskilwa’s “magical piano,” said Peg Norton, now Foster. “It had transformed kids into little dancers.”

The piano was an upright Fischer Ampico player model, probably dating from the 1920s or 1930s.

“She would hire an accompanist, but if she didn’t, then the fall back position was the player piano,” Cecille Gerber said.

By 1958, the breeze that was Celeste Cirode blew out of Tiskilwa. Some murmured she had moved on to Broadway, while others heard she returned home to St. Louis.

But she left without her piano.

Instead, the piano was purchased by Glen Norton for his young daughter’s Christmas present in 1958.

“I was 4 years old and out in the country with no other kids in the area,” Foster said. “My dad was the type of guy who, if he knew you were interested in something, he’d try to get it for you.”

Foster learned how to play her piano mostly by ear.

“During the time I had the piano, I could listen to music and after a while, I could play the music,” she said. “I did have some lessons later on, but I didn’t finish them. We were in the process of moving, and it was just too hard for my parents to get me to the teacher.”

Foster said the piano made the lonely little girl happy.

“I guess you could say this was my friend,” she said. “I played it when I was happy and when I was sad.”

Foster married at 21 and left home, leaving her childhood friend behind.

“You know, just after getting married and just life in general, I didn’t have time to play,” she said.

Fast forward to 2007. Foster’s father had died in 1973, and her mother died in 1982. Her stepfather, who still had the piano, moved into a nursing home, and the homeplace was sold.

“We had to go through everything,” Foster said. “It was kind of sad time to see all that stuff again, especially the piano, which I hadn’t touched for 25 years.”

Foster decided to give the piano to the Tiskilwa Historical Society.

Although the piano doesn’t work right now, the society is trying to fix that.

“We do have a making music fund,” Gerber said. “Alan Brown from Wyanet is researching the piano because he has to take the player part out before he can tune it.”

Gerber said people have been tickled to see the piano back in town. Some have sent in old pictures, while others dug out their old dancing shoes to add to the display.

“We’ve had people come in, and they’ve tried to identify who these little girls are,” Gerber said. “It really is fun. I think there’s just this ‘Ooh’ factor, like ‘Oh my gosh, it’s back after all these years.”