20.4.23

From Ch. 2 of “The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers” by Maxwell King

The pivotal moment in the evolution of Fred’s love of music occurred when he was almost ten years old. Fred had formed a strong attachment with his maternal grandmother, and he turned to her for support almost as often as he did to his grandfather. He confided to his grandmother how very much he wanted to own his own piano. “Nana” McFeely listened carefully to Fred, and they discussed why he wanted a piano and what it would mean to him. As a little boy, Fred was not very acquisitive or focused on what money could buy, a trait that stayed with him for the rest of his life. But this was clearly important to him, and he convinced Nana that the acquisition of a piano was not just a whim but an important building block to his young life.

Finally, thinking that a little piano for a little child couldn’t be that expensive, Nana McFeely offered to buy one for her grandson. When Fred was next visiting his grandmother at her residence in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh . . . he told her he was going downtown to look at pianos. His grandmother said that could be a good idea, and she made sure Fred knew where to go and how to get there on his own.

He took a trolley the four miles from Squirrel Hill to the Steinway & Sons store on Liberty Avenue . . . in downtown Pittsburgh. According to the staff there, Fred spent several hours playing every piano in the store, and then told the salesmen that he had picked his favorite: a secondhand 1920 Steinway Concert Grand Model D Ebonized piano that had been shipped recently to New York for a full “heirloom” restoration to restore the sixteen-year-old piano to perfect condition.

It was nine feet long, weighed about a thousand pounds, and, as a secondhand piano, was worth a little less than 3,000 dollars in 1936. It was, and still is, the gold standard when it comes to concert grand performance pianos. The same model piano, brand new, now sells for nearly 130,000 dollars, according to Steinway staff. The salesmen chuckled among themselves as the little boy headed to the trolley to ride back to Squirrel Hill to see his grandmother.

They were stunned a little while later when Fred returned with a check—nearly 50,000 dollars in today’s currency—for the full price of the piano.

Nana McFeely had made a promise, and she was going to keep it. She kept her commitment to let Fred pick out his own piano, and it utterly changed his life.