Coleen Carter of Whitefish didn’t want to part with her piano when she fell on hard times a decade ago.

She’d had the lovely Wurlitzer spinet since her parents gave it to her for Christmas when she was 8.

“I wanted to learn how to play, and they promised me I could take lessons, which I did,” said Carter, who turned 76 on Friday.

She hauled the piano with her as she moved several times through the years. Her son Steve Burroughs and daughter Teri also learned to play on that piano. They took turns using the piano as Carter got older. It made the rounds, Carter added.

Music has always been a big part of the Carter family. Longtime Whitefish residents may remember Carter and her husband, John, because they often performed at the old Viking Lodge where The Lodge at Whitefish Lake now is located.

“I played guitar and John played bass,” she recalled. “We both sang and did a Sonny and Cher type of comedy.”

After John died and she moved permanently to Whitefish in 2003, Carter couldn’t immediately find a job and needed money.

“I had to put a lot of furniture, and the piano, in storage. I finally was so desperate for money I put an ad in the paper for the piano,” she said.

She distinctly remembers it was a nurse at North Valley Hospital who bought it for $200.

Carter thought her beloved piano was gone for good.

When her son moved from Minnesota to Whitefish a while back, he wanted to find an inexpensive piano and began looking online on Craigslist.

“I saw a picture of the piano and thought it looked like mama’s piano,” Steve said. “So I called the woman who had it, and sure enough, it was mama’s piano. I got all choked up. I recognized it by the chipped keys in the lower octaves.”

They believe the keys were chipped from the piano being moved so many times over the last 68 years.

The woman who owned it wanted $750 for the piano, which is still in great condition. The family persuaded her to sell it for $500 and they paid the bill a little at a time until it was rightfully theirs again.

The piano is now back in Carter’s home, where it’s bedecked with Christmas ornaments. Carter doesn’t play much anymore, but Steve is ready to tickle the ivories at a moment’s notice, diving into popular tunes such as Duke Ellington’s jazzy “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”

Steve, who spent years as a music ministry director in churches and now works at TeleTech, is still studying piano and takes lessons from a Kalispell pianist.

“He inspires me,” Carter said about her son.

As for the piano, it’s treasured now more than ever.

“It still has such a beautiful tone,” Carter said proudly. 

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.