On the passing of my dear friend

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This is the story of how a love of music enriched two lives more than either one of us could ever have imagined. I met Brownie Jones 15 years ago in church and we discovered we both played classical piano. Brownie’s piano career began when she was a child. She started lessons early, and by the time she was 13 years old she was playing for her church in North Carolina.

When Brownie and Ralph Jones moved their family to Peachtree City in the early 1960s, she gave piano lessons, first at the elementary school in Tyrone, then at Peachtree City Elementary School, and finally in her home.

At the same time, her friend Jo Price was also giving piano lessons. In the 1960s, I think half of Peachtree City’s children took lessons from Brownie and the other half from Jo. Brownie and Jo played piano together for years. They called themselves “Knuckles and Thumbs” and even recorded a CD with the help of Jo’s sons.

Brownie played the piano and the organ at First Presbyterian Church. She also started the bell choir. Ralph bought the organ for First Presbyterian Church and dedicated it to Brownie; it is still there today.

Fast forward to fifteen years ago when Brownie and I connected and she invited me to her house to play. To my utter surprise, I saw that she had not one but three pianos in her home, two of which faced each other so we could play duets, four hands on two pianos.

I was eager to play after a twenty-year respite and I couldn’t believe my good fortune in that Brownie also loved my favorite composers and even had all the sheet music, ready for us to start playing. I had always loved Bach, especially the Bach Inventions, and on Day One she pulled out the second piano part for those Inventions and we knocked it out of the park.

Every Sunday afternoon for a decade and a half we made music, and talked, and laughed. We were no holds barred, discussing religion and politics and family and community. We played Bach and Brahms and Beethoven. We performed recitals for our families, calling ourselves “Knuckles and Thumbs Part 2.”

Brownie’s favorite piece was “What a Wonderful World.” She was optimistic and feisty and always had a positive attitude. A few years ago, she broke her arm in a fall and wore a cast for several weeks. I visited that Sunday afternoon wondering what we would do. So you know what we did? We played. As always. She played with a broken arm in a cast. She was determined to hang in there until she got through her recovery, and then we played some more.

She was part of a generation that got married at the local church then sent her new husband off to war, sometimes going months with only two or three staticky phone calls. While Ralph served in Korea, the two of them wrote letters almost daily for 15 months. She was a great lady, perhaps the last of America’s Greatest Generation.

Brownie’s life was rich in not only music, but also a joyful extended family, and lifelong friends, and Peachtree City history. She was part of a legacy that we may never see again.

So we’ll lift up the next generation, those who called her “Gran Gran”, the young people who popped in for visits, listened to us play, gathered for parties in her yard, and sometimes lived with her for a few months, with Brownie always happily sharing her home and her heart and her hugs, always happy to have them there with her.

To all of us, she was an example and an inspiration.  To me, she was the truest of friends.