Early Ghosts
We were each on the floor on our backs with our feet up, legs straight and propped against the wall. I know that I did not fall asleep, but maybe some of the other kids did. It was back in the 70s when floors were default-carpeted and the little tenth-size violins came to us from Japan, as did our method of learning to play our instrument. Our teacher Dr. Hermann had taken time during our hour-long weekly violin group to read to us—to our parents—from Dr. Shinichi Suzuki’s writing, Nurtured by Love. My mother was verbal later in the car about how time had been wasted on reading to which none were listening. This type of reading happened rarely but periodically over the years that I was a student of Dr. Hermann’s. I know now the reading was meant mainly for the parents, but I imagine through her irritation at the time/money wasted, Mommy probably did not quite take in the intended meaning. I know that I tried hard to take in what was being said and became frustrated when so much of it passed me by. But even so, I certainly loved this time to kick back with my feet up on the wall. I did not want to play the violin. I wanted to play the flute.

Early Ghosts. A photo ca. 1970 of Dr. Evelyn Hermann (right, seated) and Phillip L. Scheldt (left, seated) enjoying dinner with Dr. Suzuki (center).
I saw this wall and room again close to age thirty. That came about this way: I was walking into my hair appointment at the Tony Fielding Salon on Fairmount Street when I put my hand up on the iron stairstep railing. As I did this, I turned to my right and viewed the Taco Bell sign. This restaurant on Oak Lawn Avenue was supposedly the first in Dallas. (I love the potatoes; back in the mid-70s when it first opened, there were two choices, the hardshell beef tacos and bean burritos.) That very railing-holding moment, I was pulled back to age seven or eight, again holding onto the railing, listening to Lady Redd talk to other mothers after a group lesson. On that long-before day, I had also looked down at the taqueria sign. I realized, standing stock-still there at age thirty, that this was the same place where I had taken violin during all of my elementary school years. I had probably been going to that salon more than half a decade when the realization hit. This happened concurrently with the former Suzuki School of Dallas side of the duplex being for rent. Tony gave me the key and told me I could stay over there as long as I wanted. He knew my violin playing and was as much a fan of mine as I was of his talent and care. Taking Tony’s key over to the next unit, I could just see us (all) sprawled out on the floor. Just as in a meditation class, Dr. Hermann had us each go to our own space.
Beauty comes out of stringed instruments but also from people. That is what Dr. Suzuki wanted us to understand. I had played many times in the salon, primarily on Halloween over the years. I remember one time I made music while witnessing the creation of a Lady of the Lake. I myself received some Halloween attention one year, the same day my orchestra held an opera rehearsal in Fort Worth. The Devil with a Blue Dress On played some mean violin that night in rehearsal. She had been created in the space adjacent to my younger self, my memory-ghost with the little violin, Mary Jane shoes, ruffled socks, and Chocolate Soup outfit.
When I think back on going to lessons that first year, I see most prominently a fellow four-year-old. My picture of her has always had a glow to it. I can see her face, and I think it is accompanied by glasses and short wavy, auburn hair. Although I knew Lydia from violin lessons, that ancient moment of seeing her is as if she was sitting across from and near me in my preschool room in the gathering place that we called the well. She and I took lessons together for that early time, and then leukemia took her the same year.
Another time post-lesson, possibly during the time of my grandfather’s health problems, Dr. Hermann took me to her residence for a few hours, probably on a Saturday afternoon following the monthly full-studio group. I imagine I did not say one word the whole time I was in her home. But the time there was very comfortable and soothing for me. I sat at one end of her dining table opposite a small black-and-white television. The movie on was Heidi, and Dr. Hermann tended to whatever it was she needed to do at home while I watched the movie in silence and calm and ate a cheese sandwich.
That visit remains as a lantern for me. I was a part of the new Suzuki space from age five until age ten, the year it was decided that I would change teachers. Looking out our backseat window, I asked my parents if I was going to get to say goodbye to Dr. Hermann. When I found that was not to be, I asked if I could always list her as one of my teachers, and I always have. I was able to meet with her during one of those mid-twenty years. I still have the last Christmas card she sent me, and it reads, “Love, Evelyn.”
Fast-forward analog-style, twenty years later: I stood in that empty, still-carpeted, formative space of mine and of so many others. I could once again see my mother among other parents sitting there, I could visualize sprawling on the floor alongside others trying to take in what my violin teacher’s reading meant, and so many years later, I could still feel that moment of being taken care of at my teacher’s apartment, having a nice lunch and watching a beloved movie.
Editor’s note: Dr. Hermann is Dr. Evelyn Hermann (d. 2009), founder of the Suzuki Institute of Dallas, author of Shinichi Suzuki: The Man and His Philosophy (1981), and a seminal figure in Suzuki education in America.

**Author Bio: **After my lessons with Dr. Hermann, I played violin into my early forties, both professionally and for fun. I saw Dr. Hermann many years later when she was visiting Dallas. Leaving her studio at age ten, I had not been given the chance to say good-bye, so the meeting was meaningful. I worked about the same number of years in special education that I worked in music. I took teacher training Suzuki classes in the mid-2000s from Mrs. Kempter, Dr. Lokken, and Mrs. Jones at Mrs. Lewis’ camp which I had also attended numerous times when a child. I loved so many of my summer teachers at Suzuki Workshops. I especially remember Mr. Cleveland threatening us with throwing us to the alligators in his Louisiana bayous and Mrs. Lewis hanging her black purse on our bow arms to keep elbows low.