Janis Graham at the piano in 2012. PHOTO: R.A. Garber.

An exceptional person left us last week, with piano music playing softly in the distance. Janis Graham and her famous musical talent left so many good memories with us. Our sympathies to her family.

I met Jan long ago. In 1996, my family was “house poor,” and began frequenting estate auctions to find good bargains. (There were so many auctions in those days!) That’s how we got to appreciate the silver tongues of her auctioneer husband, Harry Graham, Jr., and then her son, Scott.

But I always felt the power behind the throne was Jan. She seemed to be everywhere, making sure things ran smoothly. And when a piano came up for sale, she would sit down with a flourish and play, showing off the instrument to extravagant advantage.
Then when I began writing this column, I learned how vital her music was for community gatherings. So many of them depended on Jan Graham playing piano, whether old-time music for Old Fashioned Day at the Eaton Corner Museum, intermission music for a community play, or dance tunes at the Sawyerville Hotel.

A musical revue on October 24, 2014, at the Bulwer Community Centre honouring “our veterans and war brides” featured Jan Graham on piano along with Peter Mackey of Waterville and David McBurney of Sawyerville on guitars, and singers Paulette Haseltine of Moe’s River, Marlene Lowry of Sawyerville, and World War II Veteran Grant Taylor singing “White Cliffs of Dover.”
At the 150th anniversary of the Sawyerville Hotel in September 2014, I reported in the Journal, “Graham played an 1894 Wentworth piano from Boston.”

Those were the days! Her playing was fluent, by ear. Atop the piano was usually a small stack of her CDs for sale. The community, her community, rode high on her notes.

In 2014, I had occasion to consult her about a mystery photo discovered in the Sawyerville Hotel. “That’s Uncle Frank!” she said, “the ox driver”; actually, her great-uncle Frank Greenlay, in-law – her husband’s mother’s father’s brother. He owned the Greenlay Block in downtown Sawyerville, where the post office now stands.

Thank you for your generous gift, Jan, your gift of community.

R.A. Garber