Lucita Cramer – A Talented Pianist
Portia's mother, Lucita Rose Cramer Johanson loved music from the time she started teaching herself to play piano as a child, to the days when she was nearly blind from macular degeneration and still teaching piano to her great-grandchildren. 
While in high school, Lucita's mother and step-father (Lizzie and Albert Trochinski) decided that she needed a teacher and she began lessons with Fannie Neuman.
After high school she went to MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis for 2 years and studied with Harrison Wall Johnson and Glenn Dillard Gunn.
She flourished under their tutelage and was chosen to play a Liszt Piano Concerto with the MacPhail orchestra after one year of study. This was documented with a favorable review in the Minneapolis paper.
After 2 years at MacPhail, Lucita graduated with the honor of being the highest ranked student. She received a gold medal for this.
She was a member of Mu Phi Epsilon, which today is described as a co-ed Professional Music Fraternity, but was originally founded as a sorority "to advance the cause of music in America, and at the same time, develop fine young women bound together in friendship through their common interest in the art of music."
She played organ for a bit at a Catholic Church in Rogers and taught some students there before moving on to teach students in Blue Earth, MN. She heard that they needed a teacher there and stayed with a very nice woman named Hilda until marriage brought her back to Wheaton.
Sometime between high school (1922) and marriage (1928) she played piano in a dance band that included her brother Herman on percussion. She also provided improvisational music for silent movies playing in the theatre. Lucita was fairly private about what I like to call her flapper years.
After marriage, Lucita continued to teach piano in the Wheaton area. Since their farm was 7 miles out, people travelled for lessons (which was a bigger deal then) until they moved to town in about 1960. For a while she came to Grandma Trochinski's for Saturday lessons.
She gave lessons to all of her son Peyton's 8 children and some of his grandchildren. Portia followed in her footsteps as a music major and piano teacher. Our visits always included some mother-daughter duets, along with whatever pieces the grandchildren could be convinced to perform.
Grandma Johanson playing piano with granddaughter Alli Vainshtein (nee Beryl Johnson)
After high school she went to MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis for 2 years and studied with Harrison Wall Johnson and Glenn Dillard Gunn.
Glenn Dillard Gunn
She flourished under their tutelage and was chosen to play a Liszt Piano Concerto with the MacPhail orchestra after one year of study. This was documented with a favorable review in the Minneapolis paper.
After 2 years at MacPhail, Lucita graduated with the honor of being the highest ranked student. She received a gold medal for this.
She was a member of Mu Phi Epsilon, which today is described as a co-ed Professional Music Fraternity, but was originally founded as a sorority "to advance the cause of music in America, and at the same time, develop fine young women bound together in friendship through their common interest in the art of music."
She played organ for a bit at a Catholic Church in Rogers and taught some students there before moving on to teach students in Blue Earth, MN. She heard that they needed a teacher there and stayed with a very nice woman named Hilda until marriage brought her back to Wheaton.
Hilda and Lucita in Blue Earth
After marriage, Lucita continued to teach piano in the Wheaton area. Since their farm was 7 miles out, people travelled for lessons (which was a bigger deal then) until they moved to town in about 1960. For a while she came to Grandma Trochinski's for Saturday lessons.
She gave lessons to all of her son Peyton's 8 children and some of his grandchildren. Portia followed in her footsteps as a music major and piano teacher. Our visits always included some mother-daughter duets, along with whatever pieces the grandchildren could be convinced to perform.
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