Fran Martinsek Miller was always musical, as were most of her 7 brothers and sisters.
Her dad, Ata, played the button accordion for his friends, and her brother, Tony, picked it up too.
Here is the family when Fran, the oldest girl, upper right, was about 10.
Her two big brothers, Frank and Tony are standing in the back.
Seated are Annie, Frances (mother), Tilly, Anton (Ata the dad) and Johnny.
Fran says that her mother looks very sad in the picture because their neighbors had taken their cow.
They claimed it had gone through the fence and was now theirs! Ata got it back.
Mary and Elsie hadn't been born yet.
Somehow the family scraped together some money for a violin for Fran and an accordion for Tony.
Fran had a good friend, Ann Yersin, who also took up the violin.
They loved to practice together. Lots of Chopin, Brahms and Beethoven!
Even before the violin, Fran had started playing the old pump organ, seen in the background.
She was eager to start highschool until she found that mom and dad had no money for the bus at that point.
To help keep the house she got a job picking cookies off cookie trays in the cookie factory.
Soon all her fingers had blood blisters at the tips, no more violin playing.
But Tony said the accordion was the money maker anyway, got her one,
and by the age of 15 she was a full time entertainer, playing polkas.
