You were going to a public school. What other subjects did you like?

Languages was my big thing. I wanted to study French, and they didn't have it, so I had Spanish and Latin and went to a Greek class at night, I mean just an introductory Greek class. My great loves were everything but math and science. We only had to take algebra and geometry. I am asking my students at the conservatory, cellists and violinists -- they have taken calculus, introduction to calculus and trig. Since Sputnik, see, they know more than I do. I teach science and math history in connection with the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The history of science is of great interest to me. They didn't used to teach math and science to girls or most the average kids in a big way. They did very well with music.

I had a really, seriously good math and science teacher in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. Most musicians are excellent at math but they don't know it. They have to have a special conduit, and I didn't get that conduit right in some way. I got A's but I worked my tail off. I had a feeling that there was some great joy in all this but that I wasn't part of it. I couldn't say that I hated math, it's just that I had too much trouble with it, and today I wouldn't have because I would have been taught differently. Or maybe I would -- I don't know -- you can't have everything in life. My seventh grade math teacher would say -- I'd spent all this time -- he'd come around and check our work, in pre-algebra. I'd say I spent two hours on this. He'd say, "You shouldn't have done that, you should have gotten a B and spent that time practicing." As a matter of fact, when I met him on the street a few years later, I had decided to give up music. He wouldn't talk to me. He was so furious that I would throw away this talent. That's my MATH teacher.

In any case, I didn't have to take any science, except biology, and I loved that. For college prep, we weren't required to take anything else but one year of science. I would say that there wasn't anything I didn't like except that I had such a problem with math. Everything else I thought was fascinating. I knew for sure I didn't want to be limited to a musical education when I went to college. That was horrific to me, the idea that I wouldn't be able to study other things. That doesn't mean I didn't like music.

So all this time, then, you continued music at St. Mary's?

Yes, and studying privately and playing for the Notre Dame and St. Mary's choruses. And I got my teacher, my high school teacher, a job teaching the chorus at St. Mary's, then I played for them -- because she was so much better than most people they could get. She was able to engender all this enthusiasm.

Was your teacher at that time still Sister Monica Marie?

Sister Monica Marie, yes. It was great continuity. See, I studied with her for ten years. Now that is much too long. I mean ideally, if I wanted to be a concert pianist, which I really didn't want to be, I found out later. I did a lot of things, but that wasn't what I was about. I should have had a more demanding technical teacher sooner if I was going to be one of those child prodigy pianists, which is not what I wanted to be. She was just fine for what I did.

I know that Bach became very important to you earlier on. Did this continue through high school?

It never stopped for a minute, as long as I've lived. Even when things were really bad for me, and when I wasn't even a music major -- because my first two years of college, remember, I said I'd wanted to be educated. I was a student at St. Mary's, and we had to take one music class. I played for twenty hours a week accompanying everybody. I was a language major. But Bach was the center -- he was my connection to aliveness, that I can remember. That's why my phone number -- see, it's Bach's birthday. My phone number is Bach's birthday. [OH-56,57,58]

Photo 51a: Harvey Canter on his seventh birthday with his sister, Laurette Canter, 6 July 1951.	Photo 51b: Tita's cousin and the son of aunt Sarah, Larry Lerner (age about 8 or 9 years) - in Florida, 1951.

Photo 52: Betty & Jack Miles (Maid of Honor & Best Man?), Mary & Ed Chartier (Bride & Groom?) - So Bend 1952. These may be friends of Tita from John Adams High School.

Photo 53a: Laurette in Chicago, 3 May 1953. This photo and the following two, taken on the same day and in the same location, are in poor condition but some event of importance may be passing here. The "May 3" on the back is in a different hand and different color ink from the "1953" and the names "Tita" & "Ben", as though added later when it was important to know the EXACT date of the photos.

Photo 53b: The courtyard behind the fence is adjacent to the home of Laurette's uncle, Dr Benjamin Lerner, where Laurette lived from the summer of 1951 to the summer of 1953 while attending Chicago Musical College. Laurette was given the Lerner family room to live in and was able to practice on their piano. The Lerners (uncle Ben, aunt Sarah, and their children, Larry and Janet) were happy to have their home filled with fine music.

Photo 53c: Laurette and "Ben" Lerner. Laurette's Bachelor of Music (Piano) Diploma was signed by Rudolph Ganz, her teacher and president of Chicago Musical College, on 11 June 1953, 39 days after this photo was taken.

Photo 53d: A social gathering in 1953, perhaps in a lounge room at Chicago Musical College -- Laurette Canter on the left, holding the mandatory cigarette (Laurette was never a serious smoker).

Photo 53e: Same place as 53d but different angle -- Laurette Canter on the right. She was in deep shadow so I brightened the photo to make her face visible. Are we watching a game of Charades?

Late in 1953 Laurette Canter set a St. Valentines Day wedding date with Solomon Goldberg in Oakland, California and sent out invitations. One went to Sister Monica Marie, the chair of the music department at St. Mary's of Notre Dame and Laurette's longtime teacher. Below is that nun's reply. 

Miss Laurette Canter
216 Orange Street
Oakland, California

and forwarded to:

50 Rio Vista, Oakland, Calif.
 

Dear Laurette,

In writing my Christmas cards - I decided a letter to you would be better.

Yes, I was glad to hear from you after such a long silence. If I could talk with you how much better it would be than writing ---.

I was surprised, to say the least, at the news your letter brought. And I must confess I was disappointed and then of course I may be all wrong.

I think you should give this time and I'm wondering about accepting the first proposal you ever had.

And then too Laurette -- his age and yours are so different -- Right now it won't seem so but in years to come it will.

Do think seriously before you take the step. I will pray for you.

And if it does happen I will have time for you when you come. You know this is for your own good, do you not?

Yes, I am feeling better. It takes time you know but even now my feet are stronger so in time they will be fine.

How is your mother? Please remember me to her. Are you working in Oakland?

A happy and blessed Christmas to you and all of the family.

Lovingly,
Sister Monica Marie

Photo 54a: Mrs. Solomon Goldberg, 14 February 1954.	Photo 54b: Mr. & Mrs. Solomon Goldberg, 14 Feb 1954.

Photo 54c: Laurette Kushner Canter Goldberg, 14 February 1954.	Photo 54d: Solomon Goldberg, 14 February 1954.

By any measure, the marriage of Laurette and Solomon was a tragic mistake. Yet, I feel a nearly complete ambivalence. For all the heartaches Laurette suffered over her children and her grandchildren, for all the pain and conflicts of having to raise her three children as a single parent while nurturing one of the most successful careers in the history of baroque music, for all the mental anguish of being loved by tens of thousands all over the world and yet scorned by some in her own family; if Laurette had not married Sol, I would never have known who she was.

Laurette and Alan would never have met.