Alsie Ealey played the organ, at 14,
for Queen Victoria in Ely Cathedral.
Her Stradivarius cello was a gift
from Kaiser Wilhelm who admired her.
Alsie’s eyesight was failing by the time
she married Septimus. She never told him.
They moved to Vancouver Island,
and she gave birth to two sons.
Her music was played mainly by touch.
All of Septimus’s savings were in the
Bank of Vancouver. One day a friend
said to him: Septimus, get your money
out of the bank ― the Bank of Vancouver
is going to crash in twenty-four hours.
So Septimus hid $2,000 in cash in his
house. The bank folded the next day.
The day after that, while Septimus
was working in the field, people ran
up to him and said: Hurry, your
house is burning down. By the time
he reached home he had lost his house,
his furnishings, his money, his wife’s
grand piano and her Stradivarius cello.
Septimus saved Alsie Ealey.
Eventually she went blind.