Selma Duvick

My name is Christopher Drobny. I'm the son of Patricia Drobny who lived for several years at Edgewater before her passing last June. I'm a musician who lives and works in New York. I volunteered my services as a pianist and singer on many occasions at Edgewater, giving informal programs in the PAC when in town to visit my Mom. I invited and loved participation during my programs, whether audiences were humming or singing along, making requests, or answering my trivia questions about songwriters and performers of the 30s and 40s.

Sunny was one of Edgewater's resident experts on popular music. And not just the basic stuff. I remember early on in our friendship when she asked me to play some Vernon Duke in my next program. Vernon Duke! Certainly a wonderful songwriter. (After all, he wrote April in Paris.) But not the name that pops out of everyone's mouth like George Gershwin or Cole Porter. But Sunny knew her songwriters and had some pretty sophisticated preferences.

I remember finding a package from Sunny at the door to my Mom's apartment a few days after one of my programs. It was a collection of CDs by the Barn Owl Band, a blue grass/folk band her son Jon had played with. On one of the CDs, I discovered a song I immediately fell in love with. Simply entitled Iowa, it was a plaintive ode to the quiet joys of Midwestern life. Iowa...Beautiful land that's home to me/Iowa...Keep me well, keep me company. I included it at the end of my next program in the PAC a few months later. I sang the verses, the Edgewater audience, ever the quick study, chimed in on the refrain. A magical collaboration.

I thought of a particular stanza from that song when I read of Sunny's passing this morning: It's where we work and where we live/Where we make and where we give/And when we move on from this place/Our spirits will live on in its Grace. Dear Sunny, your giving spirit and your love of music will live on in my memory. Many thanks for our years of friendship.

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A very special lady, we have fond memories.