Mildred Hester Prettyman Haverbeck was born in Lewes in 1904, the first child of James and Ida Prettyman. She grew up in Lewes and graduated from Lewes High School.

At an early age she showed a gift for playing the piano. I was told that she began accompanying the silent movies at the age of 12. One story suggested that when the new movies arrived at the Lewes theater, my mother would create the musical accompaniment as she watched the film's first showing. As a child, I do recall watching her play the grand piano in our living room where she both read and improvised music.

Although I have little information about her early years in Lewes, Milman, Jr., and I think that after she completed high school she attended nursing school at Beebe Hospital in Lewes.

She used her RN to gain employment as a visiting nurse in Wilmington. When the Wilmington News-Journal did a retrospect on the 70th anniversary of Delaware's Visiting Nurses Association there was a photo of a group from the mid 1920s and she was easily picked out in the picture. She later worked as a nurse for the Electric Hose and Rubber Company.

According to Milman E. Prettyman, Jr., his Aunt Mildred met her future husband, Joseph A. Haverbeck, during the reception at the wedding of her oldest brother Milman, Sr., which took place March 18 in Seaford, Del., in 1927. Joe was a member of the band playing at the reception.

Mildred and Joe married two years later on April 18, 1959 in Elsmere.

I am Mildred and Joe's only child. My Dad told me that Mildred was pregnant before I was born but suffered a miscarriage. He said the baby was a boy. Mildred never mentioned this to me. I think they were ecstatic to have a child as she was 35 and he was 41 when I was born, 10 years after their wedding.

The marriage of Mildred and Joe was a melding of two opposites in temperament and family backgrounds. Mildred was raised in a small town by strict Methodist parents who sent all of their children to post high school experiences. Mildred earned her RN and her older brothers, Milman and James, both graduated from the University of Delaware.

Joe was born in 1898 in Baltimore and had no schooling beyond the 8th grade. He held a variety of blue collar jobs working as a machinist for the Du Pont Company and Eden Manufacturing in Richardson Park. At one point, he owned a haberdashery on Delaware Avenue in Wilmington and later in life became a mushroom grower in Avondale with his two brothers.

Mildred Prettyman's family line goes back several hundred years in the state of Delaware and the family has a long history in England with recordings of lordships and high positions in the church. Joe was the third child in a family of seven children raised by Albert Frederick Haverbeck and Edna Knapp. His grandfather Conrad Haverbeck and father Albert were born in Hanover, Germany. Both immigrated to the U.S.

Joe's family included two brothers, Charles and Edward, and sisters Edna, Charlotte, Ida and Clara. All of the Haverbecks including the parents were musically inclined and talented performers and his parents were known as excellent party hosts

One thing is certain. They both were musically gifted and innovative performers. Joe matched Mildred's silent movie creations with a knack for ad-libbing on the banjo. He considered that trait one of his strongest musical trademarks.

The educated nurse and the gregarious blue collar worker were married and living in a house at 222 W. 25th Street when I was born October 16, 1939. The Haverbecks moved to 713 W. 32nd Street while I was a toddler.

Mildred told me that she sacrificed to provide her only child with the best nutrition available during wartime when food was scarce. I remember her saying that she saved her carrots and peas for me when vegetables were rationed. Ironically, the carrots never helped my eyesight as I began wearing glasses in fifth grade. Dad did his part for the war effort as a blackout warden making sure all sources of light were snuffed out in our neighborhood in case enemy bombers were around.

Mildred was quietly elegant but someone who had doubts about her place in society and the role she played as an entertainer. She did not enjoy being asked to play the piano at family gatherings, particularly on Lewes Beach, but she soldiered on to keep others happy.

Joe lived for the spotlight. From the age of seven, when he was given a mandolin reportedly costing $2.50, to his 80th year when he died of an aneurysm, he was the consummate performer and relished entertaining others.

When banjo music went out of style in the 1930s Joe briefly gave up music. That lasted until sometime in the thirties when Mildred and his brother-in-law Jim brought him back. They performed together as a threesome in the Wilmington area at weddings, nightclubs, parties, etc., until 1963. Their weekend jobs gave both families extra money and me a chance to spend Saturday nights with my Godmother Aunt Midge (Jim's wife) where our time together blossomed into a special lifelong relationship.

Mildred was a stay-at-home mom who moonlighted with the family's musical group on weekends and holidays. We remained together on 32nd Street until 1957 when I went off to study elementary education at the University of Delaware. I returned home after graduating in 1961 to teach 6th grade at Foulk Road Elementary School and help care for my mother.

Between 1961 and 1964 Mildred underwent several operations for colon cancer. She was a lifelong cigarette smoker, something she thought she kept secret from her mother. When Grandmother Prettyman visited, Mildred would sneak downstairs to the basement to smoke. At that time, very little was known by the public about the hazards of smoking. After the final colon surgery, the doctor gave her six months to live and Joe and I made the decision to keep the sad diagnosis from her.

My father and I found a kind doctor who made home visits. Uncle Jim's wife Miriam (Midge) drove Mildred to all of her radiation appointments. Toward the end, Mildred's mother Ida came up by bus from Lewes to stay with us and help care for her daughter. Mildred died at home at age 60 shortly after John Kennedy was assassinated. We had watched the coverage on TV together (Dad was at work) and saw live the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. We both were news junkies.

The funeral service was held at Riverview Cemetery under the direction of a Unitarian minister Dad and I liked. It was a beautiful and inspirational ceremony.