Dear Bob Coltman:

Let me put the question to rest. Miriam Stafford was my mother. She did indeed know Billy Faierr in the late 50's and may have recorded/played music with or for him. At that time I would have been about 3 years old but remember Billy's name being said around my home quite often.

Mom was a true original. Not Southern, Miriam Misheloff was raised on the west side of Manhattan. She had short, curly, black hair and stood 5'3". She attended college at the Univ. of Michigan in Ann Arbor where, at 18, she met and married my father, Roy. She was always in all ways true to herself and others. She didn't mince words or tolerate deception.

Mom was interested in the purest forms of Blue Grass and Country music and played Smoky Mountain style 5 string banjo, some guitar and a rough, beer barrel stylized piano. I think she was most heavily influenced at a young age by her family's housekeeper, Elberta who may have given her her 1st banjo. My Aunt Ruth, her sister could tell you more about that time.   

My mother was not so much shy as not interested in the hoopla. She would have had better things to do than pursue an agent or a record deal as she was a mother at 20 and a single one at 23. Most nights she sang me to sleep with the bloody ballads of Barbree Allen or Down in The Willow Garden. The music was always a huge part of our lives and the Berkeley Bluegrass house parties were usually once a week. The Cabal and The Berkeley Freight & Salvage were the most frequent venues.

Putting herself through school at UC Berkely, she attained a teaching degree specializing in Learning Disabilities and spent many years at an elementary school in Martinez,CA. She played for those children every day.

In later years she remarried to Bill Lindenau and the two of them made silver jewelry which they sold on Telegraph Avenue and at juried fairs. She did surface design in any medium that caught her fancy from pen and ink to enamels. Although music was ever her favorite art Miriam Stafford was a jewel with many facets. She passed in 1993 from Glio Blastoma Multiforma.

I have photos of Mom on stage with her banjo at several different ages if anyone is interested. There is a snippit of one of her performances at:
http://www.folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.aspx?itemid=32580

(Miriam's voice is the 1st one you hear.)

Thank you for your memories of my mother and your interest in knowing more about her.

Julie Stafford Straton