Another era lives in her fingers. She began playing the piano in bands just as the United States was transitioning from the song "Ain't We Got Fun" in the prosperous 1920s to the tune "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" during the Great Depression in the1930s. She was playing when Bonnie and Clyde were committing robberies, Babe Ruth was hitting home runs and Ira Gershwin was writing songs.

Agnes Eichenberger, 87, plays a mean piano. She can be found serenading residents of Village North Retirement Community, where she lives, during special events and church services.

But you won't see her with sheet music. Eichenberger plays by ear. Hundreds, maybe thousands of songs live on in her memory.

"There wasn't enough money for me to take piano lessons when I was a child," Eichenberger says. "I would sit in the next room and listen as my sister Ida received lessons, and the moment the piano teacher left I would go and play from memory. One time Miss Perchel, the teacher, came back in and said 'Agnes, was that you playing? I knew it couldn't be Ida.' My sister took lessons for 14 years and still couldn't play a lick."

As a child, Eichenberger would play in their unheated living room wearing a coat, muffler and gloves. By the age of 10 she was appearing in minstrel shows that traveled across Jefferson County, as well as playing the piano at churches. She remembers watching people play at silent movies, then going home and replaying the songs.

When Eichenberger was 15, she was approached to be a regular performer in a dance band. Her parents were skeptical.

"They felt I was awfully young to do this. They allowed the band leader to come to our home to talk it over, but they only gave him one hour. He was to come back the next Sunday, and he asked me to write down all of the songs I could play. To do that, I had to look in the pages of a Sears Roebuck catalogue that sold sheet music to help me remember. I came up with a list of 400.

"I was eventually allowed to go, but Dad said I had to be home at 10, and the band leader said that was when they were taking their first break! Dad then extended my curfew to midnight."

The group -- Herb's Band -- played in towns such as Festus and Herculaneum, Missouri, at public dances, taverns and supper clubs. Agnes earned $2.50 per evening, sometimes more if a hat was passed. She married the band leader, Herb Eichenberger, when she was 17, and continued to play with the band for the next five years until her pregnancy made it hard to reach the piano keys.

She raised her sons in a house filled with music.

"Singing and playing music at home seemed as normal to us as eating," says her son, Richard "Ike" Eichenberger. "We would always take our instruments with us when visiting family and we would all play together. My brother played the trumpet and guitar; and I played the clarinet, flute and sax."

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