Julia Marjorie Day

Marjorie Day T'was a cold winter morning February 9, 1919, at 9 am, in a small home in the middle of a wheat field about 10 miles south of Heppner, Oregon, Frank and Tacie Parker announced the arrival of a daughter, Julia Marjorie Parker. She joined her only brother, Onez, who was 11 years older. When Marge was about 4 years old, her parents purchased a piano, and by age 5, she was playing "Bye Bye Blackbird." She studied classical music for five years. She attended grade school and graduated from Heppner High School and started playing for school dances and grange dances at age 12. As Heppner was a big rodeo town, and was known as "where the pavement ends and the west begins," Marge earned the honor of Queen of the Rodeo in 1940 when she was 21 years old. She rode her horse in the Pendleton Round Up parade side by side with Oregon's Governor Snell. She attended Northwestern School of Commerce, then worked for First National Bank in Heppner, and then was transferred to the main branch in Portland. At the same time, she was playing the piano in a band with Doc Severinson. The band broke up when about five members were drafted for World War II. Marge married Harry Nelson in 1942 and had 4 children, Georgia Nelson, Wanda Costi, Corlen Gordon, and Curtis Nelson. We were a very musical family with the girls playing piano and always singing for church and other events, and all children played their own musical instruments. Corlen was born with Cerebral Palsy and spent 15 years in/out of Shriners Hospital. Marge has three grandchildren, Jennifer, Juliette, and Caterina. In 1960, Marge joined the Musician's Union, Local 99, and was one of five ladies to open a new venue in Portland the piano bar. For the next 30 years, she played great listening music at various restaurants, clubs, and hotels around Portland. Her real love was Dixieland jazz and she was an active member of the Oregon City Traditional Jazz Society, performing in jam sessions with other musicians. In 1986 she married Jim Day, who loved the Dixieland jazz as much as Marge. They met on a bus at a jazz festival in Sacramento and spent the next 16 years together. Her other hobbies include golf, genealogy, writing her autobiography, and learning the computer.

Julia Marjorie Day

February 9, 1919 - June 8, 2010