January 8, 2024 • 7 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Tom and Lillian Lyons married in 1946. They lived a long and loving life raising a family on the south side of Chicago. Lillian was singing opera professionally when she and Tom met, and it was her voice that first made Tom fall in love. After Lillian’s death, an unexpected discovery would reunite Tom with Lillian’s voice on Tom’s 97th birthday for one last song.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
This next story comes to us from the South suburbs
of Chicago. Tom Lyons met his wife, Lilian, back in
nineteen forty six, and they remained married until the love
of Tom's life passed in twenty twenty. Lilian, who was
(00:34):
an opera singer in Chicago for eighteen years, was ninety
one when she passed. On Tom's ninety seventh birthday, he
received a gift from his son, Jarlick, that words alone
cannot describe. This is the story of that gift and
unearthed treasure that brought joy and life to his father
(00:55):
and for just a moment, through the magic of technology
and art, brought a bit of heaven to earth. Here's
Jarles to tell this remarkable story. You'll also hear from
Jarlis's father, Tongue.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I was back in town for a memorial for my mom,
along with everyone else in the family that we had
postponed at least once or twice because she had died
earlier in COVID and we were not able to do that.
Now the memorial's over, everyone's gone home. I'm sticking around
with my dad and trying to figure out what can
(01:31):
I do to help, And I'm just trying to organize
some things in the basement see what I can get
rid of, and I noticed a large pile of records
and I thought, oh, I should be able to get
rid of most of these. And so as I'm figuring
out what to give away, a few records jumped out
at me because they were seventy eight's, which are unique
and old. The other was that they didn't have commercial
(01:54):
labels on them. They had some kind of a label
that was to be filled out. May made me wonder
if they were some kind of custom recordings. I did
set them aside, and I asked my dad about them
later and he said, you know, I'm not sure. So
I put them on an old turntable that we had
that was in really, really poor condition. It required a
(02:17):
lot of thumb pressure to get through these series of
skips on the record, but I was able to tease
out a voice I recognized, and it sounded just like
my mom. My mom had been a professional singer for
years and so we grew up listening to her all
the time. So a very recognizable voice sounded quite young,
(02:39):
and so I asked my dad about this. I said, well,
what are these records? Do you know anything about them?
And he said, you know, I think that they might
be the recordings of a chorus we put together back
in the Saint Leo parish right after I got back
from World War two. And it turns out that there
was a I don't know, four or five hundred young
(03:01):
people had joined a social club in that parish. My
dad was asked to try to put together a chorus
out of that group. So he raised his hand, said
I can do that, and he started looking for recruits,
and somewhere along the line he was introduced to my mom,
(03:25):
who was happy to accept the invitation to join the chorus.
And not too long after that he was introduced through
her voice, and she came to one of our meetings.
We always asked for a little entertainment, if anybody could
sing or tap dance, or play the piano, or read
(03:47):
a poem, whatever, we asked for volunteers for entertainment. Well,
a friend of Lilian's was there too, and she knew
that Lilian could sing, and she said, come on, Lilian,
you sing, and she got up and she sang the
Ave Maria, and it blew me away. I had never
heard anything like it, and I never heard a song
like that before in my life, and I thought, my my, why, oh, what,
(04:13):
what is happening here? What is happening? After that meeting
where Lilian sang the Ave Maria, I continued to drive
her to the meetings for the young people's club that
we had, and a month after month, I grew to
(04:33):
know her better and better, and it didn't take me
along to realize that I had finally found the one
that that I would really like to be with for
the rest of my life. So I've got these old, old,
very scratched records, and I've got a lousy turntable, and
(04:54):
so I know I need I need help. So I
reached to our neighbor, who our go to guy for
everything that my dad needs, and he mentioned that he
had a friend in the neighborhood with a sound studio
which sounded much better than anything I had thought of.
We were able to gather up the records and I
(05:16):
was able to get them to my neighbor who would
be able to get them to the sound studio, and
I was able to order some headphones off Amazon make
sure they were there in time, and my sister had
her phone so she could hook it all up and
at just the right magic moment, she was able to
hand the headphones to my dad on his birthday so
(05:37):
he could hear my mom sing.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Fast forward to my ninety seventh birthday in October, my
daughter Regina came over with a pair of europhones and
put them on me and lo and behold, I heard
Lilian singing the ave Maria Allie. I was able to
(06:05):
listen to Lillian's voice so very clearly. It was the
most beautiful sound that anybody could have on any birthday ever, ever, ever, And.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
What a beautiful story in that neighbor, by the way,
was the producer of that piece, John Elfsler. Marie is
one of the most recognizable and well known prayers throughout
the Western world. The most memorable version for Tom Lyons
is Lilian's The Story of a Precious Gift. Here on
(07:14):
Our American Stories, Leehabib here the host of our American Stories.
(07:35):
Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from
across this great country, stories from our big cities and
small towns. But we truly can't do the show without you,
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make. If you love what you hear, go
to alamericanstories dot com and click the donate button. Give
a little, give a lot. Go to alamericanstories dot com
(07:58):
and give
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
This next story comes to us from the South suburbs
of Chicago. Tom Lyons met his wife, Lilian, back in
nineteen forty six, and they remained married until the love
of Tom's life passed in twenty twenty. Lilian, who was
(00:34):
an opera singer in Chicago for eighteen years, was ninety
one when she passed. On Tom's ninety seventh birthday, he
received a gift from his son, Jarlick, that words alone
cannot describe. This is the story of that gift and
unearthed treasure that brought joy and life to his father
(00:55):
and for just a moment, through the magic of technology
and art, brought a bit of heaven to earth. Here's
Jarles to tell this remarkable story. You'll also hear from
Jarlis's father, Tongue.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I was back in town for a memorial for my mom,
along with everyone else in the family that we had
postponed at least once or twice because she had died
earlier in COVID and we were not able to do that.
Now the memorial's over, everyone's gone home. I'm sticking around
with my dad and trying to figure out what can
(01:31):
I do to help, And I'm just trying to organize
some things in the basement see what I can get
rid of, and I noticed a large pile of records
and I thought, oh, I should be able to get
rid of most of these. And so as I'm figuring
out what to give away, a few records jumped out
at me because they were seventy eight's, which are unique
and old. The other was that they didn't have commercial
(01:54):
labels on them. They had some kind of a label
that was to be filled out. May made me wonder
if they were some kind of custom recordings. I did
set them aside, and I asked my dad about them
later and he said, you know, I'm not sure. So
I put them on an old turntable that we had
that was in really, really poor condition. It required a
(02:17):
lot of thumb pressure to get through these series of
skips on the record, but I was able to tease
out a voice I recognized, and it sounded just like
my mom. My mom had been a professional singer for
years and so we grew up listening to her all
the time. So a very recognizable voice sounded quite young,
(02:39):
and so I asked my dad about this. I said, well,
what are these records? Do you know anything about them?
And he said, you know, I think that they might
be the recordings of a chorus we put together back
in the Saint Leo parish right after I got back
from World War two. And it turns out that there
was a I don't know, four or five hundred young
(03:01):
people had joined a social club in that parish. My
dad was asked to try to put together a chorus
out of that group. So he raised his hand, said
I can do that, and he started looking for recruits,
and somewhere along the line he was introduced to my mom,
(03:25):
who was happy to accept the invitation to join the chorus.
And not too long after that he was introduced through
her voice, and she came to one of our meetings.
We always asked for a little entertainment, if anybody could
sing or tap dance, or play the piano, or read
(03:47):
a poem, whatever, we asked for volunteers for entertainment. Well,
a friend of Lilian's was there too, and she knew
that Lilian could sing, and she said, come on, Lilian,
you sing, and she got up and she sang the
Ave Maria, and it blew me away. I had never
heard anything like it, and I never heard a song
like that before in my life, and I thought, my my, why, oh, what,
(04:13):
what is happening here? What is happening? After that meeting
where Lilian sang the Ave Maria, I continued to drive
her to the meetings for the young people's club that
we had, and a month after month, I grew to
(04:33):
know her better and better, and it didn't take me
along to realize that I had finally found the one
that that I would really like to be with for
the rest of my life. So I've got these old, old,
very scratched records, and I've got a lousy turntable, and
(04:54):
so I know I need I need help. So I
reached to our neighbor, who our go to guy for
everything that my dad needs, and he mentioned that he
had a friend in the neighborhood with a sound studio
which sounded much better than anything I had thought of.
We were able to gather up the records and I
(05:16):
was able to get them to my neighbor who would
be able to get them to the sound studio, and
I was able to order some headphones off Amazon make
sure they were there in time, and my sister had
her phone so she could hook it all up and
at just the right magic moment, she was able to
hand the headphones to my dad on his birthday so
(05:37):
he could hear my mom sing.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Fast forward to my ninety seventh birthday in October, my
daughter Regina came over with a pair of europhones and
put them on me and lo and behold, I heard
Lilian singing the ave Maria Allie. I was able to
(06:05):
listen to Lillian's voice so very clearly. It was the
most beautiful sound that anybody could have on any birthday ever, ever, ever, And.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
What a beautiful story in that neighbor, by the way,
was the producer of that piece, John Elfsler. Marie is
one of the most recognizable and well known prayers throughout
the Western world. The most memorable version for Tom Lyons
is Lilian's The Story of a Precious Gift. Here on
(07:14):
Our American Stories, Leehabib here the host of our American Stories.
(07:35):
Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from
across this great country, stories from our big cities and
small towns. But we truly can't do the show without you,
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make. If you love what you hear, go
to alamericanstories dot com and click the donate button. Give
a little, give a lot. Go to alamericanstories dot com
(07:58):
and give
Host
Lee Habeeb
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