My Lincolnwood Story- Elizabeth Fischer Monastero

“Life can be short, but you can extend it.”

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero, originally from Dubuque, Iowa, has lived in Lincolnwood since 1971. Ms. Fischer Monastero has performed with the Lyric Opera, and sang for President Kennedy in 1963. She taught voice and opera at Northwestern University for 36 years, retiring in 2009. In this interview she talks about her impressive career in music, what she loves about teaching, and her close-knit family.

The views and opinions expressed in interviews do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Lincolnwood Public Library, including its Board of Trustees and staff.



TRANSCRIPT:

Lev Kalmens  0:00  
My name is Lev Kalmans. I'm an Information Services Librarian at the Lincolnwood Public Library, and this is an interview with Elizabeth Fischer Monastero for My Lincolnwood Story. Elizabeth, welcome.

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  0:12  
Thank you very much.

Lev Kalmens  0:13  
And what is your Lincolnwood story?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  0:16  
Well, I've been in Lincolnwood since 1971. I live here, and I'm in still in my own house. I'm retired, sort of. What else could I say? That I like coming to the library because it has become like a second home for me. And I know everybody here, I think they're very friendly. I have to be quiet, and that's hard, because I'm used to dealing with people in many different ways. 

Lev Kalmens  0:51  
So you said you moved to Lincolnwood in 1971 ...

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  0:53  
Yes. 

Lev Kalmens  0:53  
How did you end up in Lincolnwood? And where did you come from?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  0:57  
I was born in Dubuque, Iowa. I am of German background. That's the Fischer side of me. When I came to Chicago in 1962 I came to sing with the Lyric Opera as a performer from my debut in Italy in Milan and Florence. Somehow I became Italianized. And I'm at the first party of the Lyric Opera in Chicago, I met a man sitting next to me whose name was Salvatore Monastero. And Salvatore said to me, "I'm going to take you away from all this." I said, "You are pazzo" You are crazy because and he said, "Ma come che parli italiano?" Why is it that you speak Italian? I said, "I just got back from Italy, and I lived in Italy, and I got my master's degree in Italy, and a lot of long story." He said, "Well, really, well, can I take you out?" I said, "No, I don't date anybody." So that's why I'm here, because I married the next year. Eleven dates later, I got a ring on my finger on Mother's Day of 1963 and in September, two weeks after singing at the White House for President Kennedy, which my husband-to-be, would not go because he was running a new restaurant called Monasteros Ristorante at 3935 West Devon Avenue. But it was really called La Canopy Ristorante. Many people might remember that. It ... the building is still there. The tiny 44 seat restaurant is still there, but that became the focus of my life with this man, until I started to have three children in about the next five years, and I kept singing at the Lyric Opera in the fall. I did a lot of cover roles. It was not always leading roles, although I had done some leading roles in other places, throughout Italy and here in America. Then what else? What could be the next?

Lev Kalmens  2:50  
So let's go back. How did you first start singing? Where did that passion for opera come from? For you?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  2:59  
It wasn't even opera. It was church singing in Dubuque, Iowa. My father had a very strong musical talent, but never got a chance to develop that himself. He could play the harmonica, but he was a bricklayer who met my mom in Chicago, and they moved to Dubuque in the Depression, before the Depression, because my father and mother were here in the 20s. They were married in '29 and went to Dubuque because he lost everything in the banks crashing, and he had already lived in Dubuque, Iowa before, where there was work. And having been in the First World War, and coming from Indiana, from a large family, and my mother came from a large family in Kentucky, that sort of a family thing was very strong, and it attracted them. Besides, my mother was a good dancer. My father liked the fact that she liked to dance. Then they moved to Dubuque. We had, it's all written on my little outline that I gave to you, and had a family there. I grew up there. My father could play the harmonica, as I say, he could sing, he could play baseball. But he didn't do any of those things because he was a bricklayer and he had to support the family. So he built two different houses in Dubuque and many other beautiful stone and brick houses that Bob Fischer could do. My older brother Bob Fischer, not Junior. He has also learned how to become a bricklayer before he went and got his education. We all got our education, pretty much in Dubuque, always working. Our kids worked in different ways in our family. I had a sister after Bob Fischer. I had Darlene Fischer, then I came in, then my younger sister came, and 10 years later, the last brother came. The two brothers now live in Denver. The older brother has just written his sixth book. My younger brother is a police retired officer in Denver. The two of them somehow got to beautiful Denver. My sister, younger sister, lives in California. My older sister has passed away. She was an artist, and she could do a lot of things. She was very talented, but she passed away when she was 80. My younger sister is 83 and I am 85 and my younger brother is 73 so that's about where I am. 

Lev Kalmens  3:00  
It's a big family. 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  3:07  
Well, both my parents, as I say, came from large families, but that was what was necessary in the days that my father grew up in Jasper, Indiana, and then had to leave the family because they couldn't sustain 11 kids. So he was, he had to go to work right away, and learned came somehow got to Chicago after the First World War. I know that whole history because I've been researching that at the Lincolnwood Library, which is becoming my second home. Let's see - my sister is a nurse in California, and she's retired, married to a doctor who is also retired. I love traveling. I love traveling with her. She and I do a lot together. We go to visit our brothers in Denver. We take cruises; we have in the past. She's not as well anymore, and neither is her husband. And my older brother, as I say, just finished his sixth book, and I brought that along to show to you, if you'd like to see it. 

Lev Kalmens  6:16  
Of course.

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  6:16  
He's a Marine retired colonel who served in Vietnam.

Lev Kalmens  6:22  
So how did - so you said your origins of singing came from, started with church singing...

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  6:27  
It did, because in the Nativity School, which was across the street from our second home that my father had built, a brick house, with gardens, vegetable gardens, all around. Corn. We raised sweet corn, raspberries, tomatoes, carrots, all kinds of things, because in those days during the second world war time, that's when I kind of grew up, right there, across from nativity school. In second grade, my teacher was the organist in the Catholic Church, and every time there'd be a funeral, she'd call me and my older sister, and we'd have to go and sing the funeral mass in Latin, and that's how music - well, then, of course, I had to take piano lessons. My father was able to buy an old, used piano, and he could sing beautifully and he could play the harmonica. My older brother was more of a writer and artist. He could draw airplanes. I knew how to draw airplanes and brides. From when I was three, my father would sit us around the dining room table, and my mom would cook the dinner in the kitchen. And we were poor people. We were. And I learned how to be a working child of a family that always, we always had to do some kind of work, which people did during that second world war. And I remember a lot of things. My memory is pretty active, I would say now. I haven't really forgotten too much. That's why I'm writing the story of my whole life.

Lev Kalmens  6:27  
So did your - would your father sing to you? Do you remember him singing to you? 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  7:54  
He liked hearing me and my sister sing as a duet, and the two little Fischer girls would sing, sometimes on KDDH radio, we'd go and sing for the Catholic Daughters, meetings that my mother belonged to. We were raised very religiously, I would say. In fact, my mother, having three daughters, thought that one of us would have to be a nun in the convent, and because she had three sisters who were nuns, and she was from a family of 11 or 12, my father also, but his was not in the same way. They were religious in Jasper, Indiana. My mother was from Kentucky, so family was always very close, and piano was something that I had to do, my sister had to do. Rita, my younger sister became a nurse after a while, but we all went away to school and continued language and continued music. I was a pianist as a child and did some kind of recitals at the visitation academy across the street from nativity school with the visitation sisters. I know my husband thought, well, you've got to be Mother Superior. I said, "No, I'm just the mother of your children." [Chuckles]

Lev Kalmens  9:01  
So, so at what point did you decide that music was going to be something you were going to pursue on a professional level?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  9:08  
Well, it happened to me. I didn't really happen to it. I went to Mount Sinclair Academy and Junior College in Clinton, Iowa, where my mother had gone to school with her younger sister.And I studied there - piano first. And then as a senior in high school, I started taking voice lessons because the sisters said, "Well, we have to have you singing in our chorus." So that happened, and all of a sudden my voice started to be recognized as something nice.  And I would do, I did a recital as a C, as a second year college, Junior College person. And at the end of that time, my voice teacher, who was a nun, she said, "I'm going to send you to Interlochen," the national music camp, because I didn't know where I'd finish college, the other two years. My parents could afford to send me to that boarding school where my mom had gone. So I went to Interlochen, Michigan, and took credit courses in music. I said, "But I know that already." And all of a sudden it seemed like I was getting selected to do small roles in opera and choral solos with, and then I finally, several summers, I went there and got credit at the University of Michigan, and what happened? The director of admissions one time heard me sing, and he said, "We know that you're a pretty good musician, but we'd like to have you come down to Michigan. Would you like me to take your application personally?" I said, "Yes." [chuckles] Went to Michigan. Never saw the campus. Had no money. Applied for every scholarship I could get. Worked at every kind of a job, because my parents couldn't afford to send me to Michigan. But I managed to spend the next two years, and I decided to stay a third year. Because in the summers, I'd go back to Interlochen, which was where I would work. I was editor of the camp newspaper. One summer, got to sing with orchestras and choirs. At Michigan I took tours with the Michigan singers and sang in many different places. Not ever as a really, as a soloist. But all of a sudden, Rosemary College, which is now Dominican University, heard that I would be a candidate for study in Italy. I wanted to go to Germany with a name like Fischer. I said, "Well, you know." And the teachers would say that I minored in French, of course. So I had, you know, music education as a major at Michigan, and minor was French. And the way I got the grade for the French was to sing a recital in French, because I'd learned two years in college at Mount St Clair in Clinton, Iowa, and then I took one more year in Michigan, and I had to do a recital in French. And the teacher said, "Ah, très bien!" I'm fairly good in French but better in Italian, because I ended up going to Italy all by myself, taking a boat across the ocean. Traveling all by myself down through Europe, and it just turned out fine. I got to Florence. As I went into Italy on the train, I said, I've been here before. I had that strange feeling that I was in Italy before. There was something so beautiful. And I still feel that way. 

Lev Kalmens  12:17  
So it sounds like everything kind of happened organically.

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  12:21  
If that's the word you want to use. 

Both  12:25  
[Both laugh.]

Lev Kalmens  12:23  
Was there . . . when you were growing up, what did you see, you know, yourself doing professionally? What did you see yourself 

Lev Kalmens  12:28  
[unintelligible, as Elizabeth starts to answer question]

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  12:30  
Being a teacher of music. Getting a job. The job was always the important thing in our family, being practical and being religious, as close to our religion as we could be. And I have maintained that pretty much - raised my children at Queen of All Saints here. We didn't get to go to Queen of All Saints because they were overcrowded when we moved. First of all, I had to get married to my dear husband, and I mentioned took me away from all that. We got married in 1963 when I came to sing in Chicago after my career developed quickly. As soon as I finished coming home from Italy, getting my masters, I got a job teaching music in Milwaukee. I became Milwaukee's mezzo soprano. Taught three years of music in the grade schools of Glendale. I did a lot of solo with choirs. I wanted to sing in choirs again, because it was just a part of me. And I taught music in grade schools - three, three schools. And at the end of the third year, the principal said, "No, Miss Fischer, we think, my children are, our children are seeing you on TV." There was a Woman's World program that wanted to use all the languages that I could sing in different songs and wearing a costume. And this is a TV show. And every once in a while, she'd call me and this lady named Beulah Donahue on Woman's  World, and she'd say, "You have any song in this and this and this?" I said, "Oh, okay, I got one of those." So I ended up entering competitions. But I met a wonderful voice teacher in Milwaukee who spoke nine languages and was a pianist and retired and living at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. So I studied with her and entered a lot of national competitions, and I started winning everything. I'm very surprised, because I think our whole attitude was, you let things happen and you do the best you can with what you've got.

Lev Kalmens  12:30  
You mentioned that you sang for. . .you sang in the White House for President Kennedy? 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  14:21  
Well, one of the competitions that I won was the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artists Competition. My competition was Shirley Verrett, who was a famous mezzo soprano. I met her in Kansas City at the finals, and her accompanist was Charles Wadsworth from Californ. . . from New York City. And Shirley brought him along, and I said to the accompanist that they gave me, I'm sorry, but you can't play any of the music that my teacher and I have gotten together in this competition. And in and out I was coming to Chicago to do finals and this and various other competitions. And during that time, Carol Fox from Lyric Opera, heard me singing in something and she said, we should get that girl to come and sing at the Lyric Opera. So between all those different kinds of performances, I was able to go to New York. The man who played for me in Kansas City for the finals of that competition, he says, I'm not going to rehearse with you, I'll meet you at the fermata. You know what a fermata is? The hold sign. We went on and did the audition, and they created a prize of $500. In those days that was a lot. Shirley Verrett won 1,000 and was already a professional singer, and we got to be friends. After that, Shirley and I would meet every once in a while. She went and taught at the University of Michigan much later, and I had her come to visit here, and came to Chicago. Anyway, I went on, and one of the competition prizes was to sing at the White House in 1963 September. And I was married September 28. My husband would not go because he was running a new restaurant.

Lev Kalmens  16:03  
What do you remember about that?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  16:05  
I did see President Kennedy walk through with the Shah of Afghanistan. And there was a violinist who I was still very good friends with, Elaine Skorodin from Chicago, who's been wonderful friend. She was the violin winner in this national competition. There was a tenor from Chicago. Also Alan Rogers was a winner. And there was another singer from Milwaukee who won another area. It was a national competition, $1,000 prize. You don't turn those things down in those years. So I had money in the bank for a change, and I could buy nice clothes, and I was being contacted to sing solos with orchestras throughout the United States. I didn't sing as much with, well, I did a couple concerts in Italy with orchestra, but I didn't have a manager. I never wanted a manager. They wanted me to audition for the Lawrence Welk Show. [laughs] One time somebody said, "Oh, Elizabeth, you should be his dancing, champagne lady or something." And I said, "No, I don't think that's going to be," I'm not a good dancer like my mom, she was a good dancer. So no, life went on. And when my husband would not, he said, "Well, we're getting married September 28." I said, "Oh, okay." He planned the whole wedding, and that's it. And then I moved to Chicago after that, and I've been here ever since.

Lev Kalmens  17:26  
So what was your . . . Did you have any role in the in the restaurant? Part of the family business? 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  17:33  
I brought music. I brought music to the restaurant. Because my husband's older brother, Joe, who's still living in Lincolnwood, Joseph Monastero, Sr., and I actually was a very - I gave him a special gift. I introduced him to a girl that was a student of mine, when later, a few years later, after I had three children, I was invited to come and teach at Northwestern University, which I ended up teaching there for 36 years. They said, "Well, we'll have you fill in for a year." I had the three kids at home, and they were just going into school in Lincolnwood. They went all through the Lincolnwood schools because there was no room in Queen of All Saints. Well, I ended up teaching music in the CCD program. That's the Saturday and Sunday programs that they have for children that are not in the school. And that's how that sort of happened. And I went to teach at Northwestern, and about the second or third year, I said, "They don't know how to sing in Italian." And I, Miss Fischer, teaching at Northwestern for one year, ended up being 36, so I must have done something right. And a girl came in to me, and she, her accompanist friend of hers brought her, and said, "You need to study with Miss Fischer. She'll have you singing the way"-  she, because she this girl was playing piano for my students and me at my lessons. And who came in? A young lady I introduced in our competition, which we started for Northwestern students, which was called the Bel Canto Foundation. Bel Canto means beautiful singing bel canto and that started, and we lasted with that for about 40 years through our restaurant, which was devoted strictly to Italian and Sicilian, Siciliano, food. And people who live in Lincolnwood probably will remember Monastero's. It is no longer there, because we sold about two years ago. And I never really worked there, but I would sing sometimes with my husband, because he liked to sing. And who came along my second year at Northwestern? My younger child, Roberto Monastero, so I have Sebastiano, I have prima. I have Maria, then I have Sebastian, then I have Alicia. Alicia sings with Symphony Chorus under Riccardo Muti, whom I'm crazy about. He's a wonderful Italian conductor. Alicia teaches at Deerfield High School. Her final concert is tonight. I'm going to that. She's almost 30 years at Deerfield High School. Beautiful voice. Maria also could sing, but she ran the restaurant and helped my husband a lot. Sebastian lives in Glenview. He has two children. He has an outstanding second child named Salvatore Monastero, after my husband. And he plays clarinet beautifully. So now you hear practically the whole story. Roberto became Chicago's best DJ, and he lives in Skokie. Maria lives in Skokie. She's the first. Sebastian lives in Glenview. Alicia lives in Libertyville, and Roberta lives in Skokie. So they're all very active. They grew up in Lincolnwood, went to the schools, did some things in music. Alicia, more than anyone. So that's that's about where I am right now. I'm going to her concert tonight.

Lev Kalmens  20:42  
So it sounds like you're, you're, you're, you have a close knit family and they live nearby... 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  20:45  
And that is what is so attractive about the Italian culture and the Sicilian culture. That seemed to me an answer to something in me. Although I'm really of German background, and my mother's name was Cash and my father's name was Fischer. My mother is on the branch of Cashes that Johnny Cash sort of came from, and James Cash Penny. That's Cash. That's the name. And so I've done genealogy club here at the library. I'm starting that, to do a lot of that, and I'm finding out about that, which is very interesting.

Lev Kalmens  21:20  
So. Hold on one minute. So, 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  21:22  
yes

Lev Kalmens  21:22  
So are you saying that your mother's side of the family? So the whole the Cash family 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  21:28  
Came from Scotland and England. My father's family came from Frankfurt, Germany, Fischer, and settled in, eventually, Indiana. My mother's family settled. My grandfather was born in 1864. I've been doing all this research because it's interesting.

Lev Kalmens  21:43  
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned Johnny Cash. I just wanted to...

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  21:46  
Oh, yeah. Mother met Johnny Cash on when he was on a tour.

Lev Kalmens  21:49  
Oh,  so, but so was it, was there...

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  21:51  
No, We don't think, 

Lev Kalmens  21:52  
Okay

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  21:53  
There were two Cash brothers that came from Maryland and settled in Kentucky, and then we lost track of one in the genealogy study. But my grandfather settled in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, and raised 12, 11 or 12, children, and I'm still very close with a lot of them. So family, in that case, was very close, both sides. My father's family, not as much - they were very poor. But my father had the work ethic, which is strong in all of us. Mother, Mother will always work too. So work and music and God in heaven.

Lev Kalmens  22:24  
So tell me about your, So you, you were at Northwestern you said for 36 years. What were...

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  22:32  
I was a professor of voice and opera.

Lev Kalmens  22:34  
What, what were some of the highlights of your career there?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  22:39  
Well, other than bringing the Italian repertoire more into the school and being recognized as someone who could teach that a lot. And we started the foundation, Bel Canto Foundation. Started as the Monastero Award at Northwestern. And all of a sudden, five other universities in Chicago said, "What's wrong with us? Don't we get to have a prize?" Oh!  So we happen to have banquet facilities by that time, and we could have a place 

Lev Kalmens  23:06  
At the restaurant

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  23:06  
At the restaurant. We, even though I never really worked there, I would help audition singers from these different schools. But I never really judged, because it wouldn't be fair. I was teaching at Northwestern. So that's how that kind of developed. And then Martha Monastero married my brother-in-law. The young girl married, and I gave him a wife. You know, I'm just doing my duty in family. And she's very proficient in Italian, Sicilian, raising her children, who are musical as well. And everybody worked at the restaurant at different times, my children and their children too, and so we see each other quite frequently. We have a club called the Sicilian American Cultural Association. 

Lev Kalmens  23:50  
What are your memories of Lincolnwood? And you know you you said you moved to Lincolnwood in 1971...

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  23:56  
We lived in Rogers Park, in the family building, a three apartment building. We was on the third floor, and I had three babies up on the third floor, and the laundry, in the basement. And out of the opera career. I still would sometimes go to sing support roles and rehearsals and things downtown. I didn't have a car by that time, and I had already had owned a few cars in Milwaukee growing up and being a singer, but love came into my life, and love took over. So that's what happened. We moved to Lincolnwood because I said the third floor is too high and the laundry is too low, and I want to get into a house with a yard, a bigger yard, for my children. So I started looking around, and I surveyed about 150 houses. I found one for my daughter, Maria, which she still lives in. Where else? Then I looked in Lincolnwood, and we found the house that I still am in.

Lev Kalmens  24:49  
What was, what was it about Lincolnwood that attracted you?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  24:51  
It was that, well, Lincolnwood Terrace area. It was a brick house like my father would build and did build in Iowa. And he actually, before I moved into Lincolnwood, my father passed away, and I was sad about that, because he would have enjoyed the house that I'm in, and I'm still in brick and stone, and it's the right place to live and to raise a family. That's what attracted us. And the restaurant was close 

Lev Kalmens  25:21  
Right, right.

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  25:22  
Across the street on Devon. 

Lev Kalmens  25:25  
What have you been doing since your retirement from from Northwestern? I know you teach . . . You still teach children?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  25:32  
I teach preschool. I taught preschool when my Maria, my oldest daughter, had two little boys, and she said, "Mom, sister Hillary doesn't have anybody to play the piano for her preschool, three, four and five year old children, you've got to go there on your way to Northwestern." Oh, okay, and I did that. Then I met another nice lady named Bonnie Shanahan, who probably lives in Chicago area, and she was teaching at Tiny Tot preschool. My son Roberto, had to be taken to a preschool, so I didn't take him to where I was already playing. I took him to Tiny Tot and the director there said, "Oh no, no, no, he's going into the four year olds" because he was born after I went to Northwestern and he could get up and sing. He was eight years younger than my third child, Alicia, and he'd get up at the restaurant and sing when he was three. She said, "No, he's going to go in the four year olds." So about 14 years after that, I would teach on Tuesday and Thursday at Bonnie's school. I loved teaching little children all the time. And I taught at Queens, and I taught at Tiny Tot preschool. And now I'm still teaching with Sister Hilary at her school in, where she uses a kindergarten room in Skokie.

Lev Kalmens  26:45  
What is it about teaching?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  26:47  
Music makes children happy. Languages. A friendly personality who shows love for them and teaches them. And I support Sister Hilary, who is the teacher of the class. I do the music time, an hour, two different classes. She has about 24 children. But at Tiny Tot, the earlier one, I can't go there anymore because they have little babies who have more germs. [laughs] Oh, I don't know. I would spend more time at the Tiny Tot preschool with touching the children and carrying a piano keyboard around so . . .

Lev Kalmens  27:22  
And as far as just you know, you know,

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  27:24  
 I loved

Lev Kalmens  27:25  
 Teaching for 36 years at Northwestern . . .What? What about that kept you going for so many years?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  27:31  
Well, I have a lot of successful students. One became a professor at India- at Illinois. Another one was teaching. I've got several who are still performing in Europe and throughout the world. I had the young lady who did "Porgy and Bess" when they did the reproduction of it in London and Glyndebourne in England. That's Cynthia Hayman. Now she has just decided to quit teaching at University of Illinois. I have a man Victor Benedetti, a good Italian boy from California, who is, has his own musical theater school. After making his debut in New York City as Don Giovanni and singing at the Lyric school and Lyrics performing various things, he went off to France, and he's got his own school in France, and has two grown sons. I have a lot of contact with my former students. I would, was going off doing master classes and teaching voice lessons at some of these various universities, University of  South Carolina, Florida, Ave Maria University. I can't even remember all the places, but it's all in the book that I am trying to write at the Lincolnwood library. [laughs]

Lev Kalmens  28:41  
What have been some of your favorite operatic roles to play?

Lev Kalmens  28:48  
Well, I did "The Medium," and I'll show you my picture of that one of these years. It looks like a drunken seance conductor, and that's what I learned at the National Music Camp. When I went to Michigan, the first summers I went there, they picked me out and they said, "We think you can do this role. We'll give you a pianist to help you learn the role." So in 11 sessions with that man, who was a wonderful pianist, I memorized "The Medium." And I scared those people. She really scared them. Then I also did something, which, by Leonard Bernstein called Trouble in Tahiti. If you look at the Ravinia summer programs dedicated to Leonard Bernstein, whom I also met in New York at one time, I found out that they're doing Trouble in  Tahiti this summer at Ravinia. I premiered it. 

Lev Kalmens  29:40  
Wow.

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  29:40  
 In Interlochen, when it was first written. What a movie! What a terrible, awful movie! And I'm gonna go and see this and sing the whole darn thing in choir

Lev Kalmens  29:50  
In the audience

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  29:51  
At the Murray Theater. So that, Ravinia, I was the first singer under the new roof of the big theater. I sang there, winning the, one of the prizes, in the Michaels Award of the summer of 1962 before I went back to make my debut in Italy, and I sang there having won that prize. Ah, you know, there's, it was just one thing after another. It just all started to happen. One thing really led to another. And the competitions, people would say, I never went under management, though. I did not want to have someone else telling me where to go, because I was getting a lot of performing experience, and I just really liked going back to Italy. Eventually we had a home over there, the Monastero family. We bought a home, farm home, outside of Florence. Florence is my heart. My granddaughter, Alicia's daughter, is going to study one semester in Italy, but she has to go to Perugia. 

Lev Kalmens  30:46  
Mmhm

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  30:46  
And I said, "no, devi andare a Firenze," you have to go to Florence, because that's - she's, "Oh, Nonna, I know that." They all call me Nonna, which means grandma, 

Lev Kalmens  30:54  
Right. 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  30:54  
So, yes. So she's going next year. She's a sophomore at University of Minnesota. Her older brother just graduated from Indiana. My Maria's oldest son graduated from Bloomington, Illinois, university, Illinois there. And he's a teacher in the school where my two youngest granddaughters are going to school in Skokie. Would you believe it? 

Lev Kalmens  31:18  
Oh

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  31:19  
Yeah. So I have nine grandchildren, and I brought their picture to show you, and they're very sweet kids. We get together, we love -  this is what I like about the Italian culture. The family is very important. And that became very obvious when I met my husband, Salvy, and I met his parents, and they said, this girl, "Questa Signorina, parla Italiano," she speaks Italian, but she's German. I said, "Well, yeah, I kind of lived in Italy, you know," because I spent a year getting my master's there. And that was really, that's what did it - God took me there. I met Pius XII in a private audience, because the school I went to was a Dominican college called Pius XII Institute, and we got to go down to Rome. I was in his office with the people that were the students at this school in Florence on December 8 of 1956, the year I got there. That's a long time ago, so you can tell how old I am. And I met Pius XII and he said, "Well, where are you from?" I said, "I'm from Dubuque, Iowa." "Oh," he said, "I know. I was, I've been to Chicago." Oh, my God. And he was a wonderful, saintly priest, very tall. So I'm very devoted to a lovely saint called Pater de Pio. That's the saint who has the stigmata of Jesus Christ. So I'm quite religious, and it's too bad sometimes people think that can get in the way. No, no, no, it guides the way. So shall I give you a sermon? [laughs] So that's about where we are. 

Lev Kalmens  32:50  
What are some life lessons that you've learned throughout your life?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  32:53  
Haven't I told you enough yet? Oh, my goodness. Life can be short, but you can extend it, and I am lucky that I have the health, although, you know, I have normal health problems. For an old lady. I'm not - I don't feel like I'm that old, because my memory is quite good. 

Lev Kalmens  33:11  
It certainly seems like it.

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  33:12  
 I think so, because I am writing my memoirs, and it's called "A Life of Love and Music." And it used to be a life of music and love, but when love came into my life, I had to turn that around. 

Both  33:25  
[Chuckling] 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  33:26  
So that's exactly what's happening now. And there are many lessons that you learn as you're going along. I hope I've transferred them to my children. I'm very proud of all of them.

Lev Kalmens  33:37  
Well, that was gonna be my next question is, what are you most proud of?

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  33:40  
My children. I think, my children. And my grandchildren, nine grandchildren. 

Lev Kalmens  33:45  
Wow,

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  33:45  
Yeah, each of them have two, except Alicia has three. She has an Italian husband too, you know. And so she has this girl that's at Minnesota, and one that just graduated from Indiana, and a young one who is a top volleyball player. And other, he's 15, like the 15 year old of my son, who is the clarinet player and can jump higher in all kinds of things. He's, he's a gymnast as well as a clarinet player. So, music is going along through the family. The two little ones, my young, young son, Roberto, is married to a Filipino girl, and as I say, she, the two younger grandchildren are in the school where my oldest grandson teaches.

Lev Kalmens  34:25  
Has the kind of, the commitment to music in your family? Can that be mostly attributed to you? 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  34:32  
Oh, well, my husband thought he was a good musician too. He couldn't really do as much, but I let him think. you know. [laughs] His brother was more musical, actually, Joe, his older brother was more musical. Who was a good accordion player, but he also was a good cook. So between music and food, you know, and religion, we've managed to pull it all together.

Lev Kalmens  34:57  
Those are both very beautiful things, to dedicate your life to.

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  35:01  
I think so. My husband thought I was Mother Superior, as I probably told you. [Laughing] not really, no. But my husband passed away in 2003 but he's with me all the time. Me with my dear friend, Padre Pio. I think they look down upon me and I am guided to do a lot of things. It just happens that way. It happens.

Lev Kalmens  35:24  
Well, I want to thank you for 

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  35:26  
Is that enough?

Lev Kalmens  35:27  
coming 

Both  35:27  
[laugh]

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  35:28  
You want to see my book? I brought all my pictures.

Lev Kalmens  35:31  
Yeah, well I will include your pictures on our website, but I would like to thank you for coming down to the library and sharing

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  35:35  
I'm here almost every day except Sunday. It's too busy. I can't get to the computer.

Lev Kalmens  35:40  
But thank you for sharing your Lincolnwood story with us.

Elizabeth Fischer Monastero  35:43  
Oh, no problem.