Today I want to tell you about Isadore Tedechini. Few of you will have heard of him but he did leave his mark on a small Western community. Isadore, or perhaps we better call him Charlie since that was the name by which most folks knew him, settled over 40 years ago in the small village of Innisfail, Alberta. He set up a shoe repair shop, since that was the trade he brought with him from Italy. He brought something else from his homeland however, and that was a great love for music. It wasn't long before Charlie formed a band from among the young people of the town. Considering the cultural climate of the small agricultural center, this was indeed an accomplishment. Instruments were found, begged, bought, or borrowed, many of them somewhat the worst for years of inactivity, and each band member somehow managed to get together a simple white uniform. Four months after the formation of the Innisfail band, Charlie Tedechini let them in the Calgary stampede parade. I dropped in to see Vince Tedechini who took over his father's business when he died. I told him he should be very proud of all that his dad had left to Innisfail. For over 40 years Charlie Tedechini taught music to youngsters, never asking or even expecting any remuneration. Every Sunday, in a room above the town’s one theater, he would assemble his band for rehearsal, and had he been conducting the Coldstream Guards he could not have taken his work more seriously. An intense, volatile man, Tedechini could be counted upon to break at least one baton per rehearsal and always ended up conducting with the rung of an oak chair. I am sorry to say that when Charlie Tedechini died, the Innisfail band died with him. He will however be fondly remembered by those to whom he gave so much. I am convinced there is a special place in heaven for the small town band master.
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