NICEVILLE — Life is short and death is long. That’s the philosophy that has guided LaVerne Crandall’s first 90 years.
Crandall grew up in Milwaukee, Wis., a half block from world-renowned pianist Liberace. She knew him as Wally.
“I grew up during the Great Depression, so in school when the entertainment for Friday’s assemblies couldn’t come they’d tell me, ‘Verne, grab your gym clothes.’ Wally played the piano and I would perform,” Crandall said. “I was a real show off. It was fun.”
Crandall said her mother took her to vaudeville shows, and she would come home and emulate the dancers. She discovered she was double-jointed when she was 6 years old.
“My friend’s mother told my mother she had to get me into dance lessons before I hurt myself,” Crandall said. “I used to sit on my head all the time.”
On weekends, Crandall said her father would take her and Liberace downtown, where they would perform and make between $10 and $15 a night.
“Can you imagine, especially thinking about what they make today?” Crandall said.
In her yearbook, Crandall has a note from Liberace just before he graduated from high school. He ended it by encouraging her to continue to pursue her “artistry.”
“I know you’ll reach the top,” he wrote.
Crandall went on to dance professionally in a group called the Sailorettes as well as perform at fairs and summer shows. In the early 1940s, she joined the Marine Corps, where she was a drill sergeant for two years.
In the late 1970s, Crandall and her family moved to Niceville, where she settled down to raise her two boys.
But she didn’t give up performing entirely. She said she sometimes would entertain children with her contortion abilities during Boy Scout meetings.
“God’s given me a fantastic life, I’ll tell you,” she said, smiling. “I’ve been a dancer, a mother, wife, a Marine. I’ve been very blessed.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Angel McCurdy at 850-315-4432 or amccurdy@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @AngelMnwfdn.
