I checked the Times on line this morning and found an obituary for Frances Blaisdell, termed "Girl Flutist," who died a couple of weeks ago at 97.
I started playing the flute comparatively late, at 14. My first instructor was the man who taught woodwinds in the Teaneck Public School at that time; I remember what he looked like and sounded like, but not his name. (This might swim up in my memory, or might not.) I switched to private lessons within a year. I believe that my parents asked around about good teachers and were told "Paige Brook, Julius Baker, Frances Blaisdell." Brook wasn't accepting new students, and I doubt they tried to get in touch with Baker, who was then the principle flutist of the NY Philharmonic and an instructor at Juilliard.
They called Miss Blaisdell, who also did not have openings, but she directed my parents to her student Judy Liederman, who taught at her parents' in Teaneck, where I lived. This lasted a year, until Judy moved away. (I believe she both married and got a job out of town. We met again when I was a student at Stony Brook, where she was the music librarian.)
My second teacher was BeverlyRadin, who gave me the best advice I ever got. Beverly had studied with Miss Blaisdell at the Manhattan School of Music. By the time I applied to college, Miss Blaisdell had moved west to teach at Stanford, and my parents wouldn't let me go to school that far from home.
I cannot for the life of me remember if I ever met Miss Blaisdell; if I did, it was briefly and in passing. I think she may have been involved with my search for a better instrument after my first flute, a Gemeinhardt, fell apart, because my parents were able to find a used Haynes with amazing speed.
In any event, the Times obituary told me a great deal about Miss Blaisdell's career, about which it seems I knew almost nothing: being taught by her father, her pioneering career in the New York area, starting in the 1930s, her studies with Barrerre, Moyse, and Kincaid, and so on.
Farewell, Miss Blaisdell, and thank you, for your whole marvelous career and for two excellent teachers.