For more than 13 years, Virginia Folsom's piano students were accustomed to hearing loud squeals and grunts when they put a nice polish on their Mozart or Chopin lessons.
Now that they only hear their teacher say "Nice job," it's understandable that some of the kids feel a bit melancholy. Piano class just isn't the same without Folsom's pot-bellied pig, Petunia, lolling about on her sheepskin rug, grunting her approval.
Since Petunia passed away on Jan. 30, "there's a huge void that everybody notices," says Folsom, 64, who has taught piano since she was a teenager. "Petunia has been a part of lives for so long, it's like the end of an era. It was hard to tell the kids that she'd gone to piggy heaven."
Petunia Clemenswine, as Folsom called her, was not only a musical pig, she was famous for her adventures in the best-selling children's book, "Ginger and Petunia," written by Folsom's childhood friend, Patricia Polacco.
In the book, Petunia dons elegant attire and assumes Ginger's daily responsibilities (piano classes, tango dances, museum openings) when she's left alone for a few days. In reality, although Petunia enjoyed twirling to Chopin waltzes, she rarely left the house or the back yard because of her size.
"When she was a young pig, we could take her for car rides," says Folsom, "but as she grew, that became out of the question. There's just no way to lift a 100-pound pig into the back seat."
Hoping to share a few memories and get the word out about Petunia's passing to hundreds of former students who brought carrots and apples to the beloved pig, Folsom wanted to get together for a Free Lunch of takeout guacamole burgers at her home in Sandy.
She'll never forget the day in 1996 that she spotted an ad in the newspaper: "Pot-Bellied Pig — $100." "I told my husband, Bill, 'Let's go get that pig,' " she says. "He laughed and didn't think I was serious."
Folsom was serious all right. A few days later, a 6-week-old, cream-colored pig with a black snout and spotted rump was eating Grape-Nuts cereal, jumping on the bed and tearing out the linoleum in the bathroom.
"I didn't know the first thing about pigs," says Folsom, "so I put Petunia in the bathroom at night. When she tore up the floor and peeled off the wallpaper, my husband said, 'I don't think we can keep this pig.' But there was no way I could get rid of her. She'd stolen my heart."
Folsom quickly worked out a solution: Petunia could live next to the piano studio in the crawl space under the stairs, just like Harry Potter. She covered the walls with pig calendars and family snapshots and gave Petunia about a dozen blankets, so she could make a cozy nest.
After she bought a new sheepskin rug for the piano room, Petunia promptly sniffed it and carried it off to her room, "so I just let her keep it," says Folsom. "She was pretty spoiled."
During warm months, Petunia lived outside, where she enjoyed rooting up petunias, marigolds and daisies and helping herself to Folsom's vegetable garden.
"Our lawn looks like a bomb was dropped on it," says Folsom with a chuckle, "but having Petunia all these years was worth it. The kids really miss feeding her carrots before their piano lessons and watching her dance. She really was one fine pig."
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