Moons, Balloons and Tunes

About the Book

“This book is a collection of the poems created by my mother when I was young. This will serve as her memoir on her 100th birthday” (George Charles Turrell).

About the Author

Frances Berry Turrell was born in Portland, Oregon, March 15, 1903. In 1927 she married Professor Charles Alfred Turrell in Paris. They had one son, George Charles, who is shown here with his mother in 1932. “Mummy” in these poems did her studies at the University of Arizona and Reed College, before leaving for France. She was first in Lyon on an international scholarship and then in Paris, where she studied at the Schola Cantorum and the Sorbonne. After the Family’s return to the United States, she taught at Lewis and Clark College and Portland University. She continued her studies at the University of Southern California, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1956. She was an accomplished pianist and linguist, as well as the author of a number of scholarly works in field of musicology. She died in France in 1984.