Katie Wheeler
1940 - 2025
While Katie Wheeler volunteered at NAMM’s Museum of Making Music as a docent and later worked part-time in the NAMM Resource Center, I had the privilege of working closely with her for over twenty years.
Technically, she reported to me — but in truth, she was the teacher and I was the student. Along with our colleague Tony Arambarri, Katie and I built the Resource Center from a few unorganized boxes into a full archive that continues to serve our industry to this day. In fact, just yesterday I answered a question about Steinway Pianos using one of Katie’s handwritten finding aids.
Katie had a wit that always kept me smiling. Once, after I sang a tune from an old movie musical, I joked, “Some people confuse me with Gordon MacRae.” Without missing a beat, Katie replied, “Boy, they must have been confused.” That was Katie — quick, sharp, and funny.
Katie poured that same care and passion into her work, meticulously creating finding aids for companies in the music industry from piano and organ companies to retail stores selling drums, saxophones and guitars — work that still supports us today as we build NAMM’s 125th anniversary timeline. When I last visited her, I told her how valuable her efforts remain. She smiled and said, “It’s so nice to hear something I enjoyed doing can still be a benefit.”
Katie Wheeler was more than a colleague or volunteer — she was a friend.
Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington were not just great jazz collaborators; they were deep personal friends. Together they wrote a song that Katie and I cherish; “A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing.”
A flower is the heart of spring
That makes the rolling hillsides sing
The gentle winds that blow
Blow gently for they know
A flower is a lovesome thing
Playing in the breeze
Swaying with the trees
In the silent night
Or in the morning light
Such a miracle.
Azaleas drinking pale moonbeams
Gardenias floating through daydreams
Wherever it may grow
No matter whеre you go
A flower is a lovesomе thing
A lovesome lady passed our way, and we are all better for it.
Dan Del Fiorentino
NAMM Music Historian