Juanita Strait’s ear for music was well-known in Lawrence for nearly 60 years. She was a gifted pianist, piano teacher and choir director.

The legions of friends and admirers who have described her as “best friend,” “a second mom” or “wonderful” would tell you she was also a good listener the first to hear their problems and the first to share their good fortunes.

She described herself as “blessed.”

“Me,” she said in June, “I’m just an old ‘pee-anna’ teacher with my old broken hip full of plates and pins. I can’t see out of one eye but can hear well, and I’m blessed with wonderful friends.”

Mrs. Strait, 93, died Sunday in her home.

During the day and evenings, the front door of her house at 14th and Louisiana streets was unlocked. Visitors simply tapped on the door and let themselves in to the strains of Strait’s welcoming vibrato, followed by a hug. Kansas University students living in neighboring scholarship halls were among her frequent visitors.

Last October, 150 students filled her yard to sing “Happy Birthday.” It was rare for visitors to find her alone.

Her memory and recall for names and deeds, current and past, could shame those from younger generations.

Friend Jackie Shmalberg knew Mrs. Strait more than 50 years.

“Juanita could remember anything she wants to,” she said, “and was usually the one to say to me, ‘Don’t you remember?'”

Shmalberg said Mrs. Strait could recall the names of former students, their children’s names and where they lived.

Juanita Strait, who died Sunday at 93, is pictured sitting in her living room at 14th and Louisiana Street in a photo taken last June. She taught piano to hundreds of students.

Earlier this year, a group of Mrs. Strait’s former students visited their teacher. They had begun their lessons in 1945 as first-graders and continued until they graduated from Lawrence High School in 1957.

Interviewed a few days before their arrival she said, “Oh, I’m so excited. Saturday my children are coming home if I can just live that long.”

Strait’s first question of each student before every lesson was, “Did you practice your piano?”

“My name is Juanita Practice Strait,” she said. “You can’t do anything without practicing.”

She continued to practice 30 minutes a day until late this summer.

She described her late husband, “Reg,” as a poor piano student: “I loved him dearly, but he just wouldn’t practice.”

She stopped teaching piano in 1978.

“I just couldn’t teach after Reg died,” she said.

Mrs. Strait taught in the Navy V-12 program at Kansas University during World War II. She was choir director at the First Christian Church for 32 years. But she’s well-known for teaching piano to two generations of students.

She recalled a first-grader who started crying when her mother left her with Mrs. Strait.

“I knew she didn’t want to stay with some old piano teacher,” she said. “So we just talked for the whole 30 minutes while we sat on the piano bench.”