By Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas

The day before she died, Anne Romagnoli called the office manager at the Italo-American Accordion Co., the store she owned for 66 years. She had a few questions but mostly a long list of instructions. "That was just her way," said her daughter Roseanne Romagnoli, who acknowledged her mother could be demanding.

She may have been tough, but her style allowed the family's store to survive for decades after the instrument fell out of favor. Through many lean years, Romagnoli never lost faith in the accordion. "The accordion is a happy thing," she told the Tribune in 2009. "There is no other instrument this self-sufficient. You play guitar, you need people. But you can take an accordion to a picnic. You can't take a trumpet to a picnic!"

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Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/