Whistling makes connections

Margaret DeCroff-Millsap carries her musical instrument wherever she goes.

She is an artistic whistler.

DeCroff-Millsap, 79, was born in a time when radios could be heard from open windows, and a night out would include a stop at the theater.

As a child, she attended dozens of events at the Fox Theater or Davenport Hotel with her mother, Edith Stella DeCroff, who was a piano teacher. Exposure to ballet, concerts and theater prompted DeCroff-Millsap to find her own niche in the world of musical entertainment.

Her training began in high school in the 1940s.

“An artistic whistler has the exact same training as a singer,” said DeCroff-Millsap, “the deep breathing from the diaphragm and practice of scales and arpeggios which develop power and tonal quality.”

In those days, whistling was about the only portable entertainment available, and it was popular in vaudeville shows. There are various types and classifications of whistlers that include lyric, coloratura, dramatic, pucker whistler, and tongue and teeth whistler. DeCroff-Millsap is a soprano and a pucker whistler.

DeCroff-Millsap has performed at conventions, civic organizations, clubs, Masonic gathering, weddings, funerals, churches, schools, colleges and over the radio.

Her performances are haunting, classical and evocative.

She closes her eyes when she whistles and a world of emotions comes forth.

She has been highlighted before in The Spokesman-Review.

In 1945, she (the sole whistler) and four other members of the Victory Corps were photographed, and in 1974 in the Family Section, the headline read: “Whistler Sings Like a Bird.”

That was the year that she whistled at Expo. Just before that, DeCroff-Millsap and her mother were delegates to the Western District Story League Convention in San Francisco.

Dressed in a silk kimono and accompanied by her mother at the piano, DeCroff-Millsap whistled “The Chinese Lullaby” and received a standing ovation. That was the last time DeCroff-Millsap’s mother played for her. She died shortly after the event.

DeCroff-Millsap graduated from Rogers High School in 1945 and married her sweetheart, Edward, in 1949. In 1950, she graduated from Eastern Washington University with a degree in teaching, and in 1952 her husband built her a home in the Spokane Valley that she still lives in today.

She loves the Spokane Valley, and she calls Mission Park “my park,” because she, along with other volunteers, helped restore the park.

“I have walked and biked the whole Valley,” she said.

She went on to become a kindergarten teacher and raise three children. She whistled whenever an occasion arose that required nostalgic entertainment.

She is active in many organizations, including the Valley Arts Council, the National Story League, the Davenport and KPBX.

Besides whistling, she enjoys telling stories, supporting her community, snapping photographs, traveling and bicycling. In 1985, she pedaled 805 miles through the Netherlands with “just God, myself and I.”

DeCroff-Millsap considers whistling, telling stories and riding a bike as intertwined.

“They are all ways of connecting with others,” she said.

Whistling was first used not as music but as a way for warriors, hunters and shepherds to signal others. Today, it is a universal language.

“If you go to another country, you might not speak the language, but you can still connect with whistling,” said Jim Voltz, a whistling historian from Washington, D.C.

“If you whistle, people will smile.”