This chapter focuses on events following the death of Edna Phillips' younger sister Peggy in a plane crash. Not long after the Phillips family received the cable informing them of Peggy's death, the orchestra's personnel manager, Paul Lotz, who had already spoken with Stokowski, called Phillips. That Monday evening, the very next day, the orchestra was scheduled to play a concert that had the César Franck Symphony on the program, which the second harpist had not rehearsed with the orchestra. Stokowski asked Lotz to convey a message to Phillips for him. “As a man,” the maestro said, “I'd tell her not to play, but as an artist, she must if she possibly can. ” And so Phillips played the concert on Monday night. Although Edna's grief over Peggy was deep, her work in the orchestra couldn't be ignored. She had to go forward, and she did.
