Mary’s Purple Palace
I am the biggest Prince fan, everyone knows that. But I came accross a story of even a bigger fan. Her name is Mary.
xoxo Beja von Bis
Images and story via Dennis Roszkowski shared with the group Prince Vinyl Record Collecting on Facebook
” Mary (93) moved to her new place on April 22nd. I was with her helping her move when we heard the earth shattering news that Prince had died. My phone, as I know all other fans phones did, started blowing up with the news, and when I told Mary, she said “I always thought I would be in heaven before Prince.”
“This is my friend Mary’s Prince Room. Here’s a little history. This photo was taken in 1999, showing the 1999 LP, naturally. Mary was 76 years old at the time. Mary had over 1,200 different Prince releases at that time. Mary is the Prince fan who is talked about in Uptown issue #9, in their reports on the Act I tour in Chicago. During the aftershow at the Caberet Metro, Prince brought Mary up on stage at the encore and sang ‘Johnny’ to her.
I met Mary 27 years ago back in 1989, when I traveled to Cleveland to photograph a fans collection, which she eventually sold back in 1996. I was doing some discography work for the Controversy fanzine, and as I was photographing the fans collection and doing some trading, she asked if I would like to go to her 66 year old (at the time) friend’s home to see her Prince collection in a purple room. Once I met Mary, we became Prince buddies, and me having organizing in my DNA, catalogued all of her releases so she could then start looking for specific ones she was missing.
Mary and I were fortunate enough to see Prince play in various venues, from Virginia to Toronto to Detroit to Chicago to Canada to Minneapolis at Glam Slam, Paisley Park and at the Celebrations.
Mary turned 93 in February, and she had been preparing to move from her 7 bedroom house where she lived for 65 years, to a 1 bedroom apartment that makes navigating much easier. I dismantled the Prince room starting last fall, and you will see the results in some of the last of the photos I post.
Back in 1997, I saw a photographic exhibition at a museum made from photo collages, and I put together a collage of Mary’s room for her. Now that the Prince room is gone, she has the collage, which is 6 feet long, on top of three bookcases in her bedroom at her new place. You can see it later in this thread.
I appreciate all of the collections I see here on this site. I too collected for years, and at one time had over 1,700 Prince releases. There was nothing better than the hunt for what we could discover, and the joy of added each piece to our ever growing collections. Keep it up, Prince collectors.
Mary moved to her new place on April 22nd. I was with her helping her move when we heard the earth shattering news that Prince had died. My phone, as I know all other fans phones did, started blowing up with the news, and when I told Mary, she said “I always thought I would be in heaven before Prince.”
Enjoy all the photos of Mary’s Prince room, and check out all of the vinyl. Those fortunate to spend time in her Prince Room will remember such a wonderful expression of her admiration of the man, and her creativity in displaying her collection.”