I noticed my grandfather’s eyes shining with tears as he read the paper at breakfast one day in 1986. He was a retired police chief who almost never cried. “Kate Smith died,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to blow his nose. “That old gal got us through the war.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. He worried, I gathered, that the lump in his throat would keep him from finishing whatever he tried to say. He silently slid the paper toward me. The obituary recounted Smith’s iconic performance of composer…