Page 51 - MLD Book

that that Calvary and the Cathedral had long been enemies! In his mind, this idea was reinforced on June 3 when a new Dean was instituted and our choir was sent an email inviting us to participate. Only a low key, form email. Nobody signed up to sing, so we were not represented. No offense intended – it was just a busy Sunday and Calvary choir was the only choir in the city that sang all summer. So the new Dean and the fairly new Calvary Rector decided it was my fault, and I was called in and chastised. That led to my writing a two-page history of cordial relations MUSICALLY between the two churches, dating back to the then Dean inviting us to use the Cathedral as a home base for rehearsals and concerts after Waterhouse had kicked the LBS out! This cordial relationship between Calvary and the Cathedral choirs and organists continued with multiple joint evensongs (yes, Evensong was not just a new wrinkle of Eugene Lavery’s doing!!!) and guest organ recitals, until the Gerry Wolf regime, when she hated their new organ (Melvin had been a consultant for the organ as well as my Oberlin teacher Fenner Douglass) and she disliked Bach as well. (She ultimately sold the organ, reputedly out of jealousy for the numerous visitors it attracted.) She changed the locks on the doors so we could not rehearse there anymore, and at that point, Ben Sanders re-invited the LBS to return to Calvary, which we did. Other than during the Wolf era, musical relationships between the two churches were excellent, and Melvin’s students Chen Kai Lim and John Cantrell directed the music a good part of that time. Neil Larson became a special friend and colleague and even dog sat for our feisty Yorkie, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! So after my letter, Ned quieted down on the enemy litany, and headed off to fix other things that were not imaginary!
In 1994, we had purchased the Loft piano by selling the 88 keys for $100 each. By 2006, there was a desire to place a good piano in Parker Hall so recitals and other events needing music could be staged. In September 2005, Ginger Ray had launched her Unique Boutique fundraiser idea, and it was enormously successful. So she signed up Mary Ann Rickert and Roger Fristoe with LaNell Barnes on piano for a gala dinner theatre fundraising production slated for March, 2006. But we didn’t have a piano in Parker. Undaunted, we pursued the same technique of $100 a key that we had used in 1994. Of course, in 12 years, prices of pianos had gone up, so we were looking at $18,000 instead of $9,000. By touting the idea of buying a whole octave instead of one key, we DID IT, and Hans Sander found us a really nice one that made it into Parker right before the gala dinner theatre production. And we made a bunch of money we used for various long range planning projects.
We weren’t quite done with pianos, though. HIldegarde Temple, Whitney O’Bannon’s unusual sister, decided we needed to come get her rather rickety spinet and move it to the parish hall. For one reason or another, mostly bordering on a humanitarian gesture, we said yes, and got the thing down a flight of winding stairs and ensconsed at Calvary. She wanted everyone to know she had donated it, so we made a big fuss in the CONNECTION. Lo and behold, a few weeks later, she said she was out of money (that was often the case with her and I slipped food to her on numerous occasions!!), and wanted $500 in payment for the piano. We decided to do that in the name of outreach for a needy person! The piano still sits there, mostly beaten upon during coffee hour by undertaught children!
Rhonda Lee left Calvary as a full-fledged priest in the summer, going to Duke University with her husband to complete her doctorate while Wayne assumed a full professorship there. And guess what? Here was Dick Humke again as Priest Associate, non-stipendary to boot! Thankful we were!