Page 6 - MLD Book

they left it up to me to raise the money. Always one to seize any opportunity to finance projects in unique ways, I hit upon the idea of memorial or thanksgiving chairs! For $50, you could have a name plate installed on the back of the chair, plus choose a saint and the kneeler fastened onto the back of the chair would be needle pointed with the symbol of that saint. Walt Morris, in his usual ingenious way, solicited the help of an Amish firm who made the chairs for us. Jack Kersey took charge of the needlepointing project and it was spectacular. So many people got involved in the actual needlepoint. Jack Kersey took charge of the needlepointing project with great success. We set a goal of 40 chairs and it was so successful, we got 50! They are still going strong today and the kneelers are works of art. Few may know how they got there! Look at those sometime.
Before I move to the next phase, I must mention some of the characters that comprised the remaining choir people who welcomed me (some with suspicion) in my initial inauguration period. There was a dear lady named Myrtle Abnia, whom we named Myrtle the Turtle, who took a huge shine to Maria and brought her lunch every week. (She left Maria $200 when she died!) Once a bat got into the Parish Hall while we were rehearsing and Myrtle the Turtle grabbed a big broom and chased it down. She was about 80. (Oops, that seemed old to me then but now....). I never heard Myrtle sing except for one time on the last line of “In the Year that King Uzziah died.” There is a very poignant spot where the choir sings “Send me” and then pauses. Myrtle was a little behind, and her “Send me” came in the pause!! Harold Snyder was addicted to cigarettes and always stood in the hall during rehearsals smoking instead of sitting with the rest of us. He did beautiful needlepoint and other artistic things and his gay partner was Bill Galloway, who left his entire house to Calvary when he died. Harold was on my audition committee and was a true champion of everything I tried to do. When he died in 1978 (of lung cancer of course), gifts were given in his honor, so a memorial fund for music was established and paired with Clyde Warner’s gift in memory of his parents. It was called the Warner-Snyder Music Fund and is still in operation today, funding special projects and enabling purchase of music. Kenny Renner was a gay tenor who lived with an Allpest executive named Tony, who had bedroom eyes. Kenny called me almost every night to talk, aided by the courage THAT TWO DRINKS COULD BRING. Yikes. We didn’t have caller ID back then either. Then there was Minna Palfrey, alto, who after she retired from the choir and sat babysitting choir kids in the pew, threw candy to children during the sermon. I still can hear them bouncing off the pews. She was married to Walter, who had had a frontal lobotomy but worked at the betting window at Churchill Downs and was a genius at that because that part of the brain worked. Walter always claimed his mother was the one who invented Benedictine sandwiches! He and reluctant Melvin would have later a memorable croquet game at a choir party on the grounds of the VA hospital. Throw in the aforementioned Iris and Ella, add a couple of sane ones, and I realized I faced quite a group!
On August 3, 1964, (103 degrees!) Melvin, Maria, and I moved to 2549 Woodcreek Road, Louisville, the proud owners of our first house with a monthly mortgage payment of $121!!! That same week, we had our first rehearsal with a new Louisville group, the Louisville Bach Society. At the Church of the Ascension in Frankfort, we had a community chorus that served as the predecessor of the LBS, undoubtedly the first Bach group ever in Kentucky. And the first LBS rehearsal was held at Calvary Episcopal Church, in the Parish Hall on those same rickety folding chairs! The LBS had been invited by Mr. Waterhouse and the vestry to make its home at Calvary, and the first Bach Society concert ever was held at Calvary in October 1964. Mr. Waterhouse, however, excited by the huge crowd that the concert drew, decided that he would make that audience captive, and insisted that he read Evening Prayer