Page 70 - MLD Book

numerous house calls), because we were personal friends, beginning with Tom’s joining the Bach Society as a tenor at age 16. His efforts at trying everything possible probably prolonged his life, and we will always be grateful. Left with the daunting task of finding a new doctor for anyone in Melvin’s shape was monumental. Harvey’s doctor finally agreed to take him on, but it wasn’t the same and it really wasn’t helpful other than we had somebody on record as his doctor. Melvin still managed to do the lecture on January 14, but that would be the last.
I won’t go into the painful details of January 31, other than to say that he was able to die at home and not in the dreaded hospital. Harvey was a super help during the immediate hours after death, and the next few days were manifestations of so very many caring for me and for our girls, who both adored their father. Attention began to focus on the funeral and we chose February 8, since cremation gave us a little more time to get it all together.
The following obit appeared in the CJ:
Melvin Dickinson, 77, died on January 31, 2014, in his beloved Bach Haus. In 1964, he founded the Louisville Bach Society, along with his wife, Margaret, and they continued ambitious offerings of major choral-orchestral works of all centuries until 2011, all the while specializing in their first love, the oratorios, masses, motets, and cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Bach was the common ground that united Melvin and Margaret as they embarked on Fulbright fellowships in Frankfurt am Main, Germany from 1958 to 1960. They were honored to study with the Bach organ master Helmut Walcha, and became his assistants as the blind professor concertized throughout Europe. The Bach bond became so strong that these two best friends were married in 1961, and formed the first ever Bach Cantata Series at the Church of the Ascension in Frankfort, Kentucky.