Music, Music, Music
A good part of my life was music • She played her heart out • Music in the church • Examples of extensive musical involvement • Funeral songs.
Lilburn's organ at Fairview
|
So far as I know, Lilburn never attempted to market his “child,” “A Good Part of My Life Was Music.” The manuscript, however, became the basis of a talk given to several clubs and organizations during the years that followed. It pictures some of the paces he put his “Music Hobby Horse” through and in part is reproduced below:
A Good Part of My Life was Music
After our conference assigned Rev. Victor White, a young bachelor, to the pastorate in New Franklin and she had consented to play the church organ, Miss Delia Barton had been as punctual as the striking hammer of a well-regulated clock. On any fair Sunday, you could set your time at a quarter of eleven when she came up Missouri Avenue, riding sidewise on her horse in an easy running walk and dismounted at the stile at the side of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
There were always several men, early arrivals, bound for preaching but loitering in front of the church to chew and smoke, and hash over the news until the service would be two songs gone. One of them would hurry to hitch her horse. Before leading it away he watched admiringly while Miss Delia, on the stile, hurriedly unbuttoned her riding over-skirt and let it drop to the floor. Stepping out of it she picked it up, folded it neatly, laid it against the saddle and secured it there with a loop made by lifting the stirrup and hooking it over the saddle horn. With the preliminaries out of the way, she thanked the gentleman, straightened her shirtwaist and skirt, dabbed at her hair and hastened past the other men, toward the church door.
Miss Delia was too comely to pass any group of men unappreciated. As she nodded and smiled, they all greeted her cordially, quids momentarily quiescent in cheek, pipes unsmoked in hand. But as she passed out of earshot, Squire Doolin, wizened and hollow-mouthed except for his quid, commented to those within hearing of his high-pitched voice, “Purty as a partridge, ain’t she!” Then with a twinkle in his beady, blue eyes and a little chuckle, he continued, “Wonder how she’s makin’ out with the preacher? My old lady says Delia’s got her eyes on him a heap more’n on the notes in the song book.” He then cupped his hand to his ear and strained to catch the words of Lige Cooter who ran the poultry house, “Well, she ain’t takin’ her ducks to no poor market!”
Miss Delia never seemed the least disturbed by the men but some of the women, more timid, complained among themselves of having to pass, every Sabbath day, before these glimpse-stealers on the way into the church. However, they let it go for none wanted to alienate the men. “After all,” reasoned Miss Priscilla Watson, “they are the backbone of the church and we cannot suffer discomfort of a single misplaced vertebra.” To which practical Seena Hobbs interposed, “Maybe so Priscilla, but the church would soon be humpbacked if the women didn’t brace up the backbone like the stays in a corset.”
The older women still talked about the time when the Missionary Society had surprised some of the men addicted to Battle Axe plug tobacco by putting spittoons in the church by the seats where they spat and worshipped. This move toward sanitation in the guise of consideration backfired. Three of them with top seniority of membership felt insulted, walked out and never of their own volition darkened the door of the church again. But each one, when he died, was brought back for his funeral.
Miss Delia’s arrival at church usually coincided with that of my parents and me. I always wished I could loiter outside like the men to hear what they talked about. But I had long felt the parental urge to go right in. But there was compensation in not missing a note of Miss Delia’s music.
Promptly at 11 o’clock, as the last clang of the church bell warned stragglers to hurry, Miss Delia seated herself at the organ, ready and eager. Rev. White glanced at her with a smile and announced the first hymn. There was a platform for the organ choir and from our family bench, second from the front, I had a clear view as she played.
How busy she appeared! Pulling out and pushing in the eleven round, small-lettered stops: working the treadles smoothly, forcing air into the bellows to make tones, blending those tones into melodies with deft fingers as her hands glided over the keyboard, pressing her legs outward against the knee-swells to give more volume to the music. When she played the pastor’s favorite gospel song, “Life Is Like A Mountain Railway,” she reminded me of a speeding locomotive with wheels and pistons in graceful motion.
Music was such a part of my life, anything she played fitted my soul and gave it an uplift like a tailored, made-to-order suit of clothes.
My first introduction to and intimate association with music occurred at the home of an aunt who had several children with whom I loved to play. She also had a little music box with a dozen wax cylinder records. My cousins enjoyed my visits as long as I played croquet with them. But I became so enamored of music, the croquet court lost its charm. I laid down my ball and mallet and wanted nothing but to be with the little music box forever. My cousins, decades later, recall this with amusement and remind me of my musical assignation. I confess to a nostalgia for that first mistress, the little music box with her waxen charm, now long dead and buried in the dust of an attic.
I was eight years old when my father gave my mother a piano. With a family of seven children and a large house, she had little time to enjoy it. But occasionally she displayed souvenirs of her college days, a snappy schottishe and part of another piece, “The Maiden’s Prayer.” In playing the latter she crossed one hand over the other, forming an “X” which intrigued me more than any I ever encountered later in algebra.
One of my brothers filled me with envy when he played chop sticks. I thought he did it well and resolved to do it too. Persistent efforts burst into bloom but until they set some fruit, they sounded like a peckerwood drilling, haltingly, a hole in a tree.
I used to wonder why talented ladies who visited in our home, with so much to give, musically always seemed reluctant and had to be begged to share it. One would offer as an excuse, “Oh I forgot to bring my music.” Another “I am so out of practice.” But usually the dam of pretense would give way to insistent persuasion and the performance would belie all excuses. Then in wonder and delight, I would stand close behind the performer, breathing down her neck, watching and listening.
Visitors commented on the mahogany complexion of our piano, its graceful upsweep, its pretty carved face, soft yellow scarf silk-embroidered-in-silver draped over one of its right shoulders on which was balanced a handsome pink vase decorated with birds and butterflies.
It was pleasing to have these characteristics recognized and appreciated but to me, there was something finer about it, a tonal personality, locked inside. This greatest charm was only for those who could find the keys to release it. The desire to find them spurred me into action like an unscratched itch.
To distinguish at sight the value of notes, I was introduced to the family of clefs and helped with my problem of relating a music score on a staff of five lines and four spaces to octaves on the keyboard. After the “middle C” was spotted and anchored, I could count notes which followed, so many lines and space, up or down, then put them into position on the keyboard, relying upon my ear to lace them into harmony.
After my discovery of the key of “C” I nearly wore it out. But eventually I found others, two of sharps and five of flats. To this day I can release by note only such melodies as are locked under these keys.
Some years passed and I was spending my teens at work, earning small wages. I still wanted to know more about music. This desire inspired self-denial of odds and ends that I might pay for some lessons from an attractive young woman, who, while having no record as a brilliant performer herself, was proficient in teaching others to play. Her pupils advanced rapidly and when they appeared in recitals afforded joy to doting parents.
She too would have me stuff cotton in my musical ear. And first I must master the technique of the scales! At the first session she held and manipulated my hand to show me how, beginning on middle “C”, after running the first three notes with the thumb under, and starting with it again, give all of my fingers a chance to finish the scale. She must have thought me very backward when I did not master this technique quickly, and she had to show me again and again. After several lessons she graduated me from the class without praise, saying I could already play by ear better than she could teach me by note.
While I had not learned enough to merit a piece of parchment with a ribbon and seal to confirm me worthy of a Bachelor of Music degree, I had learned that scales might be run up and down one’s spine and for that matter, fantasies played without a piano, and very well by ear.
Thus chiefly by my eyes picking up notes on the score and sending them down to my fingers on the keyboard, I learned to express myself musically.
By now I was able to contribute something to the pleasure of social groups, playing two-steps and waltzes for dancing, and accompaniments for any who liked to sing. For the delectation of any young lady who would listen, I tried to play “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” or “Just a ‘Wearying For You” with great depth of feeling. To me, music was a joy continuously.
She Played Her Heart Out
March 1950
Sunday Lillian and I went to Fayette for the 4 p.m. two piano recital by Nannie Louise Wright and Opal Louise Hays. This time they were dedicating a new concert grand piano, the gift of an old Howard Payne College girl, now Mrs. Chase of Hardin, Missouri. The new piano was beautiful in looks and tone and the recital was the nicest I had ever heard played. The gals played 14 numbers without a stop and then two encores. I had to sit back in a corner in one of the studios and did not see the performance and I did not hear Miss Wright when she announced that the first encore was a favorite of Mr. Kingsbury and they would play it for him. I noticed people around me looking at me and later Miss Wright said, “Why didn’t you come out when I made the announcement?” But even if I had heard it, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to push my way to the front and bow or something. I wouldn’t have known enough to do it, if that is the proper thing. But I felt so honored when those around me said, “They’re playing it for you.” It was Miss Wright’s composition, “Evening.” I never heard it played more beautifully nor on two pianos. The recital was followed by a reception and we stayed until six o’clock visiting with Fayette and Central people.
March 1951
Sunday we did the usual church routing and in the afternoon went to Fayette to attend the Wright-Hayes perennial duo-piano recital, and it was better this year than ever before. Within recent years, Nannie Lou has had a broken leg and Miss Hayes a broken arm but no one would suspect it. From the time they had Bach’s “sheep grazing safely, to begin with until Chopin’s “Polonaise” horses ran us down at the close, it was wonderful. They played a number of their own compositions. All of them were very melodious. After the program the girls entertained at a tea and we had a fine opportunity to visit with people we do not see very often. The auditorium was packed as it always is for this recital. Last year I had to sit in a room out of sight of the auditorium and did not know until afterward they dedicated a number to me. This time I was in the front row and they rededicated the number with an account of the circumstances of last year’s incident. When they finished, I did two years of bowing and wringing their hands to congratulate them on their work and to show my appreciation.
Undated - Probably March 1952
Dear Folks,
Sunday was a busy day. Lillian’s old school mate, Evelyn Botdorf Morris, who lives in Jefferson City, came Friday afternoon. She is a button neophyte, and that evening she spent looking at my button collection with great enthusiasm and satisfaction to herself down at my office. The next day she was occupied with boxes and books of buttons which we could transport to the farm, and I told her she could have any duplicates which she found. What a field day for her! She wanted nothing better than that. And then came Sunday after Saturday night’s choir practice. We have a better group now, and they are doing very nice work for a change. There was Sunday School and Church, then a delicious baked chicken dinner at Mrs. Solomon’s. Then home to rest after the food marathon until time to go to Fayette to hear Nannie Lou Wright and Opal Hayes in their annual duo piano recital.
Miss Wright is retiring as Dean of the Conservatory in June. A big crowd was present to do her honor. She had written me a card warning me that if I wished them to, they would play Miss Hayes’ “Music Box” especially for me. And finally it was time for some encores and Miss Wright announced they were playing “Music Box” for Mr. Kingsbury. This is the third time in four years that they have played a piece for me (and so far as I know during the decades they have been playing, I am the only one so honored). I felt the buttons popping off my clothes all over because of pride.
I didn’t hear much of “Music Box,” being so busy thinking what I would say when they concluded, but I wondered if there were enough buttons left to hold my pants up when I arose to speak. Fortunately, I held together. Dr. Baskett in introducing (unnecessarily) the artists had made some comparison (which he admitted was odious), saying if it had not been for Dean Wright the college would not have the beautiful piano she would play, and for that matter, the college would not have had the auditorium in which we were sitting. He added that he had brought a pencil sharpener into the school at the cost of a dollar recently and if it hadn’t been for him the college would not have had it. So, following that thought, I said I appreciated all Dr. Baskett had said about Dean Wright and personally I appreciated “the girls” because if it were not for them, I would be absolutely destitute of anyone to play “The Music Box” for me.
The “girls” should have felt greatly honored and satisfied for the crowd gave them applause such as I have not heard before, and especially after they played their own compositions. As usual a reception followed the recital and I always like it for I rub elbows with the college crowd whom I do not see very often, but whom I like so much. It was nearly six when we rushed over to Boonville for a visit with Jean, King, and the Turleys. There we enjoyed a stacked dessert, a luscious meringue piled with ice cream and fresh peaches and coffee. Afterward we hurried to church for the evening service, came home and fell into bed.
13 March 1958
Lillian and I are wrung out since we saw Nannie Louise Wright die right in the middle of “The Old Dutch Clock.” She and Miss Opal Hayes were playing at their 33rd annual recital. Lillian and I both have had recurring visions of her, in her pretty blue dress, going backward, with her hands still in playing position. She must have been stricken dead while on a last chord (not of the music but hers). Her body balanced on the bench an instant and then fell to the floor of the stage.
Yesterday we went to her funeral, which I would better call a memorial, a beautiful service. She was given so much to red and it was the prevailing color of the flowers on the casket. The a capello choir was in red (not for this occasion especially but habitually) and the pulpit and choir railing were laden with flowers. Professor Spayde, a fine organist, played four of Miss Wright’s lovely pieces, among them “Quietude” “Chapel Bells” and “From the Organ Loft” as the casket was rolled in and the family entered, and for a short time after all were settled down. Beautiful tributes were paid her, beautiful scripture was read, and President Woodward concluded with a prayer of Thanksgiving for all of us having known Miss Wright. Dean Meyer read a poem which might have been written especially for Miss Wright, titled “Keyboard.”
We had all wondered if in the natural course of events this would not have been their last recital? We were told Miss Wright’s fingers were bleeding from constant practice for this recital and she put adhesive tape on the ends of them for protection. We did not go so much for enjoyment of the music, but out of respect and admiration for Miss Wright who accomplished such things at 80 plus.
Sunday afternoon as they played “Sheep May Safely Graze,” by Bach, I thought to myself, it was poor grazing with it snowing outside as it was ... and when they played variations by Brahms on a theme by Hadyn ... bombastic, I thought I would be willing for it to be the last recital that I should hear such pounding of the ivories!!! But believe me, when she fell back, we were sorry for such thoughts. Lillian and I have not felt like touching a piano or organ since it happened. Lillian was thinking of having a rebuilt piano from Jenkins in Kansas City, but says the idea of doing it is dead.
Music in the Church
The Kingsburys were good Methodists and tried to attend all services - including the “Revival Meetings” held at least once a year. Lilburn had begun playing at the church. He was expected to play at all three services. In an early letter to an Aunt he wrote:
I have gone to church until I am callused. The sermon, I mean sermons, not services, are from 75 to 110 minutes long. Last night was the longest one and after it was all over and the people were going out, I just sat there until Brother Allison came over and I asked him to please help me up. Brother Crowe “praught” on “Modern Phases of Disbelief” last night and held the “aujuence” (as Brother Dillon calls it because he can’t say it right). Crowe really is a splendid preacher, only he has been preaching “it is wrong to play tiddle-de-winks and do the cake-walk.” Gospel truth. He hollered long and loud about these horrors. Well, you won’t catch me sinning in those two ways. As far as tiddle-de-winks and cake-walks go I am just as good as sanctified.
An oh! How he licks his chops with that word “tango.” That kind of dancing is the quintessence of magnified sin. But not once has he referred to pinochle or cards when I’ve been there, so I have one amusement left. But if I keep on going to his meetings, I know he is going to snatch that away from me. Some of the people told me of a little incident. Anna Rose went to church late one night after the preacher had started on the home stretch. She was going to the choir which sits upon a platform to the left of the pulpit. They said just as Anna Rose was ready to step up on the platform, the preacher shouted out something about tango, and Anna Rose hesitated just an instant and looked at him as if she had been electrocuted on the spot.
September 1974
Dear Warren and Madeleine,
One Sunday, the Boonville old people’s organization which has decided to visit a different church the first Sunday in each month were at our Methodist church. Dr. Moser, who will be a hundred years old in March sang a solo. You would be amazed how well he did it. Whoever heard of anybody that age singing without voice cracking! His didn’t crack once. As organist I played accompaniment. I didn’t think of it myself but after church a man came up and said he had never expected to hear a 90-year- old man play an accompaniment for a hundred-year-old man to sing.
I don’t think I have written since Dr. Moser sang at our church. Dr. Moser says we must do it again if he lives to be 100, which will be March 7th, 1975. He looks like he might run a race with our Maggie Watkins in a convalescent home here who had her 106th birthday in August.
Two Years Later:
Last night I attended a church covered-dish-dinner given by the women in connection with a wedding reception for their common minister, and his new bride. Dr. Moser was asked to sing and he asked me to play his accompaniment which I was glad to do. Before singing his song, he announced it as a memorable occasion such as many may never have seen or may not see again, a ninety-two-year-old man playing accompaniment for a 102-year-old man to sing a solo. I must admit I had never seen anything like it myself except two years ago when it also happened, only we were much younger then! I had always thought the Methodist women excelled everybody else as cooks but I must be more charitable toward the ladies of the Christian church. Every bite of everything on my plate was worthy of comment.
October 15, 1977, the day following his 93rd birthday party, Lilburn played his Ragtime Composition “DJALNA” for my family and me on the organ at the Methodist church in New Franklin. He had been honored earlier for 70 years of service as church pianist and organist.
7 February 1949 he wrote:
Dearest Folks,
I’ve just received such an interesting clipping from the New York Journal-Post on the inaugural [Truman] which the writer, Bill Corum [who grew up in Boonville] did not attend, but had much to say about Missouri mules and notables otherwise. He closed with a long paragraph on the origin of the Missouri Waltz. He tells most interestingly the story of how Jelly Settles of New Franklin composed it and used to play it around here and elsewhere for the dances until one time he was at a hotel in Moberly and a couple of travelling men got interested in it. Jelly called it “The Grave Yard Waltz.” One of those men had him play it until he got the tune in his head or in his notes and he later copyrighted and published it. Jelly died Saturday morning, in his mid-sixties, nearly blind, totally deaf, and terribly alone as he lived in a corner of the printing office.
The Next Fall:
I played at a wedding yesterday afternoon. It was at the Baptist Church of which the groom is a member. The bride is a Methodist but would that Baptist be married in a Methodist Church? The “modrun” weddings are strange in their arrangements. I had to play a long time until the mothers were seated and then the soloist sang “I Love You Truly.” Then I played for the preacher, the groom, and his best man to walk down to the altar. They stood there while the song, “Because” was sung for no particular reason so far as I could see. Then Heaven forbid I should play Lohengrin for the maid of honor to come in by. No indeed, that must be reserved for the moment when the bride took her first step into the aisle. To bring in the maid of honor, I played “Indian Love Call” which I hoohooed as much as I could on the pianner. The preacher married them part way, then stopped for the song, “The Lord’s Prayer.” Then he finished, benedicted, and I laid down the strains of Mendelssohn.
Have worked with some of the Eastern Star people lately on a barber shop quartet, and a piano presentation of “Missouri Waltz.” With it I gave a little history of the piece and its composer, Edgar “Jelly” Settle. There were about 250 women from the seven chapters of this district.
Examples of Extensive Musical Involvement
I believe I have written you that Cousin Bee has left us. There were enough flowers for several funerals and as Miss Jessie McLachlan said, “She was put away so nice.” The night before the funeral Lillian and I herded together what would be singers and emergency singers we could muster and practiced. We had a good alto and finally we had our program nicely assembled, we thought. But as we left the church, Mrs. Wilson, our contralto, missed a step and fell down six or seven concrete steps breaking her glasses, rubbing her face on the stone, bruising a shoulder and a leg. We thought the choir was ruined but that plucky soul doctored all morning and came that afternoon with a hat pulled down over her black eye and did her part. She was pretty game. I played Largo as they rolled Bee in. The songs were Jesus Savior, Pilot Me, Face to Face, and The End of the Road. After the interment we had open house as Mother always expected somebody to stop in on the way home from Mount Pleasant. At least a dozen of the relatives did.
A contemporary of mine died in Fayette a month ago and when I asked about the funeral service, was told that the music sounds like the things Spade [Chair of the Music Department at Central Methodist College] plays out of the ordinary though he was not at the organ this time. A later inquiry revealed the piece in question was “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which is not inappropriate, though I had never thought of it being played at a funeral. But when I play themes I hear on the TV serials, as offertories at church seldom does anyone acknowledge recognition - for that matter seldom does anyone admit recognition of anything. I believe I could play “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” and nobody would know it.
July 1941
Sunday night we ended the day by sweating some at the evening service and then rode up “the bottom” to Ed Watts’ because his son had died and I liked Ed and I liked the son. We got there about half past eight and there must have been 35 or 40 cars there and the house was full of people and more were in the yard and out on the porch. On Monday afternoon the funeral was in New Franklin and they asked me to play the piano. It took terribly long to open him up in the vestibule and force everybody inside to pass by and look at him after the sermon and the poor little widow couldn’t get by and had to come back inside and sit down and compose herself. I played all I knew and made up a lot. It is always a good chance to practice improvising. The crowd is always so busy watching the mourners that they don’t know what about music, but it seems to me the music drowns out some of the sound of weeping. At least I can’t hear it so well.
Our minister, who came last October, has held eight funerals and tomorrow is to have another. Lillian and I get so tired of being asked to arrange the music. I think I shall charge for my services and then I am sure I won’t have such frequent calls. All of these funerals were church members who had paid their dues, so my old rule of not playing at the funerals of members in arrears has not helped me financially at all.
Funeral Songs
There have been many changes in songs for funerals in the Boonslick Country.
I have a little hymnal 2 1/2 x 4 inches and 2 inches thick, published in 1842. It has marks of elegance, leather bound with gold etching and letters “Methodist Hymns.” It contains the words of 697 songs with no music.
There were no musical instruments used in churches then. One wonders why they were considered instruments of the devil. The preacher was usually the song leader. After announcing the hymn he would read aloud a couple of lines (it was called “lining it”) and the congregation would join him in singing them. Not everyone had a hymn book.
Funeral songs in the 1840s suggested unpleasant problems for body and soul of one who departed from this world such as:
“And must this body die, the well wrought form decay and must these active limbs of mine, lie moldering in the clay?
In the funeral hymns of the 1870s there were no reminders of “moldering in the clay, corruption,” or a choice between Heaven and Hell. The delights of Heaven were stressed.
Those present at Clark’s Chapel in the ’80s never forgot the funeral at which Rev. W.F. Bell, as if speaking for the departed gentleman, sang a song in a voice that could be heard a mile away, “I’m going home to die no more.”
For a decade after I began playing for funerals three score and more years ago, the standard funeral hymns were Rock of Ages; Jesus, Lover of My Soul; Abide with Me; How Firm a Foundation; and Lead Kindly Light. The last had been sung at the funeral of assassinated President Will McKinley and to this day is still a favorite.
In more recent years, the most popular song sung as a solo was Beyond the Sunset. Its words were a rainbow of poems and its melody so lifting, one could picture angels doing a ballet in the sky on their way to a picnic in Heaven in honor of the spirit of the departed.
Today it is difficult in small towns to find anyone to play or sing at funerals. A stereo takes over effectively. We listen to hymn music played softly and an artistic rendition of Malotte’s, The Lord’s Prayer. It is satisfying.
In thumbing through a Book of Funeral Hymns at a mortuary some time ago, I came across one with the unusual title, Who Will Sing For Me? I didn’t know then, but now I would answer, “the stereo.”
|
