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Grade School Music Teachers: |
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Before our history even began, the BVM community depended upon a music teacher. After her father’s stroke, Mary Frances Clarke was freed of her family responsibilities because her sister Martha took over the business, and her sister Catherine supported the family by giving music lessons. The group’s school in Philadelphia included a music teacher, and when they moved to Dubuque a piano came too, so music lessons could be offered at St. Joseph’s Prairie.1 From the earliest days, music and music teaching have been an integral part of the BVM story. Several retired grade school music teachers now call Mt. Carmel home. Among them are Sisters Angelista Klobucher, Gracia Schmidt, Maura Purcell and Mary Ann Shea (Agnes Corneille). Their responsibilities were similar: classroom singing, private piano and organ lessons, and usually both a girls’ and a boys’ choir.
Life as a Music Teacher Most principals respected this schedule and seldom called upon music teachers to substitute, but they might be interrupted during the day to answer the door or put a roast in the oven. Larger schools were staffed by two music teachers, the older one often serving as a mentor to the younger. At St. Joseph Academy in Des Moines, a K-12 operation, Angelista found herself one of five music teachers. The department stressed theory, so she had help to improve her own skills. A major activity for music teachers was preparing the children’s choirs, not only for the daily Mass and occasional funerals, but also for major liturgies on Christmas and Easter. Their first task was teaching the correct Latin pronunciation. Even during these sessions, Maura Purcell tried to intersperse a bit of fun by including Mary Poppins or Scott Joplin along with Pange Lingua. Community regulations made a music teacher’s life challenging, since at one time the Sisters could not play the organ or direct a choir in public. However, each of the Sisters recalls at least one mission where she did play the organ or direct the choir for the children’s Mass, the weekly novena, funerals and in one case—mirabile dictu—weddings. When Angelista was at St. Agatha’s in Chicago, the organ was run by water. In the winter, the pipes occasionally froze. No music that day.
Mary Ann Shea was once allowed to accompany her choir at such an event, but she and the piano remained backstage. Of necessity, the music teacher’s life was a solitary one. In some places they were not included in faculty meetings. During summer schools, in addition to classes and study, they usually took piano lessons and had to practice, so they frequently missed the evening gatherings of shared stories. Mary Ann Shea recalls teaching private lessons certain summers so the other sisters could afford classes. But one advantage for a music teacher was continuing with the same students from year to year, watching young musicians develop. However, if a teacher had built up a successful program, an August reassignment was even more difficult.
Dedication, Creativity When she realized that this “temporary” job would likely continue, she determined to be as prepared as possible, resuming private piano lessons, taking theory courses by correspondence, enrolling in a summer course in choirmaster techniques, and eventually receiving a degree in music from Clarke College. She continued in music until she retired 50 years later. While Maura Purcell had hoped to teach theology, her background in music favored that field. Maura considers music a form of literature. As small children want to read a story themselves, they are also impatient to play a tune. Maura believes children’s first music lessons should include a simple song that they can play immediately, even before reading the notes. She would begin with easy arrangements, from show tunes to classical, just so her students would enjoy playing the piano as much as she did. With the advent of Vatican II and its emphasis on improving liturgical practices in the church, Maura pursued a further degree in religious studies, with an emphasis in liturgical music. She felt that school music teachers, who had prepared children’s choirs for years for liturgical ceremonies, were in a perfect position to shift to parish ministry. From then until she retired, she served as parish music coordinator. Although none of the Sisters could name a former student who had become a music professional, many are probably involved in liturgy committees and parish choirs. And one former student became a bishop. Angelista can boast of Joseph Sartoris, a recently retired bishop of Los Angeles, who studied organ with her in California. To show his appreciation for her efforts, he traveled to Iowa in 2002 to attend her 75th Jubilee. At age 96, Angelista continues her music, playing for the monthly birthday celebrations at Marian Hall and frequently ending with a medley of old favorites. A lifelong work has been a musical narration she calls “The Story of Poppa Joe,” which she and a friend invented in high school. Poppa Joe knows only one tune, “Auld Lang Syne,” but Angelista has added variations on that theme, changing the style and tempo in the course of her stories. In one version Poppa Joe travels the globe as his song becomes a jig, a polka or a tango. Poppa Joe has had a great run, and so has his creator. One would like to think that the piano transported from Philadelphia was a symbol of a love of the arts. But in reality, music provided a means of livelihood. In some parishes, the stipend the Sisters received barely covered the costs of food and clothing at the local level. Many of the expenses of the motherhouse and the novitiate depended upon the income generated by the music teachers. As Catherine Clarke enabled the community to begin, music teachers through the years have provided a valuable service to the BVM community, as well as to their students. A popular bumper sticker exhorts, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” If you can sing in a choir, or play the organ, or just delight in a concert or an opera, thank a music teacher. Endnote
About the author: Margaret A. McGinn, BVM (Daniel Anne) is an adjunct faculty member of Truman College, Chicago, and is a member of the Communications Advisory Committee. Return
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In Maywood, Ill., Gracia’s
choirs sang from the front of the church at the Sunday High Mass, but she
could direct only from the choir loft. When the students performed in the
local stores at Christmas time, she could not attend, so the church organist
and the students’ mothers chaperoned and perhaps taped the concert for the
teacher.