The beginnings of my organ study

Roswell Presbyterian Church-Historic Sanctuary (1840), Roswell, Georgia, USA

At Roswell Presbyterian Church, in the Historic Sanctuary, the choir sang from the rear gallery (formerly the slave gallery). The back row of the choir (four people) sat between the pipe chambers. The rope that rang the old ship's bell in the tower hung down above that back row. Oh how I worked to be asked to go ring the bell signaling that Sunday School was over. If I did I got to see the organ console and peek into the pipe chambers!

Historic Sanctuary interior.
Note the silver on the communion table (center in front of the pews). This silver had to be hidden during the American Civil War. The city of Roswell was occupied by Union troops and our church was used as a Yankee hospital.

In 1978 I was in the 9th grade and finally allowed to study the organ. My first organ teacher was the late Jacquie Hollingsworth. Lessons and practice were on the Moeller Artiste in the gallery of Roswell Presbyterian. I was given a key to the church and rode the MARTA bus (15 cents) from the end of our driveway on Alpharetta Highway to the intersection of Alpharetta Highway and Oak Street in downtown Roswell. Then I walked up the hill to the church and practiced, nearly every day. I had a key to the church before I had a key to the family home!

Console of a typical Moeller Artiste.

Each week Sandra Crawford (lead soprano in the church choir, family friend and musical guru) had to come hear me play the organ to pass judgement on my progress. She usually approved.

Bulloch Hall, Roswell, Georgia, USA (1839)
Home of Mittie Bulloch the mother of President Theodore Roosevelt

Very soon I was asked to play the organ for a wedding on the front porch of Bulloch Hall, a historic home in Roswell. The "instrument" was a rented spinet organ with two half keyboards and only 13 short pedals. The wedding was on a hot Georgia summer day. One of the groomsmen fainted, not from my amazing rendition of Here Comes the Bride but probably from a mixture of too much shine and the heat.

Coming next - my first two church jobs, my second organ teacher, and my first contact with tracker organs and a Steinway grand piano.