A career in theater may not have seemed inevitable when I was a child, but a career in music definitely seemed so. My parents had had a local radio show, along with my father’s sister, called “Candlelight and Silver.” Every weekday evening for fifteen minutes, they would perform music to dine by. My dad and his sister would sing and my mother would play the piano. My father was also a member of two choruses, The Cumberland Valley Choristers and The Arion Choristers. He often sang solos with them in live performances and on the radio. He was a paid soloist on a church choir and played Santa Claus, and his elf Roly Poly, on the radio for thirty years.
The organist/choir director at my family’s church, St. Mark’s Lutheran, Hagerstown, Maryland, was a versatile musician who was as comfortable with popular music as she was with sacred music. “Miss Helen” (Helen Beachley), as we called her, music directed and played for shows put on at our church. Though my sister and I were called upon by our parents to perform duets when company came to our home, I think the 1950 Tom Thumb Wedding may have been my first public performance. I, dressed as Dale Evans, sang “Happy Trails to You” with Tony South, who was dressed as Roy Rogers.
My mother waited until I asked for piano lessons before signing me up. My sister had begun lessons at the age of six, but I didn’t express interest until I was eight years old. Both my sister and I studied with Julia Belle Westphal, a Hagerstown woman who held a certificate from Peabody Conservatory. We were fortunate to have such good teaching from the very beginning.
