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AI: I, I wanted to ask you a little bit about some of your community and church activities over the years.

MH: Oh, that's another episode. [Laughs] My husband became very active in the Optimist group, the service group downtown. And then, of course, being an accountant (he was asked to) serve on the board of directors for the Methodist hospital. And the interesting thing is that at the time he was serving on this board of directors for the Methodist hospital, they were interested in buying up property around the hospital to create assisted living, a nursing home, and a retirement center. And it's just recently when I moved into this retirement home, recently about, about a month ago, it's on the spot of the land that he had acquired for the Methodist (Hospital). So after all these years, over twenty-five years, the reality of the Methodist board's dream has become... and I'm able, fortunate to be in one of the complexes. So that's the story there.

MH: And then, of course, he was active in our church, too. The board of trustees and always on the finance committee. [Laughs] But he enjoyed it. Then, of course, I got involved in the music program. The pastor, when I first joined the church, says, "The group of children that loves to sing." [Laughs] So I organized the children's choir first. And then a couple years later the senior choir director resigned, and they asked me to take over for a couple weeks. So I had it for four years until my second child came. I had to give it up. And then... I'm still singing in the choir. We have a wonderful director. A wonderful, wonderful director whose wife is a Metropolitan Opera star. Sings in the Met-, New York and all over in these wonderful opera. And they have two daughters that are just developing. One is through college, the other one is entering college. I think one of them... the first, maybe both of them are scholarship students. And it's been thrilling to hear their voice develop from a teenager into a mature... and they are so unselfish. They come, when they are in town to come to our rehearsal and sing with us. And she is so generous. She helps young singers with pointers here and very gently. And it gives us an added, you know. And then not only that, he's connected with a publishing house, (...) sacred music publishing house. Well, I'm pretty well-acquainted with the standard music repertoire, but we keep up with these new things that are coming off the press, is exciting.

One of our girls from our church married a missionary that went to Africa and various countries, and she was a music major. In fact, she was my accompanist with my junior choir, and she being a music major, her ear was always attuned to native folk songs, and she came back from her first term in Africa and says, "Mae, that African music is simply out of this world." She said, "It should be kept in the church." When you realize that our early missionaries introduced all these sacred music from our... disregarding the natives then. Well, currently, some music, African music came off the press, and we have become acquainted with them. One Sunday we had a speaker, Jim Sawyer, who's one of the vice presidents of the American University in Zimbabwe, he was the speaker. So in his honor, he trained our choir in an African song called "The African Sanctus," and we sang it in Swahili in his honor that Sunday morning. And he was just stunned to hear this wonderful African music in the American congregation. So that kind of experience holds, I know I don't have too much to offer vocally, but I enjoy being with the young people and the enthusiasm and the kind of work we do, so I'm still singing. [Laughs]

AI: That sounds wonderful.

MH: So our church life is, continues to hold our interest. And, of course, the United Methodist women has strong outreach in the foreign field all over. We've had many, many missionaries from some of these outstanding, like Eiwa College, Isabelle Thoburn College, and all over. Recently I heard that one of our young people, young, young girl, has been, accepted a job to teach English in Korea just outside of Seoul. And I'm anxious for her to keep in touch with Eiwa college, some of the staff members that have been trained in Madison. Of course, most of my friends are gone now, which is tragic. But there's a few, so we're trying to connect to her so she could get the broad picture of our church with the church, the work over there and the connection. Because a lot of our young women don't know that, how even one missionary with two or three students is now a great big institution like Eiwa college and Thoburn College and things of that kind. And I thought that vision would help, so that's where we are right now. Our younger generation is beginning to reach out and it's thrilling. It's thrilling.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.