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AT HOME — Alta Eisch poses for a photograph in her Dunlap Center apartment.Continued from preceding page)e doing half her job.Alta packed her bags and two runks of music and headed home to leardstown.“After being a long time away, to esume living in one’s small home-uwn is not easily done,” Alta once /rote. “I found myself utterly lost, liscontented, and most unhappy. I •rayed to the heavens for something vhich would give me an interest in ife.”Within a year, Alta was asked to ecome organist at St. Alexius Catholic Church in Beardstown. “1 vas loathe to assume this responsi-nlity as I knew nothing about the Jatholic ritual and liturgy, but, in my :xtremity, I felt an urge to try,” she vrote. “After a short time, during vhich I made every effort to learn all [ could about my new work, I knew hat at last I had found something for vhich I had been searching.”She returned to the formal study of nusic as a special student at Mac-Vturray College and for eight years — off and on — studied organ under Ruth Melville Bellatti. Alta’s lessons vere moved to the organ at the Jhurch of Our Saviour which, at that ime, was the only organ of its sizestarted teaching at Routt that very fall.” Her father had died five years before. She remained head organist at Our Saviour’s for the next 33 years.Alta continued her study of organ at Pope Pius X School of Liturgical Music in New York City where she earned her degree. She also had special instruction with Dr. Mario Salva-dore, famed organist at the St. Louis Cathedral.Dr. Louis Belinson, then superintendent of the Jacksonville State Hospital also saw her talent and offered her a part-time position.“1 went as a musician. I played the church services and things like that, but when the State (Hospital) added the music therapy program, I grabbed it,” she said.Alta left her position at Routt and became a licensed music therapist. She had a group of about SO patients in a chorus that performed at the Illinois State Fair, on television, and on a bi-monthly radio program on WLDS radio. She also worked with the patients individually.“Whatever talent a person had, I tried to develop that,” Alta said. “If I had a little girl out of the mountains who could play a dulcimer, I’d say,‘Well, OK, we’ll work on that.’ And I
Newspaper Details
Jacksonville Journal Courier
Jacksonville, Illinois, US
Sun, Aug 25, 1985
Page 75
Full Page
Clipped by
Cole O.
NA, 08 Feb 2023
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