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AT HOME — Alta Eisch poses for a photograph in her Dunlap Center apartment.(Continued from preceding page)be doing half her job.Alta packed her bags and two trunks of music and headed home to Beardstown.“After being a long time away, to A resume living in one’s small hometown is not easily done,” Alta once wrote. “I found myself utterly lost, discontented, and most unhappy. 1 prayed to the heavens for something which would give me an interest in life.”Within a year, Alta was asked to become organist at St. Alexius Catholic Church in Beardstown. “I was loathe to assume this responsibility as I knew nothing about the Catholic ritual and liturgy, but, in my extremity, I felt an urge to try,” she wrote. “After a short time, during which I made every effort to learn all I could about my new work, I knew that at last I had found something for which I had been searching.”She returned to the formal study of music as a special student at Mac-Murray College and for eight years — off and on — studied organ under Ruth Melville Bellatti. Alta’s lessons were moved to the organ at the Church of Our Saviour which, at that time, was the only organ of its size and quality in Jacksonville.“Monsignor Formaz used to sit downstairs and listen to me practice,” Alta said. “One time, he said to Ruth, ‘That woman makes a good noise. I’m going to hire her.’ ” When Formaz added a salaried position of music director at Routt High School to his offer, Alta accepted. My mother died in April, 1947, and I moved to Jacksonville andstarted 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.“I 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 think that helped a lot of people.“I still get about 10 or so letters every Christmas from ex-patients who say I helped them.”Alta remained as music therapist with the State Hospital until 1971, when she retired after a flurry of health problems.In 1970, Alta’s right hand was accidentally crushed in a car door■ Continued on next page
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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