Rosalyn Westphal first played the organ in church when she was 11, accompanying her father’s congregation in rural Hancock, Minnesota.
Westphal, 85, will play for her final services this weekend at St. James Lutheran Church in Shawano.
Westphal is still quite active, but her eyesight has grown weaker, making it more difficult for her to read the sheet music she plays for four services each week, not to mention funerals, weddings, a special senior worship service once a month and many more events.
Westphal learned to play the piano when she was 8, so when her father was looking for an organist for the country church, he didn’t have to look any further than family,
“He needed an organist, and since I knew how to play, I was there,” Westphal said, noting that her mother also knew how to play but only helped on an occasional basis. “I started on an old reed organ — a pedal organ.”
Reed organs are different than the modern pipe organs in many churches, including St. James, today. With a reed organ, the organist had to pump pedals to increase the volume.
“It was like the first pipe organ in the sense that you had to get air in to produce sounds,” Westphal said.
Wespthal said she wasn’t scared the first time she played for her church because she loved playing on the piano. She said she was too young to be very nervous.
“It went well, so I kept it up,” she said.
The family later served at other churches in North Dakota and Nebraska, and Westphal followed, continuing to play the organ wherever her father preached. Services were provided in English and German, she said, and Westphal learned the music for both languages.
After high school graduation, she went to Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska. Westphal took formal pipe organ lessons to improve her skills.
Westphal went into teaching after college, working in parochial elementary schools for 36 years. She taught a variety of subjects, but her last six years were exclusively in music education, and she always served as the school’s organist.
She taught in Sheboygan and Milwaukee before moving to Shawano in 1983, when she married her husband, Ken. Shortly after arriving, she took up the organist duties at St. James. In 1997, she also started playing at St. Jakobi Lutheran Church in the town of Richmond; her final service for St. Jakobi was last weekend.
Playing the organ in Shawano is a full-time job, Westphal said. With St. James having one of the larger Lutheran congregations in the area, the church hosted many weddings and funerals, and Westphal was on hand to provide music for them.
“Then I also had the choirs and the teaching in school, so it was more than a full-time job,” Westphal said.
Westphal said she was challenged by certain composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach and Paul Manz. Otherwise, playing classical and sacred music came easily to her.
“I enjoyed the worship services. That was my thing. I grew up with that,” Westphal said. “I always loved church music and the classics. It was my love — music.”
As much as she enjoys playing, Westphal decided she would step away from the organ in 2014 and let someone else take charge.
“It’s getting more difficult to read the notes, and I don’t want to keep making mistakes, because I know I can do better,” she said. “This year, I felt it was time.”
“I will miss St. James’ instrument. It’s a beautiful, big pipe organ,” Westphal said, before adding, “I won’t miss the schedule.”
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