Editor’s note: This is the sixth, and final, article in a series profiling winners of the Celebration of Giving awards presented by Shawano Area Community Foundation Inc. for outstanding volunteerism. The winners were honored at a gala Tuesday.
As a little girl Barbara Erickson pretended to play the piano, so her mom offered to send her to lessons. But Erickson was very shy.
“I didn’t want to be alone with the teacher,” she said.
Her mother knitted mittens while Erickson took lessons when she started high school. That led to a lifetime of volunteering to play the piano for her church and area nursing homes, earning Erickson the Health Care Volunteer Award, sponsored by ThedaCare Physicians, from the Shawano Area Community Foundation.
“It’s so nice to be able to share my hobby,” Erickson said.
Erickson was working at Birch Hill Care Center as a nurse’s aide when she volunteered to play piano for chapel services. When needed, Erickson would prepare a Bible verse and songs to accompany it, depending on the time of year.
“Barbara has been volunteering to help meet the spiritual needs of residents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities,” wrote Helen Raddant, Oakhaven Assisted Living activity director, who nominated Erickson for the SACF award presented Tuesday.
Erickson volunteered from 1979 to 1983 before her commitment to the Shawano Christian Women’s Group took her away for five years. In 1988 she began playing at Evergreen Health Care Center for chapel services, eventually adding Manor Care and Birch Hill. Since 2002 Erickson spends Wednesday mornings playing at chapel services.
In 2003 she started a sing-along at Oakhaven and also at its second facility when it was built in 2008. She is always pleasing the residents.
“I ask them what’s their favorite,” Erickson said.
The songs come from a hymnal that has 108 songs in large print. She plays eight to 10 songs numerically in a row so the residents don’t have to look for them in the hymnals.
“Even the ones who can’t see the book will sing the songs they know,” she said.
Eventually the hymns led Erickson to a new project. She looks up the information on the composers to give a short lesson on each hymn.
“I have background on all of them now,” Erickson said. “I’m always learning something new.”
She does the same thing for her church, Bethany Baptist Church near Tilleda, where she has played the piano for services since 1978. Each Sunday she does a history of one of the songs for the bulletin.
“Learning hymn history is a hobby with me,” she said. “The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn.”
Erickson has a supply of books and hymnals for her research; for more modern composers, she goes on the Internet. She has accumulated books from people who know about her hobby.
“Others are aware of my love of the history,“ Erickson said. “I just have a ball looking through the books.”
When Erickson moved to Shawano in 1981 she gave piano lessons.
“Being a piano teacher, she has also had some of her students do piano recitals held for the residents at the facilities,” Raddant wrote.
Right now she has 30 piano students, down from a high of 70.
Her husband of 53 years, Roger, helps her students with flash cards during their 15-minute study time after practice.
“I enjoy music, and I enjoy teaching,” Erickson said.
She will give her SACF $1,000 award to The Salvation Army. Some of her friends were bell ringers last year, and Erickson plans to join them this year.
“It’s a surprise to get rewarded for something I enjoy doing,” she said. “I’m glad to be able to share it with others.”
Categories
