Northeast Michigan Oral History and Historic Photograph Archive

Carol Witherbee Interview

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Oral Interview Part 1: Oral Interview Part 1
Transcription: CK: This is Cindy Kus interviewing Carol Witherbee for the first time on June 2nd, 2015, in the Alpena County Library. This interview is sponsored by the library's oral history program and is part of the Musicians of Northeast Michigan project. Hello Carol. CW: Hello, thank you. CK: I understand that you are originally from Wisconsin. CW: Umhuh. I grew up in LaCrosse. Um, and ah, it seemed at the time I left it that it was such a long time that I'd lived there, and really only, ah twenty some years by the time I got married and moved to Alpena. CK: Oh, okay, that… you did a lot in between based on what I've seen in those twenty years. So…was…I'm, I'm searching on your musical background. CW: Okay CK: Was your family musical? What were the origins of, of music in your life? CW: Well, um, I think my family was musical. My mother ah, noted that I was a musical child early on, and encouraged that by taking me to all the symphonies, uh, they would have been community concert type symphony programs, and um, my father used to sing on the radio in St. Louis while he was a medical student he sang a program called "Stephen Foster Melodies." And you can bet that at our piano at home I heard every Stephen Foster song there that ever was written. CK: Oh, wow. So, LaCrosse is…what's the size of LaCrosse? CW: Ah LaCrosse has, um, grown a bit since... I would say it's about 60,000 now…sixty to sixty-five thousand. CK: Okay, so the programs that they had there were substantial. CW: Oh, yes. And I started my college education in LaCrosse, first going to Viterbo College, um, which was a small college for women, a Catholic college, run by the sisters, uh, Franciscan sisters, and I started there mainly because the nun that I was studying with, past high school, would not take students of college age, unless they were of a Viterbo student. And I wanted to continue to study with her, because she had really brought me up a good long way. CK: You studied music with her. CW: I studied voice, voice. Then I transferred to LaCrosse State College, which is now the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse, to study with another, ah, young woman who was quite proficient and I thought at that time it would behoove me to get a different, um, perspective. And then I finally ended up going to Valparaiso University from which I graduated with a degree in voice performance and music education and, there is a church music tacked on on there somewhere. CK: I saw that. CW: Yeah. CK: Yeah. So, did you ever use the church music part of that? CW: Well, I actually did, in becoming our church choir director for quite a number of years. CK: In Alpena? CW: Here in Alpena. And um, just doing that. I never, I never really used it for teaching or of anything in that area. CK: I've never given very much consideration to church music as its own, its own, entity. CW: Oh my goodness. Well, Valparaiso University is a Missouri Synod Lutheran college, and, um, some of the graduates with degrees in church music go on to these huge, huge, churches in large cities where… CK: Cathedrals and… CW: Oh, yes. They're responsible for all the music in those… CK: And that is a huge part of… the church. CW: Right, of course. CK: That's interesting. Okay, and I also saw somewhere in there that you won some…you were voted the outstanding young soprano in the state of Wisconsin. CW: Yes, isn't that wonderful? The contest was held on the campus of Eau Claire State University, the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire now. And, the first prize was a monetary something, I don't know, it wasn't maybe a hundred dollars or whatever, but the choice prize for me was being able to perform with their symphony. Which was you know was a thrill, my first time doing that and so… CK: Do you remember what it was you performed? CW: I performed a piece from The Marriage of Figaro, which I later sang at Valparaiso as the character of Susanna. "Non so piu cosa son" was the name of the aria, and of course I did it in Italian. CK: Oh! That's beautiful. CW: As a voice major you had to have language pronunciation, you didn't possibly know what you were saying, but I had to have German, and French, and Italian; because so much vocal music is written in those languages. CK: So you didn't necessarily need to understand it, you just needed to know how to pronounce it. CW: Pronunciation. CK: Interesting too. Okay. So how did you end up in Alpena, Michigan? CW: Well, I met my husband when he returned to LaCrosse to do his Master's Degree, he had been teaching in Colorado. He returned to LaCrosse to do his Masters and I was a student at LaCrosse at the time. And I had a night class and so did he and for some reason we met in the hallway on a break and ah through a mutual friend who really, and so… CK: Was kind of orchestrating this? CW: Well, um, I think the ski party was not really orchestrated; it was just a happenstance. CK: So that was before you went to Indiana. CW: Yes, it was. Right. CK: So you met him there and then you went to school in Indiana and then somehow both of you ended up in Northeast Michigan. CW: Right. Well, um, actually I went to Indiana with a ring on my finger, which was, just made my mother totally, she thought, oh, I'm cutting my nose off to spite my face. But, it was apparently meant to be because I, and there were, there were fellows in the music department at Valpo that were engaged to women on other campuses, so we always kind of hung around together, and one of them wrote a song cycle, which is a composition of little pieces of music, for me, for my voice, he was a composition major and entered it in a contest at Butler University in Indiana, and we happened to, or he happened to win that contest and so, I went down to accept the award with him and sang with the Indianapolis Symphony. Just doing that particular piece. So that was very exciting. A major, you know, symphony. CK: Um, have you since then done any performances with large symphonies? CW: Um, well let's see. Oh, I was invited to, when I was at Valparaiso, I was invited to sing with the LaCrosse Symphony also, which has, it's called The Great River Symphony now, and has really developed into quite a fine symphony. CK: So, your husband, was he involved in music? CW: No. No, he and a friend of his, who apparently, as how the story goes, was interested in dating me as well, they were very good friends, but they faked the need for a couple of voice lessons to come over to my house and I thought, well what am I going to do with these two? I didn't realize that was just a ploy, but my mother did. CK: She saw through that. CW: Yes. CK: Okay, so, Alpena again…how did you get here? CW: Well, Roger had the opportunity to come here when, ah, the community school program was going strong, and that was a program that was a kind of, let's see if I can remember this correctly. Um, it was a program to involve adults in the community and children after school hours, to give the community more ownership in the schools. For example, he would set up, find teachers, and organize classes in Bishop Sewing and fly-tying, and things of that nature that would bring people in, in the evening hours for classes. And that was a big thing in Alpena back when we came here, it was um, there were, I think, were six community school directors at the time. CK: Was it a little bit like Adult Education? CW: Yes, actually, yes, that would be another name for it. CK: Okay, okay…I remember fly-fishing classes, my brother took fly-fishing classes after school. So I am wondering, what year would that have been? CW: Well, we got married in '68. So, it would have been, it, the program was going before we got married. But then we had our twin boys in 1972. At that time they were cutting funds and cut community education out. So Roger had a chance to go on, to take a Mott Scholarship or take a principalship here in Alpena and here we were with two babies, we had just bought a house, and so he decided to stay here. CK: Okay. So you had two young children. Were you teaching at that point? CW: I was teaching a couple of years before. I actually came into Alpena as a hire. CK: Oh, okay. CW: That was very, very fortunate for me. I was a January graduate. And, um, so the schools just happened to need someone and I was lucky enough to be hired as a full -time teacher at that time. CK: At what level? CW: Ah, elementary. CK: And did you go from school to school? CW: I did. CK: You were a travelling music teacher. CW: My first assignment was Sunset School, Lincoln School, hmm…cranking the old brain cells here. CK: You're doing a good job. CW: I'm sure there was one more; but yes it was a circuit, once a week to visit at, and of course we had, probably, um, five or six full time music teachers at that time, because students would see us two times a week, rather than one, which it is now. And so, the population when we first came to Alpena of elementary students was over ten thousand. CK: Wow. CW: And now we have dwindled down, of course, to closing so many buildings…so… CK: I guess that was a time when the industry was flourishing here and what do you think the difference is, has…what's caused the decrease in population? CW: Well, I think, um, I think for one thing, the closing of Portland Huron Cement was a big influence there. And the fact that our community suddenly became a place where our young people did not want to return to raise their families because the job opportunities here were limited- and we kind of became a community of retirees, which we still are. CK: So music was considered important at that time. CW: It was considered, oh yes, I think so, yeah. CK: Did they have other art programs? CW: Well they had art, elementary art, and they had, of course, physical education. And all of those programs were cut pretty much
Creators: Cindy Kus; Carol Witherbee
, Interviewee
Media Type: Audio
Item Type: Interviews
Description: Carol Witherbee is a vocalist, music educator, choir director, plays the dulcimer and has directed local theatrical productions. She began her career in the Alpena Public Schools teaching music in the elementary classroom in the late 1960s.
Place of Publication: Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library
Date of Original: June 2015
Date Of Event: 1960s-2015
Playing Time: 01:02:52
Subject(s): Music education
Musical instruments
Operas & operettas
Theaters
Theatrical productions
Oral histories
Personal Name(s): Witherbee, Carol
Corporate Name(s): Alpena Civic Theater ; Thunder Bay Theater ; Three On A String
Collection: Musicians of Northeast Michigan
Language of Item: English
Copyright Statement: Protected by copyright: Uses other than research or private study require the permission of the rightsholder(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Copyright Date: 2015
Copyright Holder: Alpena County George N. Fletcher Library
Recommended Citation: In Text- Witherbee, C. (2015)
Reference- Witherbee, C.(2015, June 2)Retrieved from http://www.nemoha.org/3235701/data?n=2
Contact: Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library
Email:specialcollections@alpenalibrary.org
Website:
https://www.alpenalibrary.org

Agency street/mail address:
211 N. First Ave.
Alpena, Michigan 49707
USA
(989)356-6188
Transcription: Cindy Kus

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