Music has built her faith | Cnhi Oklahoma

The piano was vital to Janie Ridgway and he or she wished her oldest daughter Cynthia to take classes.

They have been farmers dwelling out by Hunter within the Nineteen Fifties and issues have been robust. So, Ridgway raised chickens and offered them and the eggs to pay for her 5-year-old daughter’s piano classes. So Cynthia Smith took piano classes in Enid with Mrs. Brown, who lived the place the YMCA presently is situated.

Piano classes have been a lifetime blessing from her mom. “Playing is a form of worship for me,” Smith mentioned. She mentioned studying to play the piano and the organ has helped Smith construct her faith and her life.

Smith, 76, has given piano classes to college students for greater than 50 years, together with taking part in in virtually each church in Enid and for Brown-Cummings Funeral Home.

“I get lots of calls to play,” Smith mentioned. “There is a great need for piano players. The younger generations haven’t been as interested in learning and playing.”

Smith’s first piano job was on the Hunter Christian Church at age 12, filling in for her aunt, who she adored and was her function mannequin.

In 1963 Smith acquired married and moved to Enid, the place she began taking part in the piano and organ in church buildings across the metropolis.

She started at First Baptist Church, finally transferring to Garland Baptist Church earlier than going to Oakwood Christian Church. At Oakwood, her sister performed the piano and he or she performed the organ.

Over the years, Smith mentioned she has performed in a number of different church buildings together with Davis Park, University Christian Church and has stuffed her schedule with each weddings and funerals.

Smith mentioned she began instructing youngsters in 1964, and has had anyplace from 10 to 25 college students on a weekly foundation.

Smith mentioned taking part in the piano helps a toddler with studying abilities and math, saying it “opens up the brain.”

Over the years she has had quite a lot of youngsters compete within the Tri-State Music Festival. She mentioned she has a pupil that may work on a chunk for 9 months to carry out in a contest.

“I competed in Tri-State. The carnival was so fun,” she mentioned, laughing.

Many of her college students went on to play in church buildings in Oklahoma and in different states. Today, she mentioned a few of her college students are of their 70s and 80s.

“They want to exercise their brain and stay alert and healthy,” Smith mentioned.

She mentioned the best problem to her music and faith got here with the start of her daughter, who’s autistic, nonverbal with imaginative and prescient and listening to points.

“From the time she was 3 until she started school, we went to Oklahoma City three times a week for therapy at the child’s study center,” Smith mentioned. “There were no programs in Enid at the time for children with disabilities.”

Smith mentioned she turned concerned with the White House conferences, to offer enter to legal guidelines that affected youngsters with disabilities. They held these conferences all around the nation and finally despatched delegations to Washington, D.C., to form legal guidelines for individuals with disabilities.

Smith turned president of the Oklahoma Association on Deaf, Blind and the Handicapped. She did workshops on the brand new regulation in surrounding states and through this time, mentioned she leaned on her music and faith.

Smith mentioned she advocated for her daughter to go to public faculties with the Enid college board in 1976.

“There were no handicap programs, but eventually, with a newspaper article of my situation and my constant badgering, 20 other families came forward and our children got in public school,” Smith mentioned.

A grant offered her youngster with an help at school for her whole schooling. She mentioned throughout these struggles, taking part in music was her remedy.

Today, Smith nonetheless offers piano classes and mentioned she all the time is glad to play when requested. She additionally mentioned music has been her anchor throughout her divorce after 32 years, when she misplaced her grown son to dependancy and with the challenges of her 52-year-old daughter, who she adores and lives with her and her second husband, Robert.

She mentioned they bowl collectively and love going to casinos.

Smith is president of the native chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution, and mentioned she loves historical past — actual historical past.

She mentioned she is worked up about taking part in at a memorial in early November for a person who requested Bach and Beethoven. She additionally has a pupil at The Commons who needs to study to play one music, “Last Date,” by Floyd Cramer.