Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990 TAG: 9003081706
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARIANNA FILLMORE SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
She also creates beautiful quilts, knits and crochets, fashioning her own patterns and designs for sweaters, gloves and pot-holders.
She reads voraciously, averaging four books a week, and loves to walk in the woods, grow African violets, talk with her friends, shop the malls and bake cookies.
And, by the way, Mary Ruth Clarke is 88 years old.
Silver-haired, with an easy, ready laugh, Clarke protests that there is nothing special about her life or talents, but a glance around the room belies her words.
From the huge quilt that graces a living room wall to the emerald green sweater she is wearing, from the small organ nestled in a nook to the blooming violets on a windowsill, evidence of her full, active life abounds.
Take her music, for instance. Clarke has been the organist at Fairlawn Baptist Church since she and her husband moved to the area from Florida 12 years ago. Every Sunday she plays gospel music for about 10 minutes before the worship service. She and the church pianist together play the hymns during the service and they take turns during the offering.
Clarke does her own hymn arrangements, putting her individual touch to classical and gospel music.
"When I can't sleep, I find a hymn running through my head," she said, "and I think: `now what do I want to do with this, what chords do I want to change, how do I fill in the rests and interludes.'"
Listening to her play is a pleasure. Her music ebbs and flows, washing over the listener in gentle swells. Despite her age, she sits erect and strokes the keys with steady fingers. Her stockinged feet move surely among the pedals. Her body sways slightly with the music, leaning into the strong notes and relaxing with the softer ones.
"I don't think I have any special talent for playing the organ," Clarke said. "Maybe it's just sort of a different touch that people hear, maybe a sustaining of the notes that make it sound a little different."
She plays for her own pleasure, too, as well as that of her husband.
"Lots of times he likes for me to play as he goes to sleep. He says it relaxes him, especially the hymns he's familiar with."
Clarke has been playing the piano and the organ since she was a child. Her father was a Methodist minister in Southwest Virginia and eastern Tennessee. She remembers riding with him by horse and buggy to various churches to play during his services.
Her mother was an evangelical soloist and, as early as age 14, Clarke would accompany her on the organ or piano.
Clarke attended Hiwassee College, a Methodist school in Madisonville, Tenn., at a time when most people still believed that a girl didn't need much education. She earned a liberal arts degree in 1922.
That summer she took a course in public school music at Radford College, then accepted a teaching position in Wheelwright, Ky., where she also gave private piano lessons. It was there that John Clarke, a young building contractor, claimed her heart and within a year made her his bride. They have been married 67 years.
Music has remained a big part of Clarke's life. Over the last half century she has served as choir director, organist or pianist for various churches in Kentucky, Florida and Virginia.
Her talent has always been in demand. When she and her husband moved to Melrose, Fla., in the mid-1940s, the town's only Methodist church did not have an organ. The congregation soon discovered Clarke's ability and arranged to purchase a small organ on a payment plan so she could play each Sunday.
A Church of God in the same town had a large Hammond organ, her favorite, but no organist. She was asked to play for the Sunday evening services.
In 1977, Clarke and her husband moved from Florida to Fairlawn to live with their only daughter. The Clarkes have four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren from Florida to the Philippines.
A friend of her daughter's was choir director at Fairlawn Baptist Church which was without an organist. Clarke was asked to interview for the job and she's been playing ever since.
Crafts give Clarke almost as much pleasure as her music. She started quilting soon after she was married. She has made quilts for all her family and many of her friends. She also has sold several to neighbors and on commission at a craft store in Galax.
She also enjoys knitting and crocheting, especially sweaters and gloves. Here again, sticking strictly to an established pattern is not for her. She experiments with her own designs and styles.
"I make so many more things than I can use or than the family can use, and I just like to have a little something for friends when they come in or when they do a favor for me," she said.
Asked about her philosophy of life, Clarke said that living a Christian life is important.
"Thinking of and doing for others," she said.
by CNB