55° OVERCAST, Music teacher Lily Greer dies at age 104
Last Modified: Friday, August 29, 2008 at 1:46 p.m.
Lily Greer, a lifelong teacher and believer in the life-enriching power of music, died in Santa Rosa on Thursday, three weeks after her 104th birthday.
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For a number of years in the 1960s, a music program by Greer brought 1,000 or more Sonoma County fifth- and sixth-graders to the county fairgrounds for a great choral concert.
She also was a mainstay of the Santa Rosa Concert Association for many years, and she founded the choir at Faith Lutheran Church.
Though Greer required a wheelchair in recent years and lost sight in one eye, she astounded relatives and friends with her unfailingly bright mind and memory.
She studied music education at UCLA and USC in the 1920s, then taught music for years at schools in and near Los Angeles. She supervised music education in Tulare County for a decade before moving north to Santa Rosa in 1953 and becoming the music consultant to the Sonoma County Office of Education, a post she kept for 17 years.
In a 1998 interview with The Press Democrat, Greer lamented the decline of music in the public schools.
“I believe in a two-prong program, both instrumental and choral,” she said then, at age 94, “In addition, every single child should be given an opportunity to get acquainted with music through the classroom.”
A memorial service for the lifelong friend of music will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, at Faith Lutheran Church on Santa Rosa’s Newanga Avenue.
Her family suggests memorial donations to the Lily Greer Memorial Fund, Faith Lutheran Church, P.O. Box 2391, Santa Rosa, CA 95405.
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August 29, 2008 2:16:50 pm
RE: Link
If our public schools weren't pandering to the liberal left indoctrination and educating the offspring of the invaders from the south OUR American citizens would be able to get a well-rounded education, that should include art, music and physical education and sports.
But with all the ESL education going on and the tolerance-based p.c. programs the schools have foisted on them, art and music are always the first to go.
It's no wonder our schools are failing and our students are falling behind. They aren't getting what they need to succeed in math, science and the written language (spelling, grammar, punctuation and proper word usage.)
Thanks liberal/socialists; you have taken our public education system into the ditch and turned it into nothing but institutions of liberal indoctrination! Thanks, too, to the liberal teachers' union and the liberal agenda of the NEA!
August 29, 2008 3:17:02 pm
May angels be her students and make beautiful music for all eternity.
August 29, 2008 9:04:50 pm
I knew Lily for all my life. It was an honor to sing for her on her birthday a few weeks back. I lament the fact that my son will not know her the way that I did. I relish that she enjoyed his company as much as I enjoyed hers. She will be missed by all in our church. She'll get that choir of angels singing in perfect pitch in no time.
August 29, 2008 9:13:03 pm
To the family of Miss Lily Greer, my condolences. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting her, I'm sure she was a wonderful lady and teacher. Thank you for her life of dedication to music and teaching. What a loss to us all.
To lovesthelaw: AMEN! To all the rest of you:how many more studies must be done to PROVE over and over again that music improves learning and increases test scores. And I don't mean the rap-_rap. I mean REAL music - the classics - JS Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Telemann, Satchmo-Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller - Anything from the 1700s through the 50's. (I myself was raised with the 70's music)
I proved it to myself with my son many years ago who was a very active child with a short attention span who was not classified as ADD, or ADHD or whatever the new acronym is. I could calm his behavior within 5 minutes of having him play the piano or listen to the classical station in the car. TRY IT - I DARE YOU! It works! One year piano lessons, then one year of any band or orchestra instrument of their choosing.
September 2, 2008 1:08:24 pm
To lovesthelaw, Is it necessary to "use" the passing away of someone who spent her life enrichening the lives of those around her, to
selfishly express your personal anger? I knew Lily, aboveall, as my mother's best friend. I know she will be missed, as each being's passing is the turning of a page. Her teaching will, however, remain alive, harboured by those whose paths she crossed.
Barbara Thurman-Becquiot (Burgundy, France)
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