Moment in Time (May 19, 2022)
This 1948 photo, provided by former Grandview resident Jeanne Jones Holder, shows Lowell Riley directing a practice with the FCC Cloister Choir in the original church building. As she describes it, “the boys were watching the practice while they waited to walk the girls to their homes.”
Lowell Riley was born in Delaware, Ohio in 1913, and married Mary Elizabeth (Beth) Queen in 1935. After he and Beth graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1934, he joined the staff of radio station WBNS and soon became their musical director. While working at the station, Riley arranged the music and directed the choir for an annual variety show put on by the Young Business Men’s Club of Columbus. It was there that he met two chorus members that also were serving on the music committee of First Community Church in Grandview, and they persuaded him to join the staff at the church. He served the church for 42 years, from his first day in 1941 until his retirement in 1983.
Riley had a reputation in Columbus as an exceptional singer, organist, composer and music arranger. As a result, he was charged to organize a youth choir and a men’s glee club for the church, and he was soon named as the choir director and church organist. By the time he went full time on the staff in 1947, he had organized six choirs, including several for kids as young as first grade (the Cherub Choir) and had taught choral music and organized vocal groups at both Grandview and Upper Arlington High Schools. As World War II started, and many male members of his youth choir left for the service, it transitioned to become the Cloister Choir of high school girls. At its peak, the choir grew to 150 girls, and was the largest choir in Columbus.
The men's glee club that Riley organized would become a significant part of Vaud-Villities, the oldest and largest musical variety show in the nation. As Riley recounted, his chorus had learned a lot of music and wanted an opportunity to perform it in public. The twenty-seven singers decided on a minstrel format for their show at Upper Arlington High School in March of 1943. Riley had asked Upper Arlington graduate Bob Murphy, who was then a medical student at Ohio State, to accompany the singers and play “dual piano” with him at the performance. They would practice at the WBNS studio after work, as the studio had two pianos in the same location. Murphy, who would go on to become a prominent Columbus sports medicine physician, remained involved with Vaud-Villities for the next fifty years.
The high school girls of the church’s Cloister Choir joined the cast in 1944, and over the next several decades the event added more singers and dancers, growing to over 300 performers. This necessitated a larger venue, and the show moved from UAHS to Veterans Memorial in 1961 where it remained for 49 years until moving to the Northland area. For the duration of his involvement in its existence, Riley conducted every performance, and arranged and composed (or co-composed) nearly every production number that was performed.
Lowell and Beth lived with their three children at 1389 Arlington Avenue in Marble Cliff from 1945 until the house was sold after his death in 1998. Beth was also active in First Community Church. Beth told the history of First Community Village in an unpublished document, and she and Lowell together composed the Seven Keys Cantata, which honored the Seven Keys, a symbol of the faith of the church, and which she also wrote about in a treasured church document. She and the couple’s three kids (James (“Gunner”), Marianne, and T.J.) as well some grandkids were all participants in the cast of Vaud-Villities over the years.
References:
1) Vaud-Villities: 1943-1976, compiled by Jackie Cherry, 1976.
2) Reflections on Our Heritage: A History of First Community Church, Jackie Cherry, 2009
3) Interview with Jackie Cherry for Columbus Neighborhoods, WOSU.
4) Seven Keys, https://burkhartsite.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/seven-keys.pdf