Elkins’ pipe organ music flows through the years
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And along the way, she has also taught a generation of students in her primary career as a teacher. In fact, both careers are so intertwined in the public’s perception of her, for many it’s hard to separate the two.
Originally from Murfreesboro, Elkins moved here to take a job.
“I came here in the fall of 1936 to teach school,” Elkins said.
She taught school locally for 38 years and counts many prominent residents among her former pupils. If you ask her what she enjoyed about teaching, she has a quick answer.
“The students,” she says. “I still enjoy them. I see somebody that I’ve taught almost every day.”
Elkins’ love of music actually came first though.
“I started taking piano when I was 8-years-old,” Elkins said. “I didn’t get to take every year, but I got my diploma in piano at the end of my sophomore year in college.”
Elkins began working on her skills as an organist in her junior year in high school in Murfreesboro by taking classes for a short time at the Baptist Woman’s college there. That training turned out to be fortuitous.
“I needed a second job,” Elkins said, “because I was just getting paid $50 a month to teach.”
Elkins grew up a Baptist, but about a month after moving here she found out the organist at the Presbyterian church was leaving due to health problems.
“So I asked for the job and they gave it to me,” Elkins said, “and I’ve had it ever since.”
The Pilcher pipe organ Elkins has played for almost seven decades has an interesting history of its own. According to Walter Womack’s “McMinnville at a Milestone, the instrument was obtained between 1890 and 1892, but Elkins said Shot Nunley, also a history buff, places it closer to the 1900s. In any case, it was rebuilt in 1982 and promises to provide many more decades of music.
Elkins says she still enjoys playing the organ even after all those years.
“It’s a wonderful way to praise God,” she said. “Just like singing. When God gives you a talent, then I think you should use it.”
Another of Elkins more notable accomplishments was her involvement in writing an original alma mater for City High School when it was established in 1957. The work was a collaboration with several local talents, including band director Bob Daniels.
“I just harmonized it,” Elkins says. “Bob Daniels did the tune, and Mrs. Elizabeth Womack, who lives next door to me, and Edith Bryan did the words.”
Friend and admirer Rachel Killebrew discovered Elkins still had the original manuscript of the composition, with Elkins’ hand written arrangement still intact. Killebrew took the work to Womack Printing and had it reproduced with plans for Warren County’s Silver and Gold Band to play it in a future performance.
Over the years, church members have become so fond of their talented and dedicated organist that in honor of her 90th birthday, they decided to set up a scholarship fund for musicians at the Warren County Middle School in her name. Money raised for the fund will be used to purchase musical instruments.
“We wanted to do something special to honor her,” said church member Betty Colville.
Elkins says she was indeed honored.
“Oh, I’m thrilled to death with it,” she said. “I just think it’s a wonderful thing and I’m so glad that they thought of it.”
It’s a fitting tribute to this congenial lady and dedicated musician that her name will now be associated with a whole new generation of musicians in Warren County. It will be her legacy to the small southern community she has served so well.