on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 3

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods. See here for the entire series.

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The early years

Dick always said he was from Pittsburgh, and for all practical purposes he was. According to the announcement of his hiring on at St. James in Wichita in 1959, Richard Forrest Woods was born in Franklin, Penn., some 85 miles north. He was born July 26, 1929, to Forrest A. and Nell [Nelle?] Woods. He had two older siblings Betty L. and Billy G. According to that same announcement, he studied piano and trumpet at the Pittsburgh Musical Institute and then organ and conducting at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University. His organ teacher there was Marshall Bidwell, the only teacher who appears by name in any of Dick's biographical material, save the Wichita announcement.

According to the list of positions written in his Book of Common Prayer, Richard apparently began his ecclesiastical career at what he called “Trinity Chapel,” Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania. There were two “Trinity” establishments there in those days – Holy Trinity Catholic parish and Trinity Episcopal Church, and I haven’t uncovered evidence to answer definitively which one he served. My guess is he was playing for the Episcopal one, judging from the year (1949) of his acquisition of his 1928 Episcopal Prayer Book. He was twenty years old then and was surely earning extra money playing for church while enrolled at Carnegie, though perhaps he might have started there even earlier as a youth. At any rate, since he primarily served Episcopal parishes throughout his career, the Episcopal Trinity makes sense here. And since this Trinity appears as the first entry in his list of professional posts written in his Prayer Book, then Dick must have considered it his first ‘real’ job.

At some point during college, whether before or after Trinity Chapel, Richard served as assistant organist-choirmaster at Calvary Episcopal with Julius Baird. He was also the librarian for the Pittsburgh Civic Chamber Orchestra under Harvey Gaul and was the assistant director of the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh.

Immediately after college, Richard enlisted in the Navy Band on cornet and secondarily on keyboard instruments. [It is interesting that his father appears to have played trumpet in the John Philip Sousa band.] His enlistment date is given as October 25, 1949, but his boot camp date appears to be October 1950. Surely one of those is incorrect, probably the Boot Camp date. By May 1953, he was rated MU2 [musician petty officer second class], and by April 1952, he was promoted to MU3. He was stationed:

Naval Training Center, Great Lakes [Ill.], October 1950–January 1951

Naval School of Music [Virginia Beach], January 1951–July 1951

Commander Cruisers Atlantic Fleet 156, August 1951–August 1952

Naval Base, New Orleans 152, August 1952–August 1954

His hiring announcement at St. James in Wichita in 1959 states that during enlistment, he studied organ with Adolph Tarovosky. But where?

After his discharge, he stayed in New Orleans and enrolled at Tulane University, presumably in organ but perhaps also or instead in conducting. While enrolled, he was assistant director of Tulane Glee Clubs and made his living as Organist/Choirmaster at Grace Episcopal, 3700 Canal Street mentioned in an earlier post. Historical note: by 2012, long-term dwindling attendance further aggravated by Hurricane Katrina sent the Grace congregation into disbandment. The campus closed on January 5 of that year and was later acquired as a satellite campus for Bethany Church headquartered in Baton Rouge.

According to the Wichita announcement, he also served as director of the New Orleans Festival Choir. One source indicates that Tulane didn’t do it for him and that he left school after a year. The Wichita announcement says that he finished his MMus in 1956. My gut says he probably did finish. It wouldn't have been like him to leave something like a master's degree unfinished.

Next time: Wichita