In Memoriam: Carolyn Marie (Schairer) Moyer (1937-2021)

I’m writing this remembrance after spending several days sorting through my mother’s sheet music collection. I found Suzuki books from the old, green Japanese ones (from her days involved with Project SUPER) up to the newest editions. I found notes from teacher training classes, repertoire lists, and plans for concerts and workshops, as well as newspaper clippings about competitions won by students and her cellist daughter, Susan. I found “I love my violin” drawings from students and elaborate student stories written to incorporate all the titles of pieces performed during group class concerts. The music collection also speaks to her work ensuring that her students read and explored music beyond the Suzuki books: fiddle tunes, Christmas carols, violin trios and quartets, and new music by living composers. I recognize much of the new music as material from my doctoral violin lecture recital. I also found many hand-written arrangements of music so that all her students could play together; she added viola parts and cello parts to violin music and created viola versions of violin parts. I found dozens of mimeograph stencils of additional parts as well as several generations of photocopy technology!  Best of all, I found photos, including one of a Halloween group class where she is wearing what looks like a colander on her head and playing and laughing with children who are all dressed in their Halloween costumes. I found boxes of gifts for students: violin pencils, erasers, note pads, shoelaces, etc. All this paints a picture of the dedicated, hard-working, creative, energetic, and successful teacher she was—and how much she loved to teach.