Gadsden congregation honors Marjorie Hall for 60 years of ministry as their accompanist

Marjorie Hall remembers it just like it happened yesterday.
   
A great storm started just before the wedding ceremony. The tempest was tenacious. Five notes into the “Wedding March,” the power went out and Hall’s organ was silenced.
   
It was very dark in the church sanctuary. Nonetheless she crawled on hands and knees from the organ around to the piano so that the wedding music could continue.
   
Having been an accompanist for six decades, Hall has many a story to recount — a fainting groom, forgotten rings and, well, a few occurrences she said are better left untold.
   
One of the highlights of her years as an accompanist was performing “I’ll Fly Away” — impromptu — with renowned pianist Dino Kartsonakis during one of his concerts in Union City, Tenn. Their performance got a standing ovation. 
   
Another highlight was being asked to play in the chapel of The Cove, part of the Billy Graham ministry in Asheville, N.C. Playing “The King Is Coming!” during the chapel service was particularly significant for Hall because she had just completed radiation therapy in a battle against cancer.
   
“I’m in my fifth year since radiation,” the 75-year-old Hall said in early August. On Aug. 28, James Memorial Baptist Church, Gadsden, honored her for 60 years as the church’s accompanist.
   
“She is one of the most dedicated people I’ve ever met,” said Pastor Bill Abbott. During his eight years at the church, he has seen Hall’s humble spirit and the passion with which she carries out the ministry God has given her — the ministry of music.
   
“She is a living and walking example of what a Christian should be,” Abbott said.
   
As a 10-year-old just learning to play the piano, Hall was given the opportunity to plunk out “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer” during a Wednesday night service at the church. It was a small church then and was called James Chapel Baptist.
   
A few years later, she began to play the piano for the church and, at 15, was elected the pianist. Hall said she thinks she may have been the church’s first “elected” pianist. That was 1945.
   
Not many years afterward, the church acquired an organ. Hall’s duties switched to organ instrumentation. She is the only organist the church has had.
   
In the decade or so after Hall was elected pianist, she graduated from Gadsden’s Gaston High School, began studying music at Jacksonville State University, married and had four children — Terry, Thoma, Susan and Tim. Even after delivering each child, few were the Sundays she missed at the organ.
   
On Sundays, the Hall children old enough not to be in the nursery reported diligently to the third pew, organ side, for worship services. That way, Dad could watch them from the choir loft and Mom could see them from the organ.
   
Her parents, Lola and Theo Perry (both now deceased), lived close by and would baby-sit on Wednesday nights while Hall went to choir practice. On the Sundays when one of the children was sick, Hall’s husband, Joe, stayed at home. There were times when she would play, then go right home to help out with sick children.
   
There were other times when Hall would play while sick. Even during her bout with cancer, “I didn’t miss many times on the organ stool,” she said.
   
“She is an incredible example … of a commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the church,” said Darwood Santmier, minister of music and youth for James Memorial. “She has done it all for the right reasons.”
   
For 33 years, pianist Kathleen Donaldson was Hall’s instrumental partner at the church. Edris Hawthorne currently fills that role.
   
Approximately 3,120 Sundays — that’s how long Hall has done this. At about five songs in each of the two services per Sunday, that would be an estimated 31,200 selections. Averaging about five weddings a year, that total would be around 300. As for the piano and organ students she has taught, the best guess is somewhere between 400 and 500. Plus Hall has played at commencements at high schools and Gadsden State Community College.
   
Music has not been her only service within the church through the years. She also worked with Girls in Action “ a long time,” was in the Woman’s Missionary Union, taught Sunday School and helped with various choirs.
   
Hall, who also plays the keyboard and a dulcimer made by son Terry, said she believes God gave her music as a ministry and planted her where she is for a purpose.
   
Music, Hall continued, “moves a lot of people in a lot of ways. … I want my music to be a blessing.”
   
Santmier points to the legacy of her faithfulness to Jesus Christ and her ministry in music. Many of her former students now are organists and pianists at other churches. More importantly, he said, the faith of Hall and her husband has influenced their children to be involved in Christian ministry. One child, Thoma, has served as a missionary, and another, Tim, is minister of music at First Baptist Church, Albertville. Hall has eight grandchildren.
   
She considers it a blessing to have been chosen by God for this ministry and to be able to continue it for 60 years and beyond. “It has certainly been a privilege and a joy to serve my God.”