Varner Chance’s Life

Topic: CRS Version
Lynn Rohrbough believed “Professor Chance of Baldwin-Wallace” was responsible for introducing the proto-form of “Kumbaya” to John Blocher Jr “in the winter of 1954–55.” [1] Since both Chance’s family [2] and Blocher [3] believed this to be unlikely, the verification of Rohrbough’s recollections depends on understanding Chance’s life through 1955.

Varner Chance was born in 1909 in Hamilton County in central Indiana. [4]  When he was in high school in Westfield, he played barytone in the school orchestra. [5]  This is not an instrument a student chooses.  Most often, they switch from trumpet or trombone because the ensemble needs someone to play the mid-range instrument, and it has too many of the other parts.

He moved to Indianapolis in 1930 to take classes at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory. [6]  The city’s public schools had long emphasized performance as the goal for music training. [7]  They were encouraged by and perpetuated the city’s rich musical culture.

Edward Birge organized a People’s Concert Association in 1905 and added a People’s Chorus in 1911 that performed works by Mendelssohn and Handel.  A Maennerchor held annual sängerfests, the Musikverein performed excerpts from operas, and a Liederkranz also existed. During World War I, the German groups merged into the Athenaeum, and the Indianapolis Community Chorus arose in 1920. [8]

Arthur Jordan organized the conservatory in 1928 from two existing music schools.  When Chance matriculated in 1930, the faculty numbered 73 members. [9]  Chance was selected to sing in the first-tenor section of the men’s glee club in his sophomore year. [10]

In the fall of 1932, Chance became student director of the band. [11]  This probably was a glorified title for the gopher who handled all the administrative details for the conductor.  It may not have given him a chance to perform, but nothing could have provided better experience for life as a music teacher.

Jordan was on the board of directors at Butler University, [12] which was associated with the Christian Church. [13]  He maintained the ties between the conservatory and the university that allowed those interested in music education to earn academic degrees. [14]

Chance did his student teaching at Shortridge High School in the city. [15]  Kurt Vonnegut, who was a student there a few years later recalled: “we had a chorus, a jazz band, a serious orchestra.  And all this with a Great Depression going on.” [16]

Chance’s first job seems to have been in Etna Green. [17]  By 1937, he was married to Anna Heisler [18] and teaching band and vocal music at Fort Wayne’s North Side High School. [19]

The life of a music teacher in Indiana wasn’t much different than that of Madison Lennon, described in the post for 25 October 2020.  The only difference was Lennon’s African-American orphanage was explicit about his need to raise money by having his young musicians perform for local civic organizations.  The rationale in Indianapolis for sending student groups to entertain influential taxpayers in civic organizations was students liked to perform, [20] and performance led to better musicianship. [21]

In 1944, North Side hired a separate band director, [22] and the a capella choir presented “its annual Christmas programs for the Lions Club and the Rotary Club as well as musicals for other organizations.”  They also performed on the local radio station sixteen times. [23]

World War II still was being fought, and rationing prevented the choir was taking “out-of-town trips.”  Instead, North Ridge hosted “a group of high school choirs and soloists from northeastern Indiana.” [24]  This probably was a festival where musicians were evaluated on their performances.

School teachers never were well-paid.  Chance found another source of income in 1947 when he took over directing the men’s glee club at Indiana Tech. [25]  This demanded rehearsals twice a week, [26] probably outside normal class hours, and more concert preparations.

Teachers only were paid for the nine-month school year.  Chance spent the summer of 1940 as music director for Epworth Forest, a Methodist summer camp for high school students in Kosciusko County. [27]  He was spending part of his spare time earning a masters degree in music education from Arthur Jordan, [28] a hundred and twenty-five miles away. [29]

He may have gotten the Epworth Forest job through his wife, who was from Etna Green in Kosciusko County. [30]  Chasteen Kendall, the son of an Epworth founder, was music director during the height of World War II on 1943 [31] and 1944. [32]  William Freeman said Chance began his tenure at the camp in 1946. [33]

In 1951, Chance moved to Berea, Ohio, to teach at Baldwin-Wallace College.  It had its own set of secondary tasks that faculty were expected to undertake.  Blocher remembered that, when he was in high school in Berea in the late 1930s, Chance’s supervisor had been his band director. [34]  In 1954, Chance was described as a faculty member at BW, choir director for the local Methodist church, and “head of the music department in the Berea public schools.” [35]

Chance also inherited some assignments as a high-school festival judge.  In February of his first year at BW, he was one of three adjudicators for the Lorain County Music Competition. [36]  These were paying jobs that came through the Music Educators Conference, which provided a list of qualified judges.  It left it to local organizers to make their own selections.  Those individuals tended to select people they already knew personally or by reputation. [37]

While juggling at least three outside jobs, [38] Chance built a reputation by taking the BW a capella choir on tours and to meetings of the Music Educators and the Methodist Church. [39]  He had expanded his work at Epworth Forest in 1955 to include a choir camp. [40]  Whether all this was enough to merit tenure is unknown.  He left the school in 1957 after six years. [41]

Chance spent the next nine years at Illinois Wesleyan University. [42]  At age 57, he returned to Kosciusko County, where he taught at Wawasee High School until he retired at 65 in 1975.  He continued the choir school at Epworth Forest until 1991. [43]

When he died in April 2001, Chance was living in Winona Lake in Kosciusko County. [44]  His wife died in December of the same year.  Both were buried in the cemetery where three generations of her family were interred. [45]

Graphics
1.  Base map: Locator map for Hamilton County, Indiana, based on one produced for the National Atlas by the United States Department of the Interior, Geological Survey.  Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons on 12 February 2006 by David Benbennick.

2.  Chance’s photograph appears on the Photos K tab.

End Notes
1.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Shawnee Press.  16 February 1959.  Typed carbon.  My access to this letter and its current location are described in the post for 14 October 2020.

2.  Chance’s family.  Letter.  21 June 2016.  Typed.
3.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email.  15 June 2016.

4.  Varner M. Chance.  Obituary.  The [Bloomington, Illinois] Pantagraph.  26 April 2001.  6.

5.  Item.  The Indianapolis [Indiana] Star.  2 October 1927.  6.

6.  Chance was a sophomore in the spring of 1932. [46]  He was advertising for part-time work in 1930 as a “Butler music student.” [47]

7.  Martha F. Bellinger.  “Music In Indianapolis, 1900-1944.”  Indiana Magazine of History 42:47-65:1946.

8.  Bellinger.  The origins of these German groups are discussed in the post for 14 April 2019.  Their persistence in this country is discussed in the post for 21 April 2019.

9.  Jack L. Eaton.  “Butler University Jordan College of Fine Arts: A Chronological History of the Development of the College.”  Butler University website.  13 April 1995.  8.

10.  “ Personnel of Band, Men’s and Girls’ Glee Clubs Announced.”  The Indianapolis [Indiana] Star.  11 October 1931.  4.

11.  Item.  The Indianapolis [Indiana] News.  12 October 1932.  18.
12.  Eaton.

13.  Wikipedia.  “Butler University.”  The Christian Church today uses the name Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

14.  According to Eaton, the original agreement was made in 1917 with the Metropolitan School of Music.

15.  “R. J. Shutz to Attend Detroit Music Parley.”  The [Shortridge High School, Indianapolis, Indiana] Daily Echo.  16 April 1948.  1.

16.  Kurt Vonnegut.  “NOW – A Tribute To Kurt Vonnegut.”  PBS website.  13 April 2007.  Quoted by Wikipedia.  “Shortridge High School.”

17.  Varner M. Chance.  Obituary.  The Indianapolis [Indiana] Star.  26 April 2001.  “Mr. Chance also had taught at Fort Wayne and Etna Green (Ind.) schools.”

18.  Pantagraph, obituary.

19.  Item.  Garrett [Indiana] Clipper.  14 October 1937.  5.  “North Side high school’s band, directed by Varnor Chance.”

20.  Virginia McGahey.  “Gems of Melody.  The Legend, yearbook for North Side High School, Fort Wayne, Indiana.  1944.  67.  “Nothing means more to a group of young musicians than the knowledge that their music is both needed and appreciated.”

21.  Bellinger.  “Edward B. Birge was appointed Director of Music in 1901.  Under his supervision the various systems of teaching were harmonized, singing and playing were encouraged, and technical instruction inserted whenever the children were ready for it.”

22.  Beverly Crowell.  “The Band Played On.”  The Legend, yearbook for North Side High School, Fort Wayne, Indiana.  1944.  66.

23.  McGahey.
24.  McGahey.

25.  “The Male Chorus.”  Kekiongan, yearbook for  Indiana Institute of Technology.  1949.  106.

26.  “Male Chorus.”  Kekiongan, yearbook for Indiana Institute of Technology. 1950.  32.

27.  Orrin Manifold.  “Epworth Forest: The Second 25 Years.”  52–122 in W. B. Freeland and Orrin Manifold.  Epworth Forest: The First Fifty Years.  Winona Lake, Indiana: Light and Life Press, 1974.  88.

28.  WorldCat reports his 1941 thesis for the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music was “Physio-Psychological Aspect of Advanced High School Choir Development.”

29.  “Distance from Indianapolis, IN to Winona Lake, IN.”  Distance Cities website.
30.  MJ.  “Anna Cornelia Heisler Chance.”  Find a Grave website.  24 May 2012.

31.  William B.  Freeland.  Epworth Forest.  North Indiana Conference of The Methodist Church, 1949.  1–51 in Freeland and Manifold.  46.

32.  Freeland.  47.

33.  Freeland.  49.  Manifold said “The music program of the institute moved to a higher plane with the coming of Varner Chance in 1940. [. . .] There had been some good directors before him, such as Chesteen Kendall.” [48]

Freeland implied it was in 1944, during Kendall’s time as music director, that there was “growing ritualism in the worship periods.”  He went on to list some of the hymns that were sung. [49]  Kendall had a masters in music education from the University of Michigan [50] and was teaching high-school music in Rochester, New York. [51]

Freeland had been involved with Epworth Forest from the earliest days [53] and used camp record books for this history.  He didn’t always mention the music director, since it was not necessarily a paid position.  Manifold was a college student when he first attended a senior institute in 1943. [54]  Freeland mentions him in 1949 when he was working at the children’s camp and Chance was music director. [55]

34.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email.  11 June 2016.
35.  Item.  The [North Canton, Ohio] Sun.  1 December 1954.
36.  Item.  The [Elyria, Ohio] Chronicle-Telegram.  27 February 1952.  1.

37.  The organization of school music festivals has been strengthened, and the requirements for judges clearly defined.  Even so, David Hensley noted: “The vetting process to select qualified adjudicators can have many different formats.  One common vehicle that festival organizers utilize is the time-honored ‘word-ofmouth’ system.  Festival hosts contact others who have hosted festivals and share names of adjudicators who have proven to be reliable and respected in the role.” [56]  This creates a closed universe in which concert tours advertise the abilities of choral conductors, who then make the necessary contacts that lead to employment as judges.

38.  This doesn’t consider his time spent planning summer activities at Epworth Forest.

39.  “College Choir To Perform Friday.”  The Bristol [Pennsylvania] Daily Courier.  18 March 1957.  4.  “This choir has appeared before the National Educators’ Conference, the Family Life Convention of the Methodist Church, on radio broadcasts, toured the east and middle west, on tour which will take them through New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, [. . .].”  The reporter added, Chance “is in great demand as a judge and critic for choral clinics and contests.”

40.  Manifold, history.  97.

41.  Rules governing tenure are strict: individuals holding tenure-track positions lose their jobs if they’re not granted tenure within seven years. [57]  Since it becomes difficult to secure another job after one is dropped, many leave after six years so they can restart the clock at other institutions.

42.  Indianapolis Star, obituary.  Chance was able to publish some articles in the Music Educators Journal while he was at this school.  WorldCat lists:

Varner M. Chance.  “Follow-up Program.”  Music Educators Journal 46(3):46–48:1960.

Donald M. Prince and Varner M. Chance.  “Another Look at the School Music Program.” Music Educators Journal 52(1): 96–101:1965.  Prince was on the faculty of Illinois State University.

43.  Indianapolis Star, obituary.
44.  MJ.  “Varner M. Chance.”  Find a Grave website.  24 May 2012.

45.  MJ, Anna Chance, and other Find a Grave entries for her family in Stony Point Cemetery, Clunette, Indiana.

46.  The Drift, yearbook for Butler University.  1932.
47.  Item.  The Indianapolis [Indiana] Star.  12 August 1930.  16.
48.  Manifold, history.  88.
49.  Freeland.  46.

50.  University of Michigan Board of Regents.  Minutes for September 1935 meeting, bound in one volume for 1932 to 1936.  656.

51.  The school paper for the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute mentioned his name in several issues in 1941.  Nothing more has appeared on the web, until he died in Rochester in 1975. [52]

52.  Steve Staruch.  “Chesteen B. Kendall.”  Find a Grave website.  7 March 2020.
53.  Manifold, history.  88.

54.  Charles H. Smith.  “Forward to the 1949 History.” ii in Freeland and Manifold.

Orrin Manifold.  “Orrin Manifold’s Preface.”  iv in Freeland and Manifold.

55.  Freeland, 50.

56.  David L. Hensley.  “The Adjudicator Speaks: A Study of Choral Festival Adjudicators’ Practices, Procedures and Preferences.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Kentucky, 2016.  23.

57.  “The Truth About Tenure in Higher Education.”  National Education Association website.