Florence Schwab Ryden
1903 - 1989
Florence Ryden taught piano at Southwestern Junior College, now Southwestern Adventist University, and at Emmanuel Missionary College, now Andrews University. She studied with Professor Wolfarn, a teacher at the New York College of Music, now part of New York University, from 1917 to 1920. She also gave private lessons during that time.
She met Elihu Ryden, a violinist, while attending Atlantic Union College. Following his graduation in 1926, they married and then moved to SWJC, where he was boys' dean, taught history and civics, and she was an assistant instructor in piano. She became head of the piano department in 1928 and taught music history and piano pedagogy until they left in 1935 so that he could do graduate study at the University of Oklahoma.
When he was hired by EMC in 1936 to teach in the social science department and serve as the dean of men, she was hired to assist in the music department as a piano instructor. She continued to teach through 1940.
Ryden did some composing, with some of her works being released through Century Publishing Company, a New York publisher.
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1940 Emmanuel Missionary College yearbook, The Cardinal;