Melva Lorraine Baldwin Wright-Cummings
1928 -
Melva Cummings, a pianist, organist, and
marimba player, enjoyed a successful music teaching career at all levels, from
grade school through college in Seventh-day Adventist schools in California, Hawaii,
and Arizona for over 25 years. Additionally, she taught in a school for Native
American children and has also maintained a private studio for over sixty
years.
Melva was born and raised in Napa,
California, the youngest of three children and the only daughter of Orville C.
and Gladys Hartwick Baldwin. At an early age she
began playing by ear. Her father, who managed the farm and taught agriculture
at Pacific Union College and later taught at other schools, and her mother, who
worked as an accountant, encouraged her interest in music.
She started piano lessons
before age four, studying with an aunt, Vesta
Baldwin, and with a cousin by marriage, Ruth Baldwin, before studying with
Lucille Lucas. By the time she had
finished two years of college as a piano major, she had studied with several
piano teachers at the college, including Gilmour McDonald; Glenice
Fuller, who introduced her to the marimba; James W. Osborn; Harold Miller; Lois
Stauffer; and Dorothy Johnson Muir.
Beginning in her academy
years at PUC Preparatory school, she began assisting as an accompanist for PUC
music students and the orchestra under Noah Paulin.
She also served as a pianist for Friday evening vesper song services conducted
by John J. Hafner, band and orchestra director, an
inspiring experience for her and the students, who participated with great
enthusiasm.
In 1948 she was invited just
before the beginning of her junior year as a music
major at PUC to teach piano lessons at Lodi Academy, where her father was now
teaching in the elementary school. Although hesitant at first, concerned about
her ability to teach academy age students, she decided to go, and taught there
for a year.
While at PUC she had met and
dated Earl Wright, and when he finished college in 1949, they married the
weekend after he graduated. They
immediately began working for The Quiet Hour, he singing in a male quartet and
serving as an announcer and she playing the organ.
This experience led to an
involvement in evangelism and the pastoring of a small church where his
abilities and success led to an appointment in 1954 as Educational
Superintendent and Missionary Volunteer (MV) Secretary for the Hawaiian
Mission. She taught music at the academy in the mission, giving piano and
marimba lessons. She formed a group
called the Marimba Music Makers, an ensemble of eighteen that in 1961, their
last year there, was featured on the local television station, KGMB. During
their seven years there, she completed a degree in music at the University of
Hawaii.
The Wrights accepted teaching
positions in Bible and music at Thunderbird Academy, where they taught until
1963, when they moved to Monterey Bay Academy. In the next six years, he
completed a doctorate and she completed an M.Mus. in
piano performance at the University of the Pacific at Stockton. Her scholastic
achievements were recognized at UP when she was elected to membership in the
national music honor society, Phi Kappa Phi.
In 1970, within a year of
their beginning to work at PUC, she as a piano teacher and he to recruit
students, Earl was killed in a plane accident while departing for a recruiting
appointment on behalf of the college. It was a devastating tragedy for Melva and their two children, and they became a closely
knit family as they dealt with their loss and the challenges following his
death.
Wright had been hired by the
PUC music department as a full-time piano teacher and would teach in the
department for eight years, eventually achieving the rank of associate
professor. During those years she served
as director for several summer workshops, having a special interest in
children’s music from other cultures and in the use of music in recreational
leadership. She actively worked with the student association and served on
several committees on campus and as a member of the president’s council.
In July 1977 she married
Thomas J. Cummings, a physician who was serving as the medical administrator at
Monument Valley Hospital in Utah. She began teaching at a public school program
for Native Americans run by the U.S. Government in 1977. She recently talked about that experience:
Prior
to marrying Tom and moving there, I checked out the public school situation.
When I talked to the principal and
superintendent of schools, they told me they needed someone like me. They had a
school there that was designed for the Native Americans and backed by the
government, so they had almost unlimited funding.
They
then contacted me after talking with their teachers, who were enthusiastic
about my coming because of my
background and experience. They wanted me to be in charge of classroom music and
gave me the choice of working with different age groups. I chose the preschool
and first grade levels since it was a perfect opportunity to apply skills I had
learned in elementary school workshops that I had taken that very summer at
Holy Names College in Oakland from specialists in Kodaly and other approaches.
In
that culture at that time the children didn’t sing melodically but expressed
themselves with a highly rhythmic and accented chant. Singing a melody as we
know it was unknown to them. In the nearly three years I was there I found that
not only did those very young Navajo children have wonderful visual gifts, they
were also musically gifted.
At
one of my meetings with the board when I was requesting funds for new
equipment, I took in a small group of children to demonstrate how we were
working with them and what they were accomplishing. Some of our approaches
included musical games. In one of these I would sing a question and then one of
the children would answer in melody, right on pitch. The board was very
impressed with what we were doing and gave us everything we asked for.
As the Cummingses
planned for their retirement, they decided that they wanted to move to another
area where he could practice medicine until he retired and they would not then
have to go through the trauma of moving and establishing a new circle of
friends. Accordingly, in 1979 they moved to Paradise, California, before he
retired. Although both are officially retired, Melva
still maintains a private studio.
ds/2013
Source: Interview with Melva Cummings, January 2013.