Ferd and Zella Eversman played an important role in the lives of many people of New Knoxville who loved music and were students of it, both vocal and instrumental. The following is an interview with Ferd Eversman (1891-1960), which was published in the St. Marys Evening Leader on January 23,1960.
Aware He Had Only Short Time To Live, Ferd F. Eversman Told Story of Pioneering In Voice Instruction To Help Others
Editors Note: Some months ago we asked Ferd F. Eversman, of New Knoxville, choral director and voice professor for an interview. “Some time” was his answer. A week ago last Sunday he called: “You asked for an interview. I haven’t long to live. I believe I should tell you some facts which may be helpful to others, which will tell the story of pioneering in voice instruction in this country.” Mr. Eversman knew he was soon to die, he was not responding to medical treatment, but he spoke slowly and calmly discussing his illness, then forgot his illness as he described the difficulties he had to surmount to become an instructor in voice who has been recognized by many critics for his work, whose pupils have gone on to teach others, to praise God through their voices, to provide enjoyment for many through the vocal numbers of his pupils and choirs.
“You can count on the fingers of less than one hand the truly good teachers of voice in this country,” Ferd F. Eversman was told when he sought to study voice instruction. “You must go to Europe.” He didn’t have the money to go to Europe. He had studied a year at Mission House College, two years at Heidelberg, always seeking the answers to questions which he felt must be answered before he could teach voice. He had studied too at Marion College, Marion, Ind., where he received his diploma in oratory and dramatic art, then at Muncie Institute but his questions were still unanswered. Now he was told he would have to go to Europe!
What were those questions?
“What part of tone was not correct?”
“What constitutes the complete tone?”
“How can you yourself hear when you are getting it?”
Finally he heard of Bush Conservatory in Chicago, reputed to have an outstanding voice instructor. He went there, talked with K. M. Bradley, the president, told him what he sought. Mr. Bradley assured him he had come to the right place. “You can have 10 lessons for free if our instructor does not answer your questions. If he does, those lessons will be $50”—a lot of money then. The instructor was Herbert Miller, Iowa-farm born, who had studied with all the good teachers in Europe. “I wasn’t through my first lesson until I knew I had come to right place—he could answer my questions.” He continued studying with Miller and received his public school music teaching diploma from Bush. Gladys Swarthout was a pupil there at the same time, Mr. Eversman recalls.
But it was a long, hard fight to achieve his goal. Mr. Eversman refused to be discouraged, “I have lived on borrowed time since World War I. I had the flu while I was at Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. They didn’t expect me to live. The Lord must have let me live for a purpose and I have sought to carry out what I believe that purpose was. I have tried to praise God through the church choirs I have directed. When we worship God we can’t make fun of Him or treat Him lightly. I have tried to teach any chorus I directed so God will be praised,” Mr. Eversman said, as he emphasized the importance of good music, of choosing compositions which will honor God.
How much perseverance went into the achievement of the goal he set for himself as a boy? That of teaching voice.
He was one of a family of three sons born to Mr. and Mrs. Henry W. Eversman, on a farm southeast of New Knoxville. “As a boy I was never as strong as my brothers. I tired easily. I didn’t know why until World War I. Then I was told I had a bad heart.”
He recalled hours spent in pumping water to fill the tanks for watering the cattle, to fill the tank in the house. Later his father acquired a windmill which eased the pumping chore when there was enough breeze to operate the mill. There was no electricity in his childhood.
He went to grade school at Chapel School, the one-room schoolhouse alongside the Chapel which served as a Sunday School for boys and girls of that district who belonged to the Evangelical and Reformed church at new Knoxville. “I was the first to pass the Boxwell examination at Chapel School,” Mr. Eversman recalled and he praised highly his teacher, William Henschen who had encouraged him to take the examination. Passing the Boxwell meant that he was qualified to teach school but he was too young—he was only 16. While at Chapel School he had been chosen to start the songs—there was no musical instrument in the school or in the chapel. His father bought a piano and he started taking lessons from Theodore Clausing. My father insisted I practice an hour each evening. At first I hated that hour of practice, but thanks to my father, I practiced; soon you could hardly get me away from the piano.” When the Chapel proposed getting a reed organ, Mr. Eversman suggested that his son, Ferd could play it. So while he was still a pupil at the Chapel school, Ferd played the organ for the Chapel services, held each Sunday afternoon.
After he passed the Boxwell since he could not begin teaching at once, he hoped to continue his education. His father consented to him entering the Mission House. That was in 1908. Professor Wentz, who had written chorales in the German hymnal, was at Mission House but Ferd couldn’t obtain from him the answers he felt he had to know before he could teach music—“I wanted to teach singing.” The next year he went to Heidelberg at Tiffin, then returned a second year but still he had not obtained the answers. So he dropped out of college and went to barbering in New Knoxville. Then he heard of a fine voice teacher at Marion College, Marion, Ind., where he received his diploma in oratory and dramatic art. From there he went to Muncie Institute, where he had a wonderful teacher but still did not get the answers desired.
He went back to barbering, buying out the O. K. Barber shop in St. Marys from Carl Kimpel. It was about that time that St. Marys wanted a Community Chorus. “Forest Levering (former city editor of The Evening Leader) came to me and asked me to lead it. He was a leader in promoting it. Then Celinans asked to join. One week we rehearsed in St. Marys, the next in Celina. We gave a concert at the Grand Opera House. A former critic on the New York Times, R. Cameron Drummond was in Muncie, Ind., where he had bought the Muncie Star. At the invitation of Mr. Levering he came to St. Marys to hear the concert. Drummond gave me the encouragement I needed. He told me that not since LaScala came to America had he heard such a beautiful alto section. I asked him where I could go to learn to teach voice. ‘I don’t know. If I were you, I would write to every good music school in the United States and see which has the greatest artists on its staff.’ It was after that I sold the barbershop to the Morris Brothers and went to Chicago to study with Miller at the Bush Conservatory.”
Miller told him there was much not in text books, that he would have to evolve his own system of teaching.
The war came—World War I. After being called in for examination three times from Nickerson College, Reno County, Kansas, where he was teaching, he was accepted for service. He was sent to Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga., to serve with the Evacuation unit, U. S. General Hospital 14.
He contracted the flu with which he was seriously ill for days. They said afterward that it was a miracle that I recovered. “Ever since then, I have felt my time has been borrowed time—that anything I could do for the good Lord in any of His churches, it was my duty to do it, as a way of saying thank you for letting me live.” He was 5’ 11” tall and weighed only 95 pounds when he recovered form the flu only to develop an infection his right arm. “In treating me for that infection, a nerve in my arm was cut and afterward my fingers were slowed, so I could no longer play the organ as I had.”
He received his certified disability discharge from the Army; on September 19, 1919 at 9 a.m. he and Zella Fledderjohann of New Knoxville were married. “You know that number 9 has played a big part in my life. I was born March 19, 1891. My confirmation memory verse was Psalm 119, 9. I was married Sept. 19, 1919 at 9 a.m. and I could never have found a better wife than Zella,” Mr. Eversman said.
Zella had played for the St. Marys-Celina chorus and Ferd knew she had much musical ability. Together they went to Chicago where Ferd continued studying to be an instructor in voice and Zella, piano and organ. His disability pension and the money he earned by barbering evenings and at noons paid for their instruction and living expenses.
After they received their diplomas they went to South Dakota where Ferd taught voice at Eastern State Teachers College, Madison. It was while he was there that he developed a new method in teaching—scoffed at then, but 20 years later it appeared in textbooks, Mr. Eversman remarked wryly. “So many pupils were having difficulty with the key in which a number was written. I told them to remember as home base the line or space on which the key started. It would always be “do”, regardless of the key. Many of these pupils became teachers and used my method. I helped to organize the state music contest, working with E. M. Pallet, now with U. Of Oregon. In the sight reading contests I was pleased to see that pupils who came from teachers I had taught were winners.” Then the next year at the state music teachers association meeting in Sioux Falls, Eversman arrived a bit late, the room was darkened. He heard some, unaware that he was present, criticizing him for his innovations, scoffing at them. Finally he arose to explain his method. He won some converts. Twenty years later the National Music Supervisors magazine came out, he recalled with satisfaction, advocating the same method he had defended at the teachers association meeting.
Temperatures at Madison sometimes dropped to 40 degrees below zero in the winter—the snows were frequent and deep, the hailstones were bad. Once the town was snowbound for six weeks. Then the depression came—it started first in the cattle country when livestock men were forced to sell their livestock because they could not renew their notes. In 1927, the Eversmans decided to return to Ohio and he accepted a position with Findlay College while Mrs. Eversman and their son and daughter went to New Knoxville to help care for her father. The next year there was an opening in the New Knoxville schools and Mr. Eversman resigned at Findlay to be with Mrs. Eversman and the family.
It was during his 20 years of teaching voice in New Knoxville schools and in other schools in the county system that he taught many of the men and women who have made up the Community Singers of New Knoxville. “Three part songs were introduced. I made special arrangements for the children so that they could sing such beautiful songs. Zella and I worked together, writing such songs as “O Sacred Head.” You couldn’t buy the arrangements, so we did our own.”
“I taught the children to sing from my fingers, each finger representing a note. When the state inspector came I asked if he would like to see how the children could read music.” He said the number had been rehearsed. The children said, “No.” Then the state music supervisor came to hear the children, was satisfied that it was real. It was after that that I was invited to bring pupils from the New Knoxville schools to Columbus to demonstrate sight-reading methods, the same method I had used in Madison where my harmony students did so well.”
The Eversmans stayed on in New Knoxville where he directed a young people’s choir in the E. & R. church for eighteen years, then also directed the senior choir for ten years with his wife Zella as accompanist. He wished too to have a children’s chorus.
It was in 1950 that he had a serious heart attack with which he was hospitalized at Memorial hospital, Lima. On recovery he was told to discontinue the heavy schedule of teaching in school but that he might continue the choirs.
After the New Knoxville church voted a change in its choir direction, Mr. Eversman limited his work to teaching of private pupils. Then in answer to invitation by some of his pupils, present and former, he agreed to direct the informally-organized chorus which has become known as the Community Singers—men and women who meet regularly to sing for the joy of singing, who have sung at affairs in New Knoxville and in other communities. The first public appearance was in March 1954 for the benefit of the New Knoxville Youth Activities Association. Since then they have sung on numerous occasions including Hoge Lumber Co.’s 50th anniversary, the Soroptimist Club benefit in St. Marys, for Lakeside Chautauqua, for the Auglaize school dedication, the Toledo Zoo Sunday program, and for television and radio performances. His wife, Zella. accompanied the chorus, working closely with him.
Since 1957 he had also directed the Zion Lutheran church choir in St. Marys with Mrs. Eversman as accompanist.
It was a work he loved—despite his illness the last two years, requiring hospitalization on several occasions, he believed that he should continue to praise God through his choirs, that his life had been spared for him to serve.
He watched the progress of those who studied with him. He was proud of them, of their willingness to study to perfect the voices God gave them. He named one, then another, and another—telling of the work they are doing and have done. “Persistence, having a goal and working toward it. That’s what it takes,” Mr. Eversman said. “No one ever learned art without a lot of work.”
Then he asked Zella to play the tape recording of the Community Singer’s concert at St. Marys in 1957—undoubtedly he had heard it many times, but his face lighted with a smile of deep satisfaction when he heard the recording of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the other beautiful numbers, showing what harmony can come out of a group of singers, not professionals, but singers who sing for the love of singing. The living room was filled with music. He had forgotten for the moment that he was ill—that he had not been in bed for days because of the pressure of the fluid filling his system, that he was not responding to treatment, that his days were numbered. Just as he had sought to forget himself the day before in making leather belts for pupils of Mrs. Eversman. He loved leathercraft and he spent hours working with leather. He liked working too with metal. Another hobby was basketry and machine-carved woodwork. They were hobbies requiring skill and patience, hobbies that were relaxing to him. Mr. Eversman said he had only a short time to live—he was right—he died less than a week later, on Jan. 22. But his music lives on.