A 'swell' musician

Judy Gale brings new meaning to the phrase "pulling out all the stops."

For more than 35 years, she has been the organist at First Presbyterian Church in Creston, playing for hundreds of Sunday services, weddings and funerals during that time period.

It’s an art she admits is becoming more and more scarce in the days of electric instruments and modern, rock-style worship music.

“There aren’t that many pipe organs anymore. Or even people who know how to play them,” she said.

But for Gale, the organ brings something that ties the modern church to its heritage.

“Tradition,” she said. “Church music, wedding music — that’s just what I think of.”

As a girl growing up in the Cedar Rapids area, Gale’s exposure to music started early. Her mother and father both played piano, and her father played banjo as well. At age 6, Gale was already taking piano lessons. Her love for the pipe organ music in her local church would soon inspire her to take up the organ, too.

“I adored our organist that we had at our church,” she said.

Gale began taking lessons at Coe College the summer after her sophomore year of high school. Already a 10-year veteran on the piano, the main adjustments she had to make were coordinating her feet to work the organ’s many pedals and learning to use the organ’s multiple manuals, or rows of keys.

While studying at Iowa State University, Gale continued taking lessons for a few semesters. She also began playing at a local Lutheran church.

After graduating college and moving around a few times, Gale and her husband, Frank, settled down in Creston in 1979. They began attending the First Presbyterian Church, and it wouldn’t take long before the chance for Gale to play the pipes rose again.

“The organist here had decided she only wanted to do it every other week,” she said. “When I started here, then the Salem Lutheran Church needed somebody. Their organist wanted every other week, so I started going back and forth.”

The on-and-off pattern wouldn’t last for long, however. In November of the same year, the organist at First Presbyterian moved to Texas, and Gale was left with the job every Sunday.

Gale said she plays at least three different pieces every Sunday morning — a prelude, offertory and postlude — as well as hymns and other music throughout the service.

“Usually the postludes are pretty peppy — something bright to go out with,” she said. “The prelude, it could be something that’s soft, but I usually do more classical pieces.”

And those pieces are always fresh. Gale said she tries to never repeat a song during the course of a year, which means she plays a minimum 156 songs every 12 months.

“I write down the dates,” she said.

Gale has a two-drawer file cabinet stuffed with music she has amassed over the years, some of it from her first years of lessons in Cedar Rapids.

Her favorite piece to play: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

“You know — that they play in the haunted houses,” she said.

Gale said she usually practices by herself for an hour or two a week, often on Saturdays. She also practices with the praise band and choir.

Peggy Tripp, who has been chairperson of the church’s Worship and Music Committee for the past three years and has attended First Presbyterian for the past 45, said Gale’s organ playing goes beyond mere skill — it’s her enthusiasm and energy toward her work that makes the difference.

“She’s an excellent pianist and organist, but a lot of people can be that,” Tripp said. “She really conveys her excitement of what she’s doing into her music.”

Tripp said her favorite piece to hear Gale play is “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which she said is always worth a standing ovation.

In October of last year, the church recognized Gale for her 35 years. The church awarded her a pair of diamond earrings and invited her brother from Anamosa and her sister’s family from Kansas City to come and play in the praise band for the service. The church kept it all a surprise by hiding the bulletins from her until the last minute.

“They knew this ahead of time. I had no clue,” Gale said.

Becky Riley, a church elder, presented the award.

“We just wanted her to know that we’re grateful and thankful for her doing that service in our church because a church service without organ music is not really the same,” Riley said. “Organists don’t get a whole lot of pay for the work they do.”

So just what is it that has kept Gale playing for more than 35 years?

“My music talent or ability was given to me by God,” she said. “That’s the way I really feel, so that’s a way to give back.”

And playing organ isn’t the only way Gale gives back. She has also been active as a Sunday school superintentendent, clerk of session and deacon. She sings and plays piano with Joyful Noise, a contemporary Christian singing group from First Presbyterian Church. As a dietician with Women, Infant and Children Program at Matura, she has spent 34 years reaching out to area families in need.

Even after three-and-a-half decades as First Presbyterian’s organist, Gale shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, if the congregation has anything to say about it, it’s a job she likely won’t be walking away from anytime soon.

“I said something about retiring one time,” she said. “They said, ‘Well you have to play until you’re 99.’”