Anderson, Fary Wyrick

Fary W. Anderson, 94, of Kent, Ohio, died on Monday, October 19, 2009. Mrs. Anderson, widely known as a studio piano teacher in Southwestern Virginia, began the study of the piano when very young in her home town of Dublin, Va.

She graduated from Radford University and completed further piano studies at Hollins College and the St. Louis Institute of Music, where she studied theory, harmony, and general musicianship. She also traveled to Europe several times, particularly visiting Poland and France for studying the music and life of Chopin.

Mrs. Anderson retired in 2006 after 55 years of piano teaching. She was widely known in Virginia through the Farydyll (“Fary’s Dream”) Piano Studio she built in Dublin, Va., in 1969. The beautiful brick building, especially designed as a piano studio, contained a polished hardwood stage area with a grand piano along with a sizeable auditorium and several smaller rooms for teaching piano and organ.

Over several decades hundreds of students were presented in recitals at the Farydyll by Mrs. Anderson’s large group of students. Farydyll also became the site of meetings the Highland Chapter of the Virginia Music Teachers Association and the venue for professional artists from throughout the world who came to perform in Southwest Virginia.

Before leaving Dublin in the early 1990’s, Mrs. Anderson donated land to establish the Charles and Ona B. Free Memorial Library. She also donated land attached to the library for the Wyrick-Anderson Park and the large Farydyl family garden which she had earlier donated to the Town of Dublin for community musical events and other gatherings.

After moving to Kent, she continued to teach piano for a number of years, along with performing piano duos with her daughter, Fay Ann Sebaly, for Cleveland’s Musical Art Society. She also continued her devotion to flower gardening in Kent by developing yet another Farydyl garden on a vacant lot located on Wilson-Harvey Street.

Mrs. Anderson’s distinctive approach to teaching piano included the writing of plays about composer’s lives with students assuming the roles of various characters and performing pieces of the composer’s music. In this way students learned about the historical and cultural context of the music they performed. Her plays included “The Life of Edward MacDowell,” Mendelssohn’s “Song Without Words,” Beethoven’s “Bridge of Stars,” Grieg’s “Selections from the Peer Gynt Suite,” “The Silver Goblet–Scenes from the life of Frederic Chopin,” The “Merry Master” based on Franz Haydn’s life, and “Candlelight Time in Old Vienna” focusing on the life of Mozart. She also helped students learn to perform in their churches. Hundreds of her students participated in “Hymn Festivals” which she organized in Virginia, contributing significantly to the improvement of the quality of church music in the region.

Mrs. Anderson served as President of the Pulaski Music Club of the Virginia Federation of Music Clubs, and District Chairman of the Virginia Federation of Music Clubs, and in Ohio was a member of the American Association of University of Women, the Musical Art Society of Cleveland, the Kent Women’s Club, the Scandinavian Club, Delta Omicron, and the Kent Garden Club. She was also a member of the Dublin’s United Methodist Church, and associate member of the Kent United Church of Christ.

Mrs. Anderson, whose husband, W.M. Anderson, died in 1986, is survived by a brother, Walter P. Wyrick, of Tacoma, Wash.; a daughter, Fay Ann Sebaly, of Kent; a son, Dr. William M. Anderson, of Aurora; five grandchildren, Amy Rumrill, of Monroe Falls, Annandee Sebaly, of Kennesaw, Ga., Abigail Sebaly, of Chicago, David Anderson, of Detroit, and Grant Anderson, of Cincinnati; and four great-grandchildren, Chad, Cassidy, and Connor Pittman, of Monroe Falls, and Alex Anderson, of Cincinnati.

A service of remembrance for Mrs. Anderson will be held 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 14, 2009, at the Kent United Church of Christ and will be followed by burial at a later time in the old Dublin Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, please send any memorials to Robinson Visiting Nurse and Hospice, P.O. Box 1204, Ravenna, Ohio 44266 or Garden Club of Kent, c/o Gail Closs, 1353 Lake Martin Drive, Kent, Ohio 44240