Several people have told Mildred Spencer she should write a book on her life. At 99-years-old in February, the book would be filled with many memories and many experiences, Spencer agreed, but she always tells them, “No way.”
Spencer has been living in the Rittenhouse Village at Portage, a senior living facility, for about a year, and has established daily activities that the other residents and employees couldn’t imagine a time without them.
Every morning, Mildred wakes up and heads to the grand piano on the upper level of the village. As the other residents prepare for the morning exercise, Spencer’s playing is drifting throughout the building. The music are church songs and hymns she knows by heart from years of playing the piano and organ at her church, Porter United Methodist.
“I play church songs because most people in here don’t hear them and that’s why I play them in the morning,” Spencer said. “I play hymns because I used to play all kinds of music when I was younger, but when I became the organist in church, I just practiced the hymns and got away from the other songs.”
Spencer said she began playing when she was young, the exact age she was not clear on, and her brother played the saxophone. When her church purchased the organ, she self-taught herself how to play.
She and her family lived in Middlebury until she was 13 and then they moved to Valparaiso, where her father worked as a farmer. She graduated in 1936 from Chesterton High School, then went straight to a one-year business college in La Porte. There she worked for her room and board, studying shorthand and math.
“It was just one year,” she said. “It was during hard times.”
Spence went into an advertising company, but was not there long before coming across another great opportunity for work. She traveled to South Bend to take a test for a positon within an Indiana State government agency.
“I came out of this test in the top three. The district manager interviewed me and I got the job,” she explained.
For the next 20 years, she was the receptionist for the state agency, doing secretarial work and a lot of shorthand.
She met her husband and she asked her managers to transfer her to Gary, which was where her husband worked. They had two kids, a son and daughter.
Spencer’s husband died after a little over 20 years of marriage. In the last eight years, she lost her son to brain cancer and her daughter lives in Michigan.
She said overall, her family all have long lives, with her mother living up to age 104. She is often visited by four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. One of her grandchildren, Michelle Marvin, decorates Spencer’s walker every holiday. This time, purple, red, and pink hearts adorn the handles.
At the living center, Spencer was asked to play the piano for the newly organized SING group, a small group of people who meet on Tuesday afternoons to sing songs. She said she accepted to play the piano, and only loves playing it because the center does not have an organ, which is where her true musical heart lies.
“They wanted me to do it,” she said, about the group. “I was amazed at some of the comments people gave to me.”
There was a time when Spencer was too sick to play the instrument, so when she was able to get back on the bench she had to unstiffen her fingers for a while, but the musical notes easily came back to her.
As she sits down each morning or now during the SING groups in the evenings, the world outside is blocked by the music.
“The hymns just come to me,” she said. “It is the music in me.”