Six decades later, Randi Smarsh moves to the pews

Randi Smarsh will be in church on Sunday at Christ Lutheran in Avon Lake. She just won't be sitting on her piano bench in the choir loft playing as the church organist. "It's been my life," she said. "I keep thinking, 'I don't know if I'm going to like this (being retired).'" She laughs. She smiles. Her eyes wonder. She pauses. It's a moment. It's real. Randi had been a church organist for 60 years. She is retiring. In the beginning The town wasn't even a town. Leesville, Ohio. "We had a grocery store and a church and that was about it," Randi said thinking about her hometown that still today doesn't have 200 people living in it. "It was a very nice place to grow up." Randi grew up in an old, two-story house with her mom, her dad and a big upright piano. "I would come down in the morning and the first thing I would do was play the piano. My dad was upstairs, trying to sleep." Randi stops her story and smiles. "He didn't care for that too much." The church in Leesville was St. John Lutheran. The organist was Cleonabelle Shawber. Everyone called her Curly. "I rode my bike up to her house for piano lessons," Randi said. Curly took a liking to young Randi and asked her if she'd like to learn how to play the organ. "I said yes, but we didn't have an organ at our house." Randi and I are sitting at her dining room table in her Avon Lake home as she talks. She puts her right hand on the table and taps across it as she counts and marches with her fingers 1-2-3-4. "St. John Lutheran Church was four houses down from us and Mrs. Shawber gave me organ lessons at the church," Randi said. "Back then, the church was never locked and I would just walk down and practice on the organ whenever I wanted." Randi wasn't even a teenager yet. "Lots of good memories," she said to me softly. Randi officially became an organist at St. John Lutheran Church in Leesville in the fall of 1966. She was still a month away from being old enough to drive. There is a small cross made of simple pine that sits on her piano in her home. "The cross came from St. John," Randi said as she picked it up to show me. Two summers ago, her first church closed after 181 years of ministry. "I went home for the final service. We all cried." Randi played the organ at St. John's from 1966 to 1974. She was the organist at Calvary United in Crestline from 1974 to 1980. She became the organist at Christ Lutheran in Avon Lake in 1980 and served until last Sunday. Sixty years of service. She is 75. "Oh my gosh. I can't believe that and my husband, Ron, is 79. How can I be married to a man that old? I don't think it bothers me, being the age that I am but I look at him and I think, Oh Ronnie, how did you get that old.?" Randi and Ron have been married for 45 years. The piano The piano that sits in Randi's house is older than her marriage. Randi turned and looked over her shoulder at it. "I bought that piano before I was married, when I was living at home," she said. "It's not a very good piano because I didn't have a lot of money to spend and I bought it myself. But, I tell Ron if we ever win the real big lottery, I would want a baby grand piano." Randi and Ron still live in the modest home where they raised their two children, Stephanie and Ryan. "He (Ron) says, where would we put it?" I say, get rid of the furniture in the living room and put in my baby grand but that'll never happen because we rarely play the lottery," she said and laughed. "I like the piano better (than an organ). I really do. I love my piano. The touch of the keys? The sound? I don't know." "I can still see and hear my mother playing the piano. She could play by ear, which I can't do." Hanging on the wall, next to her piano, is an embroidered cloth that reads, "Music is Love. Love is Music." The cloth was given to her by Christ Lutheran Church member, friend and fellow pianist Brenda Crout. On the piano is a silk scarf. It's black and designed with white keys representing the natural notes played by Randi's able fingers. The scarf was given to her by longtime church member, friend and scarf lover, Anita Hlava. Anita recently passed. Taking up space in the corner of a floor in an upstairs room is a cluttered collection of sheet music. The paper sheets, some dating back to the 1960s, are stacked and spread maybe a foot high and 6 or 7 feet long. "I've got so much music," Randi said to me. "Funeral music, wedding music, pop music, Broadway shows, my prelude music from church." Randi never studied music in college. She's just played it. "I like to play Broadway showtunes. I used to play classical music and that's one of the things I'll get back to because I've got classical music upstairs, too. I like to play Beatles music, too." "I just feel very peaceful when I play the piano, I do. If I've had a rough day, I'll just sit down and play for a while and I'll feel better," she said. Does she sing? "No. No," she said, drawing the noooooo out. "I'm just a simple organist, piano player." The cross Randi wears a tiny cross necklace. Her husband gave it to her years ago for Christmas. "I wear it all the time," she said. "Faith is very important to me." Playing music is an extension of her faith. In some grand measure, music is a member of her soul. Randi would practice once a week every week for 46 years in the sanctuary of Christ Lutheran. Bill Higgins, the church maintenance man, would make sure the door was open for her and she'd spend 90 minutes alone with the piano and organ and her thoughts. "I would talk to God. It was very peaceful and I was very happy. I liked it that way (being by myself). I will miss that," she said. Then she looked back over her shoulder at her simple piano in her home and said, "I play that all the time though." Randi then gestures to the living room and said, "see the La-Z-Boy recliner, that's where Ron sits all the time and I'll say do you care if I play for a while and he'll say no but I know he's trying to hear the TV." I asked if her husband liked music. "He supports me out of the kindness of his heart." Randi smiled at me and started to pretend to softly play imaginary keys on the table. "He'll be in his chair and he's watching his war movies and he'll turn the sound up on the TV and I try not to play so loud." The highlights In her 60 years as a church organist, Randi played for 753 funerals and 367 weddings. She played the same day she gave birth to her son, Ryan. "I was very pregnant with him and when I got up that Sunday morning, I just didn't feel quite right and I called my friend Bobbi Guthman and she said do you think you could be in labor and I said no, no, no. It's too soon. Anita Hlava, bless her heart, she sat up in the choir loft with me just in case something happened." Ryan wasn't born in the choir loft that morning but he was born that afternoon, 40 years ago this summer.. Randi played hurt, too. It was an icy winter day, long ago as Randi walked out her front door to her car in the driveway. She slipped as she approached her car and fell, hitting her head. "I was just laying there on the ice and I got up and got into the car and as I was driving down Lake Road to the church, I'm thinking something just doesn't feel right," she said in her reflection. "But, I got through the service and after I went to the emergency room and they said I had a concussion." Randi shrugs her shoulders and smiles. She's a gamer. Did you ever get nervous playing at funerals or weddings, Easter morning or at Christmas Eve service? "No, I never got nervous playing but if you asked me to get up and read in church with everyone looking at me, oh, I couldn't do that. I don't talk. I play. I think what I want to do, not for a while though, I want to be a greeter at church." Tomorrow morning, at Christ Lutheran's morning service, Randi will not be in the choir loft on her bench with her fingers striking the keys of the piano and organ. She'll be in the back row with Ron and their "churchies," friends. "It's going to seem strange going to church and hearing someone else play," she said. "It's been my life." Her friend and church member Rob Pederson will be installed as Christ Lutheran's new organist and Randi will "officially" be retired. "Maybe I'll lean over to Ronnie in the pew and whisper, I would've played that song faster or I would've played that song slower. No, I can't do that," she said. The smile again, laughter and the truth. "It's gonna be hard for me." Contact Ron Jantz at rjantz@chroniclet.com.