SEQUIM — After 50 years of leading music at Faith Lutheran Church in Sequim, Pat Marcy is passing the hymnal to a new musician.
Considered an institution for the church and a contributor to a number of community musical groups and activities, Marcy, the church’s music director, played her last full service on July 27.
Ryan Edinger, a recent graduate from Concordia University in Nebraska, was called to serve as director of parish music and began on Aug. 3, church leaders said.
“It’s been a wonderful experience and a joy to be with this church, and to be a musician for that long and to work with all the great people that we have in our choirs,” Marcy said.
A few years ago, she told the church’s elders of her intent to retire and that they should begin their search for a replacement, which happened to fall on her 50th anniversary with Faith Lutheran.
In the church, she’s led the Bell Choir and Voice Choir, worked with countless singers and musicians, and played the piano and organ at church services, weddings, memorials, preschool programs and more.
For the community, she has a long list of accomplishments and contributions, including teaching Sequim High School’s and Sequim Middle School’s choir classes for eight years, and hosting private piano lessons for 20 years.
Marcy also led the Sequim Community Christmas Chorus for eight years and was an accompanying pianist for the Port Angeles Light Opera Association, Port Angeles Community Chorus, Peninsula Singers, Olympia Theatre Arts and Reader’s Theatre for a number of shows.
Church leaders recognized her 50 years of service on June 1, with flowers, a trophy and a brass plate with her name attached to the organ.
Marty Adickes, the church’s vice president, said he and his wife Lana have known Marcy about 10 years and have been in the choir. She always wears a smile, he said.
“You can always tell it’s such a joy for her, especially in the choir and bell sections,” Adickes said. “We’re really gonna miss her. She’s an institution.”
As Marcy has led the church’s music for five decades, the church has had six pastors, two interim pastors, four vicars and four different hymnals.
Jackie Dawley, the church’s retired chorus secretary, said Marcy has gone to the church for 53 years and she finds her to be a “marvelous musician and a marvelous person.”
The pair worked for Sequim School District at the same time with Dawley as the ASB coordinator, and she said she has “nothing but good things to say about her.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” Dawley said.
Musician’s path
Marcy first attended Faith Lutheran with her three children in the late 1960s when her husband Spencer was on a hardship tour for the Army in Korea.
She liked the church because it had Sunday School for her children, and she found “the music and worship quite nurturing to my faith,” she said.
When Spencer returned, Marcy said they were stationed in Germany for three years, and then Pocatello, Idaho, before they moved back to Sequim in 1975.
She grew up in the Reformed Church in America, where her father was an ordained minister, but with no local churches 50 years ago, she went back to Faith Lutheran as the attendees were kind and she found Lutheran music inspiring.
She started playing for church services almost immediately.
Marcy started learning the piano when she was 5, and when she was in high school, she “got to be a pretty decent pianist,” performing in churches and accompanying people, she said.
With her talent growing and affirmation from friends and family in high school, Marcy studied music at Vassar College, open to the possibilities music could bring her.
Organ
Church members said Marcy’s organ playing has been one of the consistent highlights of church services.
“She’s a wonderful organist,” Adickes said.
“I used to play organ, and people don’t understand how much effort it takes to make it seem seamless.”
Marcy said her interest in studying the organ heightened while she was in Germany. Through her studies, she said its biggest learning curve is the foot pedals.
“Starting off as a pianist, you don’t do all that stuff with your feet,” she said.
It is considered the “king of instruments” for its varieties of sound and range from powerful to gentle, she said.
“It adds so much to a church service,” she said.
And as other churches shift from traditional to contemporary music — or switch to electronic pianos — Marcy said she feels the organ helps keep hymns alive.
“There’s a difference between an organ doing a hymn and a piano, and Lutherans are big on hymns, big on sung liturgy,” she said.
Faith Lutheran’s current organ was built in 1991, Marcy said, and it will be examined by the technician who built it in the coming months for Edinger and the church.
Future
Edinger, a trained organist, has met with Marcy and fellow church members in recent months and will work full-time.
“I think he’s going to be a good fit for this congregation,” Marcy said.
He will lead music efforts at the church, including choirs, and for neighboring Faith Lutheran Preschool.
Marcy plans to continue attending the church and help in some capacity, even in non-musical efforts, she said.
She and her husband, who died in 2018, have three children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
For more information about Faith Lutheran Church, 382 W. Cedar St., call 360-683-4803 or visit faithlutheransequim.org.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
Pastor Roger Stites honors Pat Marcy on June 1 for her 50 years of service in leading music at Faith Lutheran Church in Sequim. (Faith Lutheran Church)
Ryan Edinger, a recent graduate of Concordia University in Nebraska, started as the director of parish music at Faith Lutheran Church in Sequim on Aug. 3. (Faith Lutheran Church)
