Rosetown Review: Cromwell’s paragon of civic virtue
Courtesy photos
by Richard Franklin Donohue
Town Historian
Help me to find the path
Which leads to thee;
Help me to feel thy Hand
that guideth me,
To quiet dwellings in that sky
I’ve reached to touch,
To touch in passing by.
My soul has soared to Thee
On wings of love
Through clouds of mystery
I’ve seen above
Leaving unsolved for us
to understand until that day
Thy message penciled by Thy Hand.
A Prayer by Anna A. Doering: 1943
Anna Irene Anderson was born on Nov. 2, 1893, to Ida Peterson and Peter Anderson, who had moved to Cromwell from Sweden in 1886 to work for A.N. Pierson. She was the second oldest of nine children and the eldest daughter.
In her own words, Anna “practically lived in the Pierson Greenhouses as a child … and knew everything that grew over there.” When she was 5 years old Anna began to play the piano and organ and discovered that she had perfect pitch – the ability to recognize or sing the pitch of any note – a skill possessed by just 1 in 1,000 people.
By the age of 15 she was regularly playing the organ for the Covenant Congregational Church next door to her home and teaching enough private piano students to be considered among the town’s notable businesses. For the rest of her life Anna, subscribing to the mantra that “every child should have some basic foundation in music,” would teach countless students and give each “feelings for music” like no one else.
She studied music at the Worchester Conservatory in Massachusetts and became the organist at the nearby Piedmont Church. In 1919 she returned to her hometown of Cromwell to resume her teaching practice and become the organist and choir director at the First Congregational Church.
Dedicated to music as her “spiritual experience,” Anna would lead the musicians and inspire the members of this church for more than 60 years.
She quickly earned a reputation not only as a solid organist but as one who excelled at both sight reading and improvising. In 1925 these remarkable skills led a group of theater managers from Middletown to offer Anna the “eminently enjoyable” job of playing the organ during silent movies.
For two years, she and a small orchestra set the mood and charm of Middletown’s cinema, a delightful experience that only ended with the advent of talking movies.
In 1929, Ernest C. Doering, a well-known Connecticut golfer, came to town as the Middletown Golf Club’s first resident professional. Three years later Ernie and Anna were married at the Congregational church. After spending their honeymoon in Palm Beach, the couple returned to town to live in her childhood home on Main Street.
In addition to her duties as organist and choir director for various worship and wedding services, Anna introduced initiatives to create a music ministry that transcended the small-town realities of the Congregational church. First, she facilitated the donation of a new M.P. Moller pipe organ and Weber grand piano from Charles B. Frisbie and staged a dedication concert featuring the new instruments played by several well-known area musicians.
In 1938, she conducted a performance of Theodore Dubois’s “The Seven Last Words” featuring Wesley Howard, a prominent Hartford tenor, Lewis Lubnow, a baritone from New Haven and New York soprano Rhea Massicotte. She directed a series of “Musicales” also headlined by regionally famous musicians and in 1948 created the state’s first youth rhythmic choir dedicated to “worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”
In the fall of 1953, tragedy struck the Doering household when Ernie was working in the basement with a blowtorch and it exploded in his hands. Although badly burned, he climbed outside, attached a garden hose and reentered the basement to douse the fire.
With the house secure, he called for help and was taken to the hospital with third-degree burns. After suffering in the hospital for nearly two months, he died as a result of his injuries. For his “heroic actions” in extinguishing the fire and saving his home he was officially commended by the Cromwell Fire Department.
Following the death of her husband, Anna’s life became a mission of service. During World War II she had worked to support the war effort on the homefront, organizing a “Molly Pitcher Day” and riding around town in a horse-drawn wagon selling war bonds.
Now, her patriotic spirit resonated through musical programs for Memorial Day and Flag Day and additional work supporting the activities of the American Legion. When the country celebrated its 200th anniversary in 1976 Anna was so instrumental in the town’s activities that the Cromwell Bicentennial Commission dedicated a new flag pole on Valour Memorial Green in honor of the “originality, excitement and splendour” she brought to the commemoration.
In the years following World War II flower arrangements became an essential element of the stability, peace and prosperity of the middle-class American home. Drawing on her experience and knowledge from growing up in the Pierson Greenhouses, Anna developed a myriad of programs which she presented to garden clubs and church guilds throughout the state.
These demonstrations ranged from the basic rules of flower arranging to specific lectures on “floral arrangements suitable for church.” One offering titled “Impressions in Music and Flowers” featured recordings of Anna and Richard Wm. Donohue, tenor, performing nostalgic and religious music accompanying Anna creating floral arrangements related to each selection.
A similar program featured Anna’s extensive collection of Madonna figurines which she arranged “with a variety of properties to make beautiful and striking decorations for the home.” At the same time, she joined the Middletown Garden Club, through which she began to win prizes for her innovative arrangements as well as preside as judge over local and regional contests.
In 1982, her arrangement “Nature’s Gifts” comprised of “bark from a maple tree, coconut tree spathes, and lichen artistically arranged to form a long-lasting picture,” was included in the National Council of State Garden Clubs’ Vision of Beauty engagement calendar.
In 1961, Anna was an active member of the Home Club when it set out to establish the Cromwell Historical Society. In 1966, she was elected president, a position she held for a decade, her popularity defying organizational rules limiting presidents to two-year terms.
Among her many contributions to the prosperity of the historical society was the addition of more than 100 life members, each contributing $100 that was used to create the endowment fund still in operation today. In 1982, she was recognized with an Award of Merit from the Connecticut League of Historical Societies.
In 1978, the town honored the “60 years of service and love to her community” by celebrating Anna Doering Day. A gathering of nearly 300 admirers congregated at the Elks Club in Middletown for a dinner followed by speeches and presentations by dozens of individuals and organizations recognizing Anna’s “unselfish community service.”
Proclamations from the town and state were followed by letters of congratulations from Gov. Ella Grasso and President Jimmy Carter. Richard Wm. Donohue, who had dedicated the recital room of his music studio and established a scholarship in honor of Anna some years before, was the keynote speaker.
The program for the evening noted that “as we honor Anna this day, we also honor ourselves … and reaffirm the values we prize so highly.” Four years later Anna was named the town’s woman of the year in recognition of her “generosity and tireless volunteer efforts on behalf of the community.”
On March 12, 1984, Anna Doering passed away while sitting in her living room chair, quietly waiting for a visit from her brother. Among the numerous eulogies published in the coming days were these words from Simon Moore:
“Because of her, Cromwell is a better community in which to live, for whatever she touched she improved upon, whatever activity she participated in became successful. She was always a giver, always a doer. She was indeed an uncommon woman in a world of common people.”
I knew Anna as well as anyone could in the 12 years during which our lives overlapped. She was someone that both of my parents deeply admired and respected, albeit for very different reasons. She believed in the necessity and power of music and the symbiotic relationship between history and sense of place.
Along with the aroma of eucalyptus that permeated her front porch, the little baggies of chocolate chip meringues and candy she would leave for neighborhood children like me, and the special gift of her personal seashell collection, my most important memory of Anna is as a ubiquitous paragon of civic virtue.
Her example will always be with me at the Cromwell Historical Society, during Memorial Day ceremonies, in my music studio and even when arranging flowers to take to the cemetery.
Like those who honored her in 1978, by remembering Anna Doering today we not only honor ourselves, but remind ourselves of the lasting impact of sincere interest and action within our community. CL