Most people who knew Beverly Smith can’t remember when she wasn’t playing the church organ.
Smith, who died April 26 at age 86, started playing the piano and organ as a child, was part-time organist at her Frederick, Md., Methodist church at age 15 and was the main organist by 17.
“She had an awful lot of natural talent,” said Austin Lovelace, nationally known church- music composer and organist in Denver. “She was just musical. You can’t be good unless you are,” said Lovelace, former organist and choir director at Montview and Wellshire Presbyterian churches, where Smith also served.
“She was unassuming and modest” about her talent, said son Stephen Smith of Antioch, Md.
“She played hymns with such vim and vigor, not that draggy playing,” said her sister Shirley Lakel, of Frederick, where they were reared. “Everyone always knew when Beverly was at the organ.”
When they learned their sister had died, Lakel and another sister, Minnie Earl Hargett, put flowers on the organ in the Calvary Methodist Church in Frederick, where Smith had played as a teenager.
Smith was a warm, outgoing person, said friends and family. She and her husband, Paul Smith, hosted choir parties each year, often feeding 100 people in their backyard. He prepared the barbecue beef and she readied “tons” of potato salad.
Beverly Smith was an early believer in the theory that classical music makes a person smarter, said son Michael Smith, of Forest Lake, Minn., a former concert pianist. “She even believed Bach would make you a better person,” he said, laughing.
“Exposure and gentle guiding” steered the three Smith sons into music, said Jeffery Smith, who has played French horn in the Central City Opera Orchestra and the Opera Colorado Orchestra. In the Smith home were a grand piano, organ and harpsichord. Stephen Smith played the clarinet, bassoon and piano.
M. Beverly Molesworth was born May 14, 1918, in Frederick. She met Paul Smith, a bacteriologist, and they married Nov. 28, 1943.
For business reasons, the couple moved to Denver in the 1950s, and for years Paul Smith owned a medical lab and developed cultures for use by doctors and hospitals.
Besides Montview and Wellshire, Beverly Smith played at First Congregational Church in Chappaqua, N.Y., and Wheat Ridge United Church of Christ.
In addition to her husband, sons and sisters, she is survived by six grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
