Mark Twain Country And, to quote Rinnert, “She feels like she’s in the prime of her career. She calls herself a late bloomer. She feels that she’s getting to do all the things that people do at forty-five or fifty years old, but not at retirement age. Even at seventy years old, she’s not slowing down.” • The worry, if it can be called that, about Midwest roots is that they run too deep, and a possible global talent might be stifled by geography, family, and the farm. For some that is a noble life, but not for all. For others, the sight of the horizon isn’t a fence, but a siren call beckoning further exploration. “In a way the Midwest is wonderful for an upbringing on the farm,” Thym says, “but it’s also a hindrance that the roots are so strong that people don’t want to move away. That [Peggy] finally did it, doing it late, her career is peaking now.” She’s taking on more and more, like becoming the president of the American Choral Directors Association eastern division and lobbying for the 2020 ACDA conference to be in Rochester, the same city where she earned that coveted doctorate in conducting, where she met her future husband, all predicted by an astute Indian psychic. Naturally, Dettwiler will have a prime role in the upcoming Endless Mountain Music Festival where she’ll conduct the community chorus through the first four movements of Ralph Vaughn Williams’ five-movement In Windsor Forest. Despite the places she’s gone and the places she’ll go, she can always return to that warm spot in Illinois, as she did back in March 2016, when it was anything but warm. The bus, loaded with forty-three students for an eight-day tour, took a slight detour on its trip to Madison, Wisconsin, so Dettwiler could swing through her hometown and sing again in the church of her youth: Afolkey Church. The bus pulled up to a scene of skeletal trees, partly cloudy skies, and months-ago-harvested farmland. The church’s parking lot was full and the homecoming of the town’s premier émigré had an audience. They even drove past the farm where Dettwiler grew up, the same farm where she once climbed up the grain silo with a burlap sack to catch a charismatic pigeon, where she rode and raised horses, milked cows. In the Mansfield University newsletter Hear the Voices, Dettwiler cites a verse in her introductory essay often attributed to Kahlil Gibran: Yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. She closes her essay quoting J.R.R. Tolkien, writing “‘Deep roots are not touched by the frost.’ Coming home brings us back to our roots, not touched by frost and time.”
Award-winning writer Brendan O’Meara is the author of Six Weeks in Saratoga: How Three-Year-Old Filly Rachel Alexandra Beat the Boys and Became Horse of the Year.
NATIONAL SOARING MUSEUM
Soaring Capital of America info@soaringmuseum.org
Open Daily 10-5 51 Soaring Hill Dr. Elmira, NY 14903 607-734-3128
Featuring one of the largest collections of Gliders and Sailplanes in the world.
Exits 48 or 51A off Route 17 & 86
bringing history alive. Take a walk through time and discover treasures from the past through interpretive exhibitions, education programs, and publications that tell the county’s history.
Highlighting the Civil War and Mark Twain, the museum regularly changes gallery exhibits and programs throughout the year. Open Monday-Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. 415 E. Water St., Elmira, NY 14901 • (607) 734-4167 www.ChemungValleyMuseum.org 11