Celebrating a Life Well-Played
Robert Carbaugh
It all began at Wheaton College, with two very
talented music students.
Robert Carbaugh played violin in Wheaton College's orchestra, and Helen was
the piano accompanist. After graduation and study at Chicago's Conservatory
of Music, Carbaugh hoped to study violin in Paris under the great Nadia
Boulanger. But when the fledgling Honolulu Bible Training Institute in
faraway Hawaii needed a music director, after two days of intense
soul-searching and prayer, Bob and Helen answered a call which was to last
until 1953.
But first they had to have a place to live. Bob was multi-talented as a
college student, he retooled his jalopy's engine to run on kerosene. Several
round trips between campus and home in Ohio occurred before a policeman,
spotting the fumes, reminded him it was illegal to evade the gasoline tax.
It was no surprise, then, when young Carbaugh the carpenter built his own
home on the slopes of Tantalus above the city of Honolulu. His growing
family lived there for the next dozen years, affording a bird's-eye view of
the Pearl Harbor carnage on December 7, 1941.
"Mr C. first taught me to direct music and I remember the first song I
led -and how relieved I was to get through it," recalls Rev. Nelson Kwon,
later a women's chorale director. In those years, Carbaugh also
superintended the school, served Mid-Pacific Institute as music director and
led the choir at Kaimuki Evangelical Church. He founded and directed the
Honolulu Junior Symphony and played first violin with the Honolulu Symphony
and the Liebecht chamber music series.
All the while, the couple modeled Christ for a generation of youth. Musing
in an interview in Moody Alumni, Carbaugh said:
"I see music as a tremendous means of communication. This goes back to our
experience in Hawaii where we were seeing music as a means of grabbing
outstandingly talented and capable youngsters and hanging onto them until
the Holy Spirit could draw them. Their interest was held by the choir with
its fellowship, social activities, concertizing and Bible studies. Now many
of the young people who found the Lord through the ministry of music are
church leaders, pastors, CE [Christian education] directors. When we visited
the islands in 1980 we heard dozens of testimonies of what HBTS choir meant
to them in high school years to provide a philosophy of living based upon
the lordship of Christ in their lives."
When Carbaugh was hired in 1954 by Moody Bible Institute's Music Department
Chairman Don Hustad, the lei-bedecked family left for Chicago to begin a new
27-year chapter.
The list of Bob's musical firsts at Moody boggles the mind. Bob founded the
Women's Glee Club (1955), pioneered one of the early handbell choirs in
America (1958), led the first Men's Glee Club (1957), conducted the initial
oratorio chorus and conceived the Christmas time Candlelight Carols event
that continues to this day. All this while, he was teaching, conducting and
serving as minister of music for ten years at Moody Church ,where Helen was
organist. "You'd be amazed at how many conductors around the world today
emulate the Carbaugh style of conducting," marvels Charles Thompson, retired
Women's Glee Club conductor and Bob's successor at Moody.
During
the Founder's Week 1981, Bob was the first member of the music department
ever to be awarded the school's Alumni Faculty Citation. "I have a very
heartfelt thanks for this unusual honor that I never dreamed of. It was
indeed a surprise," he responded.
Carbaugh had a fallback career tuning pianos. Maybe it was his mechanical
bent as a "Mr. Fix-It;" he was a genius at his craft. Bob drove all over the
Chicago area tuning pianos, enjoying conversation while he worked.
"Piano technology is a hobby that has gone berserk," he observed. "But it
also became a wonderful opportunity for service," relating that it was after
coming to Chicago and seeing how the climate ruined his own piano that he
first became interested in tuning. Today his daughter Lynn Hammond is tuning
pianos for her father's customers.
Even after a heart condition brought about his speedy retirement, Carbaugh
continued to mentor young musicians while playing the violin at Willow
Creek, Moody Church, and his home congregation, Orchard Evangelical Free
Church.
One of his eight grandchildren, Dr. John White, cites four traits that aptly
speak to "Grandpa C's" life.
Number one was his love for music. "Where else would you find a couple
playing a concert quality 'Moonlight Sonata' at their own wedding?" he
related. Number two was his love for family. "Not only was he a gentleman,
he was a gentle man." Numbers three and four were his vibrant faith and
inquisitive mind, with an obvious flair for technical detail.
Robert C. Carbaugh went home to be with the Lord at age 94 on July 7, 2009,
in Arlington Heights, Ill. One can almost hear the greeting that he received
- "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
(c) 2009 Moody Bible Institute