Sept. 27, 1923 – May 30, 2013
Mary Lee Bachmann, a longtime area piano teacher, died May 30 in Beechwood Continuing Care Facility, Getzville, after a short illness. She was 89.
Born Mary Lee Hyndman in Keokuk, Iowa, she grew up on a farm in rural Illinois and attended class in a one-room schoolhouse. She learned to play the piano from her mother, Lucy, a church organist.
She graduated in 1944 with a bachelor’s degree in music from Carthage College in Wisconsin, where she also met the Rev. Dr. C. Charles Bachmann. They married in 1945, and she followed her husband to the Boston area, where she played the organ in his Woburn, Mass., parish. They later moved to Chicago, Memphis, Milwaukee and arrived in Buffalo in 1956.
Mrs. Bachmann taught second grade at the Park School from 1957 to 1958 and instructed hundreds of piano students in her Clarence home until her retirement from teaching in 2009.
She assisted her husband’s ministry as Protestant staff chaplain at Erie County Medical Center by playing the organ at many of his services. He died in May 2010.
She was a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, the international music fraternity for women; the Philanthropic Educational Organization; the Order of the Eastern Star; the Restoration Society; and the Erie County Medical Center Junior Board.
She is survived by a daughter, Rhonda Hammond; and a son, Dr. Charles M.
Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday in Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 1080 Main St.
Mary Lee Bachmann, a longtime area piano teacher, died May 30 in Beechwood Continuing Care Facility, Getzville, after a short illness. She was 89.
Born Mary Lee Hyndman in Keokuk, Iowa, she grew up on a farm in rural Illinois and attended class in a one-room schoolhouse. She learned to play the piano from her mother, Lucy, a church organist.
She graduated in 1944 with a bachelor’s degree in music from Carthage College in Wisconsin, where she also met the Rev. Dr. C. Charles Bachmann. They married in 1945, and she followed her husband to the Boston area, where she played the organ in his Woburn, Mass., parish. They later moved to Chicago, Memphis, Milwaukee and arrived in Buffalo in 1956.
Mrs. Bachmann taught second grade at the Park School from 1957 to 1958 and instructed hundreds of piano students in her Clarence home until her retirement from teaching in 2009.
She assisted her husband’s ministry as Protestant staff chaplain at Erie County Medical Center by playing the organ at many of his services. He died in May 2010.
She was a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, the international music fraternity for women; the Philanthropic Educational Organization; the Order of the Eastern Star; the Restoration Society; and the Erie County Medical Center Junior Board.
She is survived by a daughter, Rhonda Hammond; and a son, Dr. Charles M.
Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday in Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 1080 Main St.