May 31, 2012
School of Music Remembers Music Education Leader
The School of Music remembers Mary Ruth Tolbert, professor emerita, music education, who passed away in her Circleville, Ohio home on Sunday, May 27.
An Ohio native, Mary graduated from Pickaway Township High School in 1931, received her bachelor's degree from The Ohio State University in 1935, and her master's degree in music from Columbia University. She continued her graduate work at both The Julliard School and Ohio State in addition to international studies in Europe, Russia, China, Africa and Mediterranean countries.
Mary taught at The Ohio State University School of Music for over 40 years. Some of her well-known students include composer/educator, Wallace DePue and internationally known jazz pianist, Karen Fanta-Zumbrunn. She was well-known as co-author of This is Music, a textbook series which is still used in elementary music classrooms across the country.
School of Music Professors and Alumni Share Their Memories of Professor Tolbert
Mary R. Tolbert was a remarkable person. Raised on a farm in an historic home on route 23 just south of Circleville, Ohio, she taught music at every level, from preschoolers to college students for over 40 years. Driving back and forth all those years in order to remain in her special family home (she has bequeathed it to the Historical Society of Circleville), she was widely recognized for being "ahead of her time" in so many educational and social issues. An independent, world-class woman, she served as a role model for so many people in our profession, including me. I considered her a mentor in personal and professional ways and I learned so much about university politics, music education, the history of our field and even specific things about teaching music to young children. I recently met a woman in the Human Resources office at Ohio State who heard me say I was in the School of Music and she asked if I knew Mary Tolbert. In our conversation she said she has strong memories of being a student of hers in the OSU Laboratory School (Ramseyer Hall) years ago (before the school closed and the music faculty there joined our School of Music). She got emotional talking about what a wonderful teacher she was.
She was a coauthor of the elementary music series published by Allyn and Bacon in the 1960s, This is Music, which was known for its foreshadowing of the growing interest in "multicultural" music education. This was just one of so many ways she was indeed "ahead of her time." Her legacy will endure in our profession.
- Jere Forsythe, Professor of Music Education, The Ohio State University
Each of us has a handful of persons who saw something in us that perhaps others could not see. Professor Tolbert was one of those for me. I almost dropped out of music education (1968-1972) but Mary Tolbert "took me under her wings" and mentored me as well as gave me continuous support and encouragement. She gave me a wonderful recommendation for my second teaching position which was an elementary general music position at Hamilton South Elementary in Franklin County. To make a long story short, she thought I was a good music teacher and from 1975-1983 she sent me nine student teachers to supervise. I wonder what I would have done for a career had Professor Tolbert not rescued me.
-Tom Cook (BME, 1972; MA, 1977), School of Music Office Associate
Mary Tolbert was one of the most multi-faceted persons I have ever known: a musician, educator, mentor, intellectual, farmer, and Ohio historian. She taught young children and rode a horse. She lived in an historic home filled with antiques. She raised crops, farm animals, and music teachers. She was smart, sharp-witted, and on top of her game until the time of her passing. She was generous with all her resources. She was my kind of person! But not just me: Mary Tolbert was a role model for many people—girls and boys, women and men—a strong, independent, thinking, professional woman whose life and career spanned much of the 20th century.
I was aware of Mary Tolbert’s accomplishments when I interviewed at OSU upon her retirement in 1985. I knew that she had co-authored a basal music series, This is Music, that was used in elementary schools all across the nation; she had spearheaded the proposal for MENC’s Early Childhood Special Research Interest Group, a SRIG that continues to thrive today; she was conversant with 20th century European teaching philosophies, having studied Orff and Dalcroze methodologies in Europe during the time of their formation. She had a keen interest in children’s musical development back when such research was sparse, foreshadowing the eventual explosion of studies in perception and cognition in young children. Mary Tolbert was a modern, progressive educator. She was a leader and an outspoken advocate. With all her love of history, she never seemed to get stuck in the past but instead kept current on educational issues and politics. The last time I saw her, she had a few choice words about where things seemed to be headed and what we might do about that. Always pushing forward, always a leader. How wonderful that Mary Tolbert served as a loving teacher for young children early in her career, a pioneer among professional women in the 20th century, and a generous, outspoken advocate for arts, music, and history during the rich years of her retirement.
Music Education has lost a dear friend in Mary Tolbert, but her life mattered and her legacy is powerful. I am deeply grateful to have known her.
-Patricia J. Flowers, Professor of Music Education, The Ohio State University
