By Bonita Wilborn
On Sunday, October 3, 2021, Free Hill Baptist Church hosts a reception at the Fyffe Senior Center from 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM. This reception is held in honor of Dennis June Womack for 70 years of dedication to Free Hill Baptist Church as the church pianist. All of Dennis’ friends and family are invited to attend.
Dennis requested that you do not bring a gift to the reception, but instead, she would like everyone that attends to bring her a note; a fond memory you have of her, expressing your appreciation, or that she is in your thoughts, and please sign it so that she can look at them in days to come and know who sent it.
A fellow church member, Brenda Womack, stated, “We love her and are so very thankful for all the years of beautiful music, love, and dedication to our church.”
At age 12, Dennis began playing the piano at Free Hill Baptist Church due to her father’s insistence. She was the daughter of Vanburen Boozer, better known as Dick Boozer. She explained, “My daddy sang in a quartet with the Jones’, and Grandmother Jones gave piano lessons. So my mother decided that I would start taking piano lessons.”
Each week Dennis and her family went to Grandmother Jones’ house so that the quartet could practice singing. It was a time when the children in the family got to play together while the adults practiced singing. As you can imagine, a 12-year-old would rather be playing with her cousins rather than playing for the quartet, but that wasn’t to be for very much longer.
“We went 30 minutes earlier than the singing started, and Grandma Jones gave me piano lessons,” Dennis explained.
“Momma Jones lived with her son and his family. I took piano lessons for about two years. Daddy knew music because he had been taken to ‘old book singings’ when he was growing up, so he knew the timing and everything. When I quit taking lessons, Daddy and I sang every spare minute I had.”
Dennis’ father strongly encouraged her to learn a few church songs as quickly as possible to begin playing the piano at church, as they didn’t have a piano player at that time. So, at the age of 12, with minimal training, and lots of encouragement, Dennis pecked out the tune to those few songs Sunday after Sunday until she learned to play others.
In the beginning, it was not exactly a labor of love but rather a chore that she was given to do. Thankfully that chore eventually became a joy.
When asked if she remembered what those few songs were, Dennis, now 82 years old, responded, “No. But if I saw them in the book, I’d probably rip the pages out.”
Time marches on for all of us, and Dennis was no exception. “After I got married,” Dennis continued, “We lived close to them, so we continued to sing. Dad had the piano, so we went to his house. After a while, we moved to Birmingham, but I still had to come home every weekend to play the piano at church. Later we moved back to Tenbroeck from Birmingham. Daddy decided to get some of the young boys to sing. So I had to eat supper early if I got any supper because we were going to sing every night. That continued until those boys grew up and didn’t want to sing anymore. Then it was back to just me and him. Daddy began teaching singing schools in the summer when school was out. After he stopped teaching singing schools, he still managed to get a new book every year when the new book came out, and after supper, we would sing until we had been through the book two or three times, and then on the weekend, we’d go to the singings.”
Dennis had married a good man who realized the calling she and her father had. She commented, “My husband never complained. After the kids came along, he’d take our sons home and put them to bed, do homework, or whatever was needed, while I stayed there and sang with Daddy. That went on for years, even after I got a job in Huntsville.”
Some of the singers in the group changed from time to time, and the group’s name changed as the members came and went, but Dennis and Dick remained a constant force that kept the group going.
“I’ve just played the piano nearly all of my life,” Dennis said.
