Oh, the Places You’ll Go! The Colorful Life of Lester Gibbs

When learning to play the piano, five-year-old Lester Gibbs was not aware, but music, and specifically keyboards, would influence the trajectory of his life to come. Lester grew up in Hartford, the son of a man who had been raised in the small village of Quechee, which, prior to the 1960s, was a thriving mill town with a sawmill, gristmill, and fabric mill, where uniforms were made for the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.

Lester Gibbs (top right) singing in his choir at Hartford High
School, class of ’58.

Nearby, Lester and his family lived in a second-floor apartment. When his parents purchased a house, where they would live for the rest of their lives, it was necessary to relocate their upright grand piano, a feat that would be done with ropes and a pulley, into the bed of a truck. As fate would have it, during the lowering phase of the operation, the pulley failed and the piano fell straight into the truck bed. The truck suffered a blown tire, but the piano was unharmed – quite a durable instrument! The tire was repaired, the piano moved, the piano tuner called, and Lester’s future – unbeknownst to him – was back in safe hands.

Lester’s piano lessons were interrupted by scarlet and rheumatic fever when he was in the first grade. Lester was quarantined at his grandparents’ farm in Jericho, where there was no piano, but there was a pump organ. Industrious little Lester surmised that one keyboard would translate to another, so he taught himself to play the organ, even though reaching the pedals proved to be a challenge. After many months of recovery, Lester’s doctor suggested that he forgo the keyboards and opt for a wind instrument instead to help strengthen his lungs. He was given a recorder, a common first instrument for elementary school children, before growing into a clarinet.

The challenge for Lester was that he would play the clarinet lessons on the piano, then play the clarinet by ear. Once challenged, and his secret discovered, it became necessary to literally transpose one instrument to the other. Lester never missed a beat, mentally making the changes necessary to remain “in key”. While wind instruments, including the bagpipes, came easily to him, the organ remained a challenge.

Lester Gibbs playing the St. Thomas Church organ while
stationed in Verona, Italy, one of 56 organs he played while
assigned to the Southern European Task Force from 1965-’66.
The historic organ was once played by Mozart.

He started playing the organ for Sunday school at the Quechee Congregational Church at age 12, when he still could not reach the pedals. That required some “fancy fingering” to sustain the sound while moving his hands from one keyboard to the next. Lester’s cousin, Ethel Churchill, was the organist at Quechee Church, and Lester would stand in for her when needed. His family also attended the Quechee Church, along with the Second Congregational Church in Hartford, which contained the first church organ that Lester learned on.

Word got around that Lester had some talent and he was being called upon to play at the Methodist church. Not long afterward, his services were requested by the Catholic church, followed by the Episcopal church. Lester was in musical heaven. He was being trained by four professional organists, and playing four excellent instruments, honing his skills along the way.

After graduating from high school in 1958, Lester enlisted in the army, signing up to be a cook. “My father always told me,” he said, “there are two things every person will do: eat and die.” So, being a cook was a responsible choice. One Sunday morning during basic training, Lester and his squad filed into the chapel and sat in the front pew. Being the squad leader, Lester went in first.  Singing that Sunday would be led by the pastor, as the organist was ill. The pastor was not blessed with musical skills, and Lester described him as, “tone deaf as a bat, and it was just horrible.” Eighteen-year-old Lester recognized the gravity of the situation, and put his superpower in gear.

He snuck up and seated himself at the B3 Hammond, turned on the power, and by the time the pastor had reached the second verse of the hymn, Lester started playing, and played through the balance of the service. There might have been a collective sigh from the congregation when the organ sang under Private Gibbs’ direction.

Les playing the organ, 2025.

The next morning, the company was up at 5am and heading to the firing range to zero-in their weapons. Lester was pulled aside and told that the Captain, the Company Commander, needed to see him. A sense of dread came over him. All of the soldiers had been told that only two reasons would cause one to be summoned to the Company Commander’s office: either someone in your family was seriously ill or had died, or you were being unceremoniously discharged. Once in the Commander’s office, the Captain reached out his hand. Private Gibbs snapped to attention with a sharp salute.

The Captain said, “Don’t you know how to shake hands?”

“Sir?” Lester replied, confused.

The Captain continued, “That was a fine thing you did yesterday! We’d like to keep you here at Fort Dix.” With that, Lester relaxed, slightly, shook the Captain’s hand, and his future took a new path. Instead of cooking school, Lester would train as a chaplain assistant, and assume one of the four open organist positions at Fort Dix.

As a new chaplain assistant and organist, Lester was given responsibility for the children’s choir, Sunday school, and Sunday service. After four months in that position, the adult choir director received orders for a different assignment, and Lester was given the additional duties. Lester was all of eighteen-years-old, and this was a huge responsibility for him. Fortunately, he had been involved in both the choir and band programs throughout his four years at Hartford High School (“an excellent program,” Lester remarked), which had prepared him well for this task.

Lester, talking about stories from his life, 2025.

Lester made a call to his old choir director, looking for some moral support and professional advice. She assured him, “You can do this!” And, she shipped a box of sheet music for him to use with his choirs, for which he was grateful.

A year later, Lester received orders for Korea where he would direct a twenty-member Korean choir on Sundays, and during the week teach them English for an hour, followed by an hour of choir practice, and then a meal. Young ladies and men went to separate schools, so the time they spent together for English study and choir practice was an important social event. “They were a great group to work with, and we were all about the same age,” Lester said. “We did Handel’s Messiah at Christmas, and the Easter portion [of The Messiah] at Easter. It was a great experience.” The organ, he also remarked, was exceptional, as was the Korean organist. The organ itself had been built by an engineer on the Army post, and had excellent sound.

Many years later, in San Antonio, Texas, when doing mortuary work, Lester was counseling a man whose mother had died. After a while, the man said, “I am sure I know you. But from where?” They determined that they’d both been in Korea, and the man recognized Lester as the choir director from the Korean chapel. As it turned out, the man was the engineer who had built the organ!

Les directing the second infantry division chorus at Fort
Benning, Georgia, 1962.

Lester spent twenty-three years in the Army, leading choirs and playing the organ. He also served at Fort Benning (Georgia), Italy (Verona), and Vietnam, among others. When he retired, his plan was to go into a mortuary position in the Civil Service. As he had played the organ for many funeral homes, and counseled grieving families in the Army, he thought it a perfect transition from military to civilian life. Lester used his GI Bill for mortuary school and became a San Antonio funeral director for ten years, but didn’t end up entering the Civil Service.

In 1995, Lester returned to Hartford, “temporarily,” when his father became ill. He went around to all the churches, dropping off his business card, and offering his services as a substitute organist, fully intending to be in the area only a short time. After substituting at the Woodstock Congregational Church for the summer, until their full-time organist returned in October, he was asked to come on permanently, as their “winter organist” was made an offer he couldn’t refuse at his summer location. Lester stayed at the Woodstock Congregational Church for eighteen years.

As for the instrument that launched Lester’s long career as an organist, it still serves as a staple of The Quechee Church, and is now played by teenage organ prodigy, Eleia Bouton, daughter of Pastor Ryan Bouton. The organ, which is said to have been built in the 1880s, is an enduring legacy of Quechee history, and now is providing a platform for a new generation of organists. Eleia, and the organ, may be experienced on Sundays at 9am at the Quechee Church.

Now 84, Lester still plays the organ at the Methodist Church in Whiter River Junction and answers the call when an organist is needed from time to time for Sunday services or special events in the area.

While “technically” retired, Lester was moonlighting at the Catholic church in Lebanon until late 2020, when physical limitations in his hands became problematic. Without a highly trained ear, you’d never know, but Lester knows.