1950s
Topper Smith, Director of Music 1954-1957
Frank Allen, Director of Music
1957-1963
Betty Allen, Organist 1954-1965
Mary Breuer, Originally Junior
Choir Director, then Cherub and Youth Choir Director (eventually Director of
Music) 1958-2012
Topper Smith was a tenor soloist working in the Long Beach area. The church music program began with an adult choir. A youth choir was started by Frank Allen, a choral music teacher in the Long Beach Unified School District and by then the Director of Music at LAUMC. Frank was also a fine tenor soloist. A children’s choir was started by Myrtle Belle Dunlap, an elementary music teacher in LBUSD.
Mary Breuer saw a job notice on the bulletin board in the music department at CSULB and was hired for the position of Junior Choir Director at LAUMC. After working with this upper elementary group, a second lower elementary choir, the Cherub Choir was started. Each of these groups had 60+ singers, rehearsed on Wednesday afternoons and sang in church once monthly.
In the first 20 years, LAUMC had an electronic organ It wasn’t until the late 1970s that the church had the leadership and the financial support to find and purchase the fine instrument which graces our sanctuary today.