J.C. parishioner reflects on life as a musician, teacher, principal

Every time I was teaching, I was the musician — I had to be the musician in addition to teaching.”

Juanita Kunzler

Juanita Kunzler coached, directed, performed and taught music for decades before she stepped away from the field last month.

No matter where her assignments took her, her parish leaders always seemed to find out about her talents and tap into them.

Now 83, Miss Kunzler took piano lessons while in eighth grade at St. Cecilia School in Meta.

A nun recognized young Juanita’s talent and approached her.

“She said she thought I could do organ,” Mrs. Kunzler recalled. “She said, ‘We need somebody.’ I didn’t realize what I would get into.”

Seventy years later, she feels the pull to continue. The Church still needs musicians, she explained.

“Even though I can still play — I can still do it — I’m old,” she said Nov. 22. “I know we do need musicians at Immaculate Conception. It’s all volunteer that’s why I felt bad (about retiring).”

Seventy years have passed in heartbeats.

Mrs. Kunzler entered a religious community at age 20. She later left the order and married Donald Kunzler in 1971.

Mr. Kunzler, who always referred to Juanita as his bride, died in 2012.

No matter where she was, she remained dedicated to the Church and music.

As a religious sister, she was sent to different, sometimes exotic, places. One was the Island of St. Martin in the Caribbean.

Shortly after she arrived there, Church leaders asked her to take the musical reins from an older woman who was leaving.

How they found out about her musical background, Mrs. Kunzler wasn’t certain. However, she found herself in charge of arranging music for a First Holy Communion celebration.

She set out to do her best. The production value the small church created, with professional camera lighting and music, was a little unnerving at first, she said.

“They played steel drums,” Mrs. Kunzler recalled. “The melody blended, sort of (with traditional Church music).”

She always carried those experiences with her.

“It was exciting to help out,” she said.

“The Caribbean was the most interesting place, I think, because of the music,” she stated. “Sometimes, with these steel bands, I was amazed at what they could do.”

Mrs. Kunzler spent time in Las Cruces, New Mexico, about half an hour from El Paso, Texas, and the Mexico border.

“That was interesting,” she said. “Their culture — their music — was a little different. I had to get used to that.”

She served in many parishes in Missouri. Near St. Louis, she worked in Des Peres and Flint Hill.

She taught at St. Joseph Cathedral School and St. Peter Interparish School in Jefferson City and at Our Lady of the Snows School in Mary’s Home, where she was also principal.

She served as principal of Immaculate Conception School in Jefferson City for seven years.

“Every time I was teaching, I was the musician — I had to be the musician in addition to teaching,” she said.

St. Theodore Parish in Flint Hill was so little, and the pastor was elderly, Mrs. Kunzler recalled.

“He never turned the furnace on when we were going to church during the week,” she explained. “We’d only be in there a half hour, and he didn’t want to heat the whole church. So, it was freezing in there. My superior wanted to take the children in there to practice music and singing.”

Her fingers were so stiff, she could hardly move them, let alone play.

The superior would hear Mrs. Kunzler’s playing and ask if she were “playing in the cracks.”

“She was thinking I was not playing very well. I wasn’t,” Mrs. Kunzler said.

Mrs. Kunzler always feels honored to play for people during their weddings or during funerals.

“That is probably one of the greatest honors,” she said, “for a funeral — to play music to comfort people, do something that makes them hopeful.”

This article and photo were published Nov. 28 in the Jefferson City News Tribune (newstribune.com) and are republished here with permission.