Claremont
So Boadway, the organist at St. Mary Catholic Church, lugged a portable organ to the tent the Boulanger family had set up in their backyard, set it up and played with all the skill of a professional with decades of experience.
“The entire neighborhood was hushed because they heard such beautiful music,” Leonard Boulanger said, adding he can remember neighbors coming out to their porches to listen in.
“I remember that distinctly, that (Boadway) offered to do that, and my son remembers it to this day,” Boulanger said.
Throughout his life, Boadway was known nationally for his skills behind an organ and his deep knowledge of organ history. But when he died at age 80 on June 29, 2016, friends say the Upper Valley didn’t just lose an artist but a terrific teacher; someone could be a perfectionist and sometimes prickly but who didn’t hesitate to help those in need.
“I think the most important thing about Ed is that he influenced literally thousands of people during his life,” said longtime friend Stephen Pinel. “He influenced thousands of people in New Hampshire.”
Boadway grew up in southern Quebec, where his father worked as an engineer at an asbestos mine. There, he was taught keyboard skills in grammar school by the Sisters of Notre Dame.
The nuns took an interest in Boadway early on, said friend Richard Brown, and told his mother that if he kept up the lessons, he would be playing masses someday.
“And, boy, were those nuns right,” Brown said.
Boadway was sent to Kimball Union Academy in September 1953, and was known to “haunt” the Stone Church and nearby Baptist Church, where alumni recall he would play. When he graduated, he went on to obtain a degree from the University of Vermont in 1959 and then joined the Army.
While away, he continued to play. Boadway served as a chaplain’s assistant and not only played services while stationed in Germany, but also at Fort Dix in New Jersey and at the Pentagon.
He arrived back in New England after being discharged, taking a job in 1962 at the Andover Organ Co. in Methuen, Mass.
It’s during that time he met friend Laurence Leonard, who was taking organ lessons in Randolph.
They began corresponding about organ history and became fast friends, Leonard said. They would often take road trips throughout New England, stopping at churches along the way to take turns playing the different organs.
“We could drive down a highway and see a church and Ed could tell you what the make of the organ was,” Leonard said. “That’s the kind of memory he had.”
After leaving the organ company in 1966, Boadway began teaching and playing church services throughout New Hampshire. He taught at the Thomas Moore School in Harrisville, Crotched Mountain School for the Deaf in Greenland, N.H., and eventually settled down in Claremont, where he took a job in 1970 as a middle school English teacher.
Three years later, he was also chosen to lead the choir at St. Mary’s.
“I wanted to approach having a choir and I thought it was pretty sad that a Roman Catholic Church doesn’t have a choir,” said Boulanger, who was on the church’s pastoral council at the time.
Although Boadway had a reputation for speaking his mind, the church hired him and work began to construct a world class choir.
“When Ed was into whatever, he went head over heels into that project,” Leonard said.
An Anglican, Boadway brought Anglican chants to the church and incorporated them into the service. He was also known to demand much from the choir, whipping them into a group that was good enough to travel and play across New Hampshire.
“He was a perfectionist. You practiced until you got it right,” said Brown, who initially met Boadway through the choir group in the late 70s. “He would say ‘You never know who’s downstairs listening.’ ”
Boadway himself put significant effort into performances at the church, not only playing the organ but also lending his voice when needed.
“It’s quite a thing to do, play all four parts plus make your feet play the pedal board, changing the stops … it’s like flying an airplane,” Brown said.
Boadway always made a point to be available for funerals too, Brown said, adding that he would often drop plans at the last minute to make sure a congregant got a good send off.
During one such funeral at St. Joseph parish in Claremont, a family came to Boadway with music and asked if he could include it in the service. Once the mass was over, Boadway came to Brown and confessed the family “didn’t give me all the pages. All of a sudden it ended.” But Boadway was skilled enough to improvise.
“I can tell you he was very generous and I can remember on a couple of occasions people waiting for (Boadway) after mass at St. Mary’s and he would say ‘Just give me a minute to go to the car and get my checkbook,’ ” Brown recalled.
Later, he learned Boadway was helping people with money so they could pay their bills to the end of the week.
“He never told anyone about it,” Brown said. “I only found out because I asked and it was none of my business.”
Boadway wasn’t just interested in playing the organ, but also in its history. At age 20, he was a founding member of the Organ Historical Society, helping to form the national organization and receiving its Distinguished Service Award in 1990. Among other accomplishments, Boadway was also dean of the Vermont Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in the early 2000s and authored A Brief History of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary in Claremont, New Hampshire in 1995.
“Well, of course, Ed was smart. He was very smart, extremely well-read, highly educated and very persnickety when it came to detail,” said Pinel, who is also an organ historian.
“He was very finicky about grammar, so if there was an error in the newspaper, he would circle it with a red pen,” Pinel said. “He loved it when headlines had a misspelled word in them or grammatical error.”
Later in life, Boadway also went into business restoring reed organs, and worked alongside Watersmith Pipe Organs, of Enfield, to repair church organs throughout the Upper Valley.
Brown said he joined Boadway on some of his trips tuning organs during that time. The job required two people, one inside the organ and someone outside to press the keys.
“He had pitch perfect. He could do it from ear, but you would have to hold the correct note when he called it out,” Brown said. “So you better know your notes.”
Although Boadway was sometimes short tempered and irritable, Pinel said, he was a loyal friend. Pinel lives in New Jersey, but would often take time every month to drive up to Claremont to spend time with Boadway.
Together, the two would go out for pizza or Chinese food and later enjoy a bottle of wine or two. Boadway was known to love German Riesling, he said.
Boadway was also known to resist technological advances. He rarely owned a car and didn’t purchase a telephone until 1968
Instead, he preferred a typewriter, and friends said he had beautiful handwriting, which often covered the majority of postcards, invading on space meant for a return address or stamp.
He was also a very private person, and above his home was a sign that said “Visitors by appointment only!”
During his last two years, though, he moved in with Richard Brown and his family, taking up the downstairs apartment and continuing to play on a reed organ he kept.
When he died, he was buried with his parents and brother in Anson, Maine. Only a short obituary that he wrote himself appeared in the newspaper.
“I was very saddened that he died and did not have a funeral,” said Boulanger. “He did not get what he deserved.”
Other longtime friends agreed, saying it’s a shame Boadway didn’t get more of a send off.
For someone who touched a great many people, they said, he deserves to be celebrated.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.