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"The Camrose Canadian" newspaper
Wednesday, June 19th, 1935
Page 6

An unusually brilliant musical career was brought to a close on Thursday last with the death in St. Mary's hospital of Miss Sarah Lawrence Nicholas, member of the American Guild of Organists. She had resided in Camrose for the past five years. A gentlewoman of the southern States, Miss Nicholas was modest almost to a fault, but she had been here only a brief while when in musical circles her deep knowledge of the history and theory of music was discovered and appreciated and even sooner her mastery of the pipe-organ had been unmistakably demonstrated.

The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Nicholas, Miss Nicholas was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on June 16, 1866. She was 67 years old and in another three days would have celebrated her birthday. Her love for the sunny south was always evident as was her pride in the fact that she was a descendant of early British colonists.

The last years of a life spent in travelling extensively and in studying music at home and abroad were passed quietly in this western town of the last great west, two thousand miles away from the scenes of her childhood. It had been her hope that a change of climate would benefit her frail constitution but an almost indomitable and courageous spirit was finally overcome by physical weakness and she became a helpless invalid. Her early years were spent in Louisville and in Shelbyville, Ky., where she taught and studied music, early showing a definite talent for pianoforte interpretation. On the death of her parents, she went to Europe in 1899 and after studying under well known masters in Paris, Berlin and Vienna, she returned to the United States in 1903. She taught in various colleges, including Graceland college of Whitewright, Texas, Christian College of Columbia, Mo., Lebanon college of Lebanon, Tenn., Lydenwood college of St. Charles, Mo., and Heading college of Abingdon, Ill. Six years were then spent in private tuition in Whitewright, Texas. Miss Nicholas had been devoting much time to the study of the pipe organ and finally she went to New York and there for three years studied the organ and organ theory, and attained that high honor, membership in the American Guild of Organists. Once again she returned to her beloved Texas and at El Paso spent five years teaching both piano and organ. In 1930 failing health prompted her to seek a northern climate and for some reason known only to herself she chose the cit of Edmonton and had been there a year when certain circumstances turned her attention to Camrose, and very shortly afterward she located here.

At the funeral service which was conducted on Saturday afternoon in the United church where she had so often played the pipe-organ, Rev. M. S. Kerr officiated. A choir led the singing and among those in attendance were the officers and the members of the Temple chapter; O.E.S., No. 49. A simple but touching address was based on the twenty-third psalm in which David expresses his confidence in God's grace, and so it had been, Mr. Kerr said, with the dear friend for whom the service was being held; ever valiant and unswerving in her Christian faith, she had confessed to having been ever conscious of the guidance of the Good Shepherd. Reference was made to her pride in the heroes of the south. Like Stonewall Jackson she read a portion of her Bible every day and like him had the utmost reverence for the sanctity of the Sabbath day. "The still waters" brought to mind, Mr. Kerr suggest, the music of life and in music Miss Nicholas had found her greatest expression. In the Sunday school, W.M.S., and at the organ she had gladly and generously given of time and talent. In the closing moments of her life she had faced death with a quiet courage, and had seemed to look forward to that other world, Rev. Mr. Kerr said, with the exalted thoughts expressed by George Eliot in "The Choir Invisible":

"Oh may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence
May I reach

That purest heaven -- be to other souls
The sweet presence of a good diffused
And in diffusion ever more intense
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world"

Three of Miss Nicholas' favorite hymns were sung by the choir and congregation -- "The Lord is my Shepherd" from the Scottish psalter, "Jerusalem the Golden" -- St. Bernard of Cluny and "When on My Day of Life the Night is Falling" -- John Greenleaf Whittier. Mrs. W. H. Craig was the soloist and the selection was Robert Harkness' composition "No Burdens Yonder" Mrs. Frank Bailey played the pipe organ accompaniment.

Immediately after the funeral service, the body was taken to the Canadian National Railway station for shipment to Edna, Jackson county, southern Texas, where at Miss Nicholas' request interment would be made. For several weeks before her demise her nephew from Wyoming, Iowa, was here and remained until her death, then accompanying he body on the long journey which would take him almost within sight and sound of the Gulf of Mexico.

It was her own wish that she should be buried at Edna, Texas, where she believed the single members of her family would be laid to rest.