Pastor's wife taught music to hundreds, helped others

5/28/2002

MONROE - Pamella Hosch, 74, who taught private music lessons in her home to hundreds of students for nearly 50 years and made a career of helping others as a pastor's wife, died Friday in her Frenchtown Township home.

She had been diagnosed in December with cancer, her son, Kevin, said.

For decades, Mrs. Hosch played music at almost every service of the Monroe Apostolic Church, where her husband, James, is pastor and her son is the assistant pastor.

In addition to two Sunday services, she led music at Wednesday night Bible studies, youth meetings, prayer services, weddings, and funerals. The church, which seats 260 and regularly attracts 150 people to services, is a block from their home.

She had little formal training, but taught the piano, organ, xylophone, Hawaiian guitar, saxophone, and bass. She also played the cello and violin. Her students ranged in age from 6 or 7 up to their 60s and 70s, and she often had 40 or 50 at a time who found her by word of mouth. She did not advertise.

As a pastor's wife she was involved in helping church families with child care and marriage counseling. She and her husband adopted their son when he was a baby and took two teenage girls into their home in the late 1960s and early '70s.

Later, Mrs. Hosch assumed the care of an elderly missionary who had spent decades in Africa and brought her into her home at the end of her life. She liked to take people shopping who might not otherwise get out. “People were her hobby,” her son said. “Her whole life was others.”

She was born Pamella McQueen in South Bend, Ind., and grew up on a farm. After graduating from high school she studied at the Apostolic Bible Institute in St. Paul, Minn., for a year.

Then she, her sister, Patty, and a couple they considered their second parents traveled to Apostolic churches across the country where they sang and led services. They called their group the Kinzie Evangelistic Party, named after the couple, Fred and Vera Kinzie, and were paid only by free-will offerings.

During those travels she met the man who would become her husband, who was traveling with another evangelism group, preaching and singing in a men's quartet. After their marriage in 1954, the Rev. Hosch joined her group, which they renamed the Kinzie-Hosch Party.

Less than a year later, the Hoschs moved to the Monroe area where he was to pastor a new congregation meeting in a former laundry. Although their work there prevented the extensive traveling they had done earlier, they continued to cut albums with the Kinzie-Hosch Party. Their albums were sold mostly in Apostolic churches.

Surviving are her husband, James; son, Kevin; and two grandchildren.

The funeral is at 7:30 p.m. today in North Monroe Street Church of God, Frenchtown Township. Bennett Funeral Home, Monroe, is handling arrangements. The family requests tributes to Monroe Apostolic Church.