Teacher gave lessons in piano, organ, voice

4/20/2006

ELMORE - Lucile E. Tank, 96, who for decades taught piano, organ, and voice in her home and at the former Bach Conservatory of Music in Toledo, died Monday in Riverview Healthcare, Oak Harbor, Ohio, where she had lived about five years.

The cause of death was not known. She had been in declining health the last six months, her cousin Marcia Amstutz said.

Miss Tank gave private lessons until the late 1990s. She taught students in her home and taught at the former Great Lakes Piano and the former Grinnell Bros. music store, both in Toledo, and at Community Christian Academy in Genoa.

For 27 years, she taught at the former Bach Conservatory of Music on Jefferson Avenue.

Some students were small children, some were adults, and each year she would present them in recital, usually at a church in Elmore.

"She was strict. She was serious about her music," said Mrs. Amstutz, a former student. "She made it enjoyable. She always said her students were her children. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit the talent in the family.

"She could be very fun-loving, but she had a serious side to her. She was very devoted to her students and her friends and her family."

Miss Tank was choir director and organist for several northwest Ohio churches over the years. She performed as part of Monday Musicale in Toledo and took part in statewide music festivals. She was a soprano and sang with Toledo Choral Society.

Miss Tank grew up in Elmore and took piano lessons as a child. After graduation from Harris-Elmore High School, she attended the Sherwood Music School in Chicago.

"She had to do some fancy talking to convince her father," Mrs. Amstutz said.

She wrote free verse to commemorate birthdays and other celebrations. She once wrote a poem for a physician. She was a composer and wrote a band march when the Harris-Elmore and Woodville districts combined to form the Woodmore schools.

There are no immediate survivors.

The body will be in Crosser Funeral Home, Elmore, after 2 p.m. tomorrow. Services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday in St. John United Church of Christ, Elmore, of which she was a member. It is suggested that tributes be to a charity of the donor's choice.