While Dave Massery’s upbringing in a musically inclined family was certainly unique, it was all he’d ever known.
He and his five siblings, parishioners at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Little Rock, where they also attended school in the 1960s and 1970s, all played instruments wherever they went.
Massery said when his oldest sister, Rosalie, became a church organist in 1962, “No one could have guessed that she was starting a family tradition that would be ongoing 62 years later.”
From a young age, all the Massery children were encouraged by their grandmother, Rosalie Masdon, and their parents, Bill and Mary Massery, to study piano.
The older siblings began their piano education with Sister Mary Modesta, OSB, at St. Andrew School in Little Rock, a former parochial school at the Cathedral of St. Andrew, and Sister Mary Pauline Grummer, RSM, at Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock. By the time the younger children were ready to start lessons, Rosalie was skilled enough to teach them.
As a seventh grader at Our Lady of Good Counsel School in Little Rock, Rosalie started playing the organ for Masses in the school gym. Tom, the oldest brother, followed her example and began playing the organ for the school and church when he reached seventh grade. Two years later, sister Becky also became an organist at Good Counsel.
“They were in an ensemble called the Sunshine Group, and on Tuesday nights, the oldest three used to play piano and accordion with the group. They also had a tap dancer and baton twirler,” Dave Massery said. “We would go to nursing homes … And at the very end, they would play ‘You Are My Sunshine.’”
Although the Masserys were not the sole organists at Good Counsel, Rosalie, Tom and Becky soon took on the responsibility of providing music for three of the parish’s five Sunday Masses, plus some weekday or special Masses.
The Masserys, who lived three houses away from Good Counsel, often found a visitor at the door or on the phone requesting one of the musically talented children to play last minute for a Mass or to be an altar server.
“When the church door was opened, we were always there,” Dave Massery said. “One of the things that my dad used to do, I would hear him on the phone, and he’d say, ‘Well certainly, they’ll do that.’ And I’d say, ‘Daddy, you didn’t say I’d serve 6:30 Mass in the morning, did you?’ And he’d say, ‘Yes, I did.’”
Ted, the fourth Massery child, was not as keen on performing in front of an audience as his siblings were.
“He did play the piano though, and, much to (our) mother’s delight, he would play the theme from ‘A Summer Place’ as a birthday present to her every year,” Massery said.
By the time Dave Massery, now 65, the fifth child, started at Good Counsel, he already had a sense of what the coming years would involve. Observing his siblings’ musical talents from a young age, he felt he might not reach their level of skill and thought it might be better to focus on other interests.
“You just expected that that’s what you’re going to do,” he said. “So you know, you just sat down at the piano and by the time I was growing up, my two sisters were giving music lessons anyway. So mom made me sit down and do that. And I always wanted to be playing sports and stuff, so I could have been more interested (in music). But they were so talented that I thought … there’s no way I would be as good as they were. So I thought I would concentrate on other things. … I’m probably the least musical, and I’m the last one to still play.”
Nancy, the youngest Massery, began her musical endeavors earlier than any of her siblings. While the others started playing at Masses in seventh grade, Nancy began on her second day of second grade. Dave Massery said Nancy was so small she couldn’t reach the organ pedals.
“At 8 years old, she was unexpectedly called into service at a wedding,” Dave Massery said. “While she was sitting in a church pew as a wedding guest waiting for the service to begin, the priest approached her and said the organist had had a fender-bender and would be late arriving. So Nancy went to the organ and filled in until he could get there.”
As the Massery children matured, they continued to contribute their musical talents to their faith communities and schools. During high school, Rosalie played piano for the Catholic High School and Mount St. Mary’s joint spring musical “Oklahoma,” directed by Msgr. J. Gaston Hebert. After she left for college, her brother Tom took over as the accompanist for the musicals for the next three years. Tom was uniquely talented — unlike his siblings, he played by ear instead of sight reading sheet music.
Rosalie Massery Sanderson, living now in Savannah, Ga., told Arkansas Catholic that she’s fortunate to have combined some of her favorite things in her spare time.
“Inextricably woven together in memories and nostalgia: love of family, church and music,” Sanderson said. “I’ve never felt more at home wherever I’ve lived or traveled anywhere in the world than in a Catholic church. Being there brings to life my intense love for my family and music-filled memories in the church.”
Becky Massery Bibens, who lives in Porter, Texas, majored in organ at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia and briefly served as the organist at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock before moving to Texas. There, she worked as a pianist and organist at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Humble for 25 years.
Bibens echoed Sanderson’s sentiments.
“I can step into a Catholic church anywhere and feel at home,” she said. “The Houston area, where I live, is one of the most diverse places in the country. So, it’s not surprising that the congregation of the Catholic church where I played for about 25 years has parishioners from all over the world. Whether Hispanic, African, Filipino, Korean, Irish, Indian, American — their Catholic faith brings them all together in our one Church.
Nancy, the youngest sister, served as Becky’s page-turner at the Cathedral and occasionally filled in as the organist. She continued to play for Masses at Good Counsel into her early 20s.
Together, the Massery siblings have played for thousands of church services, and their musical contributions continue.
After graduating from Catholic High School in 1977, Dave Massery attended the University of San Francisco and then Boston College, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1981 and a master’s degree in 1982. He became interested in labor relations and eventually became an attorney.
In 2009, inspired by Michael Moran’s book “Proudly We Speak Your Name,” which recounts Moran’s 44 years of teaching at Catholic High, Massery felt a renewed sense of purpose.
“I said, you know, I think I’m going to do something different. I think I want to teach kids,” Massery said.
While his coworkers initially thought he was joking, Steve Straessle, CHS head of school, hired Massery in 2010 to teach economics and personal finance to juniors and world history and the Old Testament to ninth graders. This year, Massery will teach AP macroeconomics and AP human geography.
Embarking on his second career as a teacher at Catholic High, Massery discovered the school needed an organist.
“If you hear organ, piano or keyboard sounds floating down the halls of Catholic High, you can bet it’s Dave Massery, seated with fingers moving,” Straessle told Arkansas Catholic. “He’s the background talent that adds so much to Catholic High’s student body Masses. Additionally, he’ll pop in to our daily before-school Masses to provide a few centering notes. He’s a talent in many ways — and an ear for music is one of them.”
Each spring, Catholic High seniors unite for their final Mass at the Carmelite Monastery in Little Rock. As Massery ascends to the choir loft to play, he experiences a flood of memories. The organ in the monastery holds special significance — it’s the same pipe organ from the Good Counsel gym where Massery played at his first Mass more than 50 years ago.
