Candy Feldt 73 passed in Phoenix AZ this year, from kidney failure, surrounded by family. She was born in Nov 1947, to Florence and Max Feldt in Temple Texas. She grew up in Temple and Stamford TX, and went to high school in Denver CO. She won a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music from Stephens College in Columbia MO and a Master's of Flute Performance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Brilliant was how college friends used to describe her flute playing ability.
She time in Germany with her then-husband David Wiebe while he studied violin building, and music remained central to her life. On return to the U.S, she earned another Master's degree in Library Science, at Indiana Uni in Bloomington IN. She was a virtual walking music encyclopaedia. She began her music librarian cataloguing career at the Indiana Uni Lilly Library. After working briefly in the music industry in New York, she moved to Somerville MA to become a music cataloguer at the Tufts University Wessell Library from 1985-2001. In 2001 she became the Head Music Cataloguer at the Harvard University Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, where she remained until retirement.
An early adopter of digital technologies to communicate with friends and colleagues around the world, Candy was a key member of the MIRC channel 30plus since late 1993. And she was proud of having applied digitisation professionally to preserve written and audio music files.
Candy often burst into song with a wonderful laugh while conversing with friends and family. She loved Broadway musicals and knew the words to a vast array of songs. She enjoyed travelling, cuisine, fashion, music festivals, high tea, making fun pottery and anything feline. She supported human rights, women's rights and animal rescue causes. Always learning and spiritual, she became a bat mitzvah when she was in her 50's.
Candy often burst into song with a wonderful laugh while conversing with friends and family. She loved Broadway musicals and knew the words to a vast array of songs. She enjoyed travelling, cuisine, fashion, music festivals, high tea, making fun pottery and anything feline. She supported human rights, women's rights and animal rescue causes. Always learning and spiritual, she became a bat mitzvah when she was in her 50's.
Washington DC reunion of MIRC channel #30plus, July 1994
Candy was in the second back row; Helen was centre of the second front row
There was a Zoom celebration of Candy's life in Aug 2021. She was laid to rest in the Waco TX cemetery where all four of her grandparents are buried. The family will gather there for Candy the next time the bluebonnets are in bloom. It's a Texas thing. Candy would like that. In Candy's honour, donations can still be sent to GLAAD, ASPCA or the Exotic Feline Rescue Centre in Indiana.
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18 comments:
Goodness, what a high achiever and unfortunately a rather premature death. At times I wonder where people find the time and motivation in their lives to get so much done and to apply themselves so firmly to achieving something.
Hello Hels, I am sorry that you lost your friend. Reading your tribute to her, she seems like a person I would have liked to know. By coincidence, I was reading this while listening to the CPE Bach flute concertos played by the fine flutist Konrad Hunteler. By a further coincidence, when I looked up Hunteler, I found that his dates were 1947-2020. These people who gave so much deserved a longer retirement.
.
I found it interesting the Candy was a music librarian, as I have spent so much enjoyable time exploring music libraries. Yale's turned up uncounted treasures, and once when I was visiting Harvard, on a whim I looked up a rare piece by J.F. Fasch that had been eluding me, and there is was on the shelf, the original 18th century edition.
--Jim
Thank you for letting me know, Helen. I haven't been in the channel for months, and missed writing to her sister when Candy died. Candy was the best educated and most sharing American I ever met.
Andrew
apart from Candy's talent and dedication, two other issues occur to me. Firstly people with a spouse but no children can rationally allocate their time according to their own needs, rather than be at the beck and call of dependants. Secondly Americans seem to be able to move home whenever they have opportunities to advance, regardless of where their real home was. In Australia, young people are allowed to travel overseas for 2-3 years, but then they have to come "home" and settle down.
Parnassus
you would have been delighted to meet Candy, a woman who was a professional flautist, an American, a qualified music librarian cataloguer, an expert on Broadway musicals, a traveller and linguist, and someone skilled enough to digitalise and preserve written and audio music files. Harvard must have been her magic place.... and yours.
30plusser,
because the channel was initially for Australians, Brits, South Africans, Canadians and New Zealanders, we held on to any prejudices we had about American education. But Candy and some of the other Americans, who came into the channel early on, regularly travelled to Europe and knew a great deal about other cultures. I was also well impressed.
Hi again, Actually, in the end I decided that Yale had more magic than Harvard, but no quibbling, Harvard is an amazing place! --Jim
Parnassus
I know exactly what you mean. The first time I spent a summer at Cambridge, I rang my parents and said "That's it! I have found my academic heaven. Sublet our bedroom to a lodger".
Melbourne Uni was fun; Oxford was impressive but Cambridge was my 19th century fantasy come true.
What a wonderful lady and a marvellous life! Some people just seem to rise above the ordinary and live magical lives. I am sure she would have been someone I would have liked to have known, (much like yourself!)
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bazza
I remember all the 120 people in my year at school, yet I see only c10 of them each few months. Plus I met another c10 parents of the children in my boys' years in primary school, and see them each few months. But Candy and I spoke and shared photos at least weekly; she stayed at my place in Melbourne and I stayed with her in Boston each visit.
Losing a close contemporary, especially an inspiring one, is a misery.
Such a fine tribute to your friend Candy Feldt!
The combination of music player and librarian, seemed to have been perfect for her world.
It's sad that with all her accomplishments in life, and living in the best places one could wish for, she had to give in untimely to the rather common,though tough, illness of kidney failure.
What s truly talented friend. I am sure you must have numerous happy memories of time spent together.
DUTA
I assumed that everyone I knew would live to a decent age, except for those killed in car crashes, terrorist attacks, sudden male heart attacks or other traumatic events. In this day and age, a failing kidney over months came as a terrible shock.
Fun60
I have wonderful memories, yes. But there was another special occasion that I had forgotten. I sent the abstract of my Psychology Master's thesis (Contraceptive Decision Making in Female School Students) to Candy. Her response was: "You are not going to believe this but my sister Gloria Feldt has worked for Planned Parenthood for decades. And she has become the national president just now (1996)!"
Some families are truly talented.
Hi Hels - what a talented and giving friend ... it always feels desperate when we lose someone so close to us - who was really capable of making so much of their life and did so. With thoughts - Hilary
I wish to add, that judging by the picture, she had a very lovely face!
Hilary
As you say, making so much of their life.. and expanding mine.
DUTA
Kindness and generosity show, don't they?
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