Lunchtime at Salina Presbyterian Manor is a refined experience, thanks to the music provided by lifelong pianist Ivis Meitler.
Ivis, 103, has performed in the dining room for most of her 18 years at the Manor. She plays popular songs from their era, plus the occasional fight song on college game days. “I play everything I know. And that’s a lot of tunes,” Ivis said.
What’s even more impressive is that Ivis only had a handful of lessons. When she was 8 years old, she spent the summer on her aunt and uncle’s farm outside of Sylvan Grove, Kan. A piano teacher came to town once a week, and Ivis wanted to learn how to play. Her aunt gave her 50 cents for each lesson, and Ivis would hitch a ride on the wheat wagon or with anyone else headed into town.
But she didn’t have a piano at home, so she didn’t get much practice. Ivis watched other piano players closely and learned from them. “Some people say to me, ‘You cannot play like you do if you didn’t take lessons,’” Ivis said. “I had those lessons that one summer, and that’s all.”
Ivis started playing piano at church when she was 11. In high school she played standards like “Sunny Side of the Street,” “Bye Bye Blues,” and “My Blue Heaven” in a local dance band. Sometimes she would leaf through sheet music at a store in town to add to her repertoire.
“I could hear the tune just looking at it,” Ivis said. “I could play it if I looked at it enough times.”
After she married her husband, Oscar, Ivis took a job as accompanist for Mary Ellen Rathbun’s dance school in Salina. Ivis’s 2-year-old daughter, Sherry, came with her, and soon the toddler was dancing, too.
Four years later, Ivis started teaching dance herself. Eventually she opened her own dance studio in Salina. Likely thousands of young dancers trained at the Ivis Meitler Dance Studio over 28 years in business. She eventually sold it and retired.
But just a couple of years later, Ivis went back to work – as the accompanist at her former studio.
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