Arkansas Dem Gazette

It's been a whirlwind week, and I will write it about it soon.  But I wanted to document and share a little piece they wrote about grandma in the paper.  Thank you to everyone who has reached out.

Elizabeth Armstrong

Music a big part of stalwart faith

By Aprille Hanson

This article was published today at 5:12 a.m.

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LITTLE ROCK — Elizabeth Armstrong was known as the “bread lady” for making two homemade loaves a day for several years to share with others.

“She’d take it to church, she’d take it to neighbors ... she’d bake 60 loaves a month,” said her son, the Rev. Roger Armstrong. “When she passed away, her freezer was full of bread she’d put in bags to give away. At her funeral service, we’ll be using her bread for Communion.”

Elizabeth Fawn Jones Armstrong, an accomplished musician, died Sunday at her Little Rock home from congestive heart failure complications, her family said.

She was 89.

At an early age, Armstrong developed an ear for music.

“I think she was probably prenatally ” interested in music, said her daughter, the Rev. Anne Holcomb. “She sang, she played mostly piano ... she was always there to accompany people.”

In the early 1940s, she found a kindred spirit in Lyle E. Armstrong.

“They’d sit on the short swing,” on her family’s porch, her son said. “As long as it was creaking as it swung, it was OK but, if it quit creaking, someone would peek out of the house and find out what was going on.”

The couple married Oct. 16, 1943, a day after he proposed so they could be married before he shipped out overseas with the U.S. Army for the next few years, her son said.

“Their wedding cake was orange Hostess cupcakes and [the drinks were] Coca-Cola,” Holcomb said.

In the early 1960s, Armstrong began teaching music at the Arkansas School for the Blind in a class where some students were both deaf and blind, her daughter said.

“Sometimes they could feel the pulses of the music or the beat of it,” Holcomb said.

Armstrong translatedmusic and lyrics into Braille at the school and at Quapaw Quarter United Methodist Church, so blind people could join the choir, her son said.

For years, Armstrong taught piano and organ lessons.

“When I was practicing, she’d listen in the other room,” Holcomb said. “[She’d say], ‘No that’s supposed to be an F-sharp’ ... she’d say, ‘Just slow down and work out that part.’”

Armstrong and her husband were active in the music and theater scene atthe church and in the community.

“Our family would write songs and musicals,” Roger Armstrong said. “We’d hum out a tune and she’d write it down.”

For the Armstrong family, Dinner conversation became a gameof puns.

“One [pun] would lead to another and we were all groaning, ‘OK I give up, I can’t top that one,’” Roger Armstrong said. “Once, there was a funeral for a Mr. Faucet that had died, but [we knew] two Faucet families. My mom and my sister-in-law said, ‘hot and cold?’”

At 65 years old, Armstrong graduated with a degree in music composition, 45 years after she had begun taking classes.

“She got her first computer ... and discovered there was software to compose music,” her son said. “That was a great help to her, she used to do it all by hand.She had reams and reams of manuscript stuff.”

Armstrong played the song of life with her faith at the conductor’s stand, whether it meant taking in those in need or sharing God’s words with her four children, all of whom became Methodist ministers.

“[My brother said] he remembered asking her once when he was about 5 [years old] ... ‘Why are we here, why do we exist on earth?’” Holcomb said. “[She said], ‘We’re here to help others.’ That was kind of the way she looked at everything.”

Arkansas, Pages 16 on 10/17/2012