by Maria Amador
BARTON — In the late 1950s, an employee of the Boston Gas Company found himself servicing a home occupied by both a family and their organ. The owners played the instrument for the man, who before the end of the day informed his wife that they would soon be purchasing their own.
One of the couple’s four daughters was bound to play, he thought. The eldest rejected the idea outright, and their second gave it a shot for a year before moving on. Next in line was Catherine, who was six years old in 1960.
She couldn’t reach the pedals on her spinet organ then, and was the youngest student her teacher had ever had. When she was 11 her parents realized her habit might stick and bought her a full-size Hammond. At 14, she secured her first job as the organist for a small unitarian church in her hometown of Weymouth, Massachusetts.
The position, which she assumed for a rate of $5 a Sunday, marked the start of a 57-year career for Catherine McMaster …
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