Senior Living Residences Spotlight: Ben H.

This month's Senior Living Residences Spotlight, Ben shares about growing up in Riverside, his time in the Air Force & his love of the pipe organ. Ben H. was born in Riverside, California, before the city was booming like it is today. The community was much smaller, you could even walk down Main Street and know just about everyone you encountered. His father was a pilot, and he only saw him twice, as he died in an airplane crash a few years after Ben was born. Ben’s mother’s whole family lived out in Riverside and they enjoyed growing up around one another. His mother was wonderful, she cooked great food and took care of him.

It was his aunt who helped him hone his love for music. She gave him his first piano lesson when he was just five years old and he hasn’t stopped playing since. Like any child, Ben hated practicing. No student ever wants to practice as it’s painful work, an hour each day, but his practice paid off.

Although Ben started on the piano, he later grew to love the pipe organ. In playing the organ, you have full command of the instrument and you’re in charge of everything. You have a keyboard for your feet, and then two to four keyboards for your hands. It’s a big job, but it’s one that he finds to be thrilling.

When Ben was in high school, there was only one high school in the area, which was Poly High. After school, he would help at the hotel his aunt owned. Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Air Force because they were amid War World II. It was a horrible war and many were injured or didn’t make it.

While in the Air Force, Ben found himself in many interesting positions. He helped the chaplains by playing the organ for the Sunday morning services. He also helped the main office with music.

Ben spent most of his time in Las Vegas, which housed one of the biggest gunnery schools. He recalls it being hot and horrible, but it taught them well in training. Ben was in 17th gunnery, B-24 gunnery and B-29 gunnery. He was in the Pacific for a short time and when he came back he was flown to New York for his discharge at Fort Dix in New Jersey. After five years in the Air Force, he ended as a Staff Sergeant.

Ben attended junior college in Riverside to get over all of what he experienced in the service before transferring to University of Southern California. He studied music and got his Bachelor’s in Music. After graduating, he got the opportunity to work with his organ teacher, who was also the organist at the Mission Inn in Riverside. He would cover for him when he went on vacation, playing programs with the piano and organ for guests once a day during the week and twice on the weekends.

Ben later received the opportunity to travel to Germany with the head of the German Organ Department, and got to visit many of the country’s fine organs. When he got back, he got another opportunity, this time to visit Sweden and attend the finest organ academy there. He stayed there for the summer and learned even more about the pipe organ. He then went to see Vienna and went on to Amsterdam, where he attended another organ academy.

Ben got an experience of a lifetime while he was in Amsterdam. He visited the Hamburg Lutheran Church and was able to play the organ there. The same organ Bach played when he visited Hamburg. Ben shared that it was a pleasure and wonderful experience to play on an organ that was still being played from Bach’s day.

Ben loves how beautiful Renaissance Village is and has spent time exploring every nook and cranny of his new home in our senior living residences. He shares this is the place he wants to stay and doesn’t want to ever move anywhere else because he’s found it to be home. Be sure to catch Ben by the piano, he’s a real talent and joy to listen to.