Ethel's Song

by Howard Altman

Few of us who are not suicide bombers get to choose the time or place of our demise, and that is why I love so much the story of Ethel Klotzbucher.

Last Wednesday night, Klotzbucher, who was born in 1927 and lived at the Riddle Village retirement home, attended a Kimmel Center performance of the Philadelphia Boys Choir with fellow Riddle Villagers.

Around 9 p.m., as one of the soloists belted out "Old Man River," Klotzbucher suffered a heart attack. As the soloist kept on rolling -- the choir unaware of what was transpiring -- medical personnel in attendance, including two doctors who had children in the choir, tended to Klotzbucher, but it was too late.

She later died.

I first heard about Ethel Klotzbucher over many beers at a hotel lounge in State College, where a bunch of us were collecting laudatory hardware from the state journalism association.

Talk of her death sparked a discussion.

That’s not a bad story, I argued.

This was not a dark and stormy night story about the Kimmel. It could be beautiful. Ethel Klotzbucher didn't die alone in a nursing home, or in some dingy, cat-infested apartment. She passed on after spending her last hours in the glory of Verizon Hall.

I wondered how much Klotzbucher loved music, or if she was just out to escape another dreary night inside with the old. If music was her passion, then keeling over at the Kimmel, I argued, was a grand getaway. For me, it would be like dying during Game 7 of a (hopefully) distant Subway Series.

"Or if I dropped at Fenway when the Sox win the Series," said my buddy the shooter.

“Or in bed with a beauty,” said a newly single colleague.

Back in my room, I couldn’t stop thinking about Klotzbucher. Though it was past 3, and I was dozing off to the delightful “hi-ya” strains of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, I couldn’t help but wonder about this woman, whose name, at the time, I didn’t know.

Two days later, back in Philadelphia and as curious as ever, I set out to find something about this woman who died at the Kimmel.

Armed with some information from Kimmel communications director Margie Smith and an intern’s Internet check of crisscross directories, I tracked down Klotzbucher to Riddle Village, a Media retirement home. Random calls to Villagers uncovered no Klotzbucher memories, but a call to the home’s office did.

Helene Keating, director of administrative services at Riddle Village, had plenty to say about Klotzbucher.

First and foremost, yes, Ethel Klotzbucher -- who had lived at Riddle Village since 1996 -- loved music. She played piano and sang with the Harmony Singers, the nursing home's choir. And she was in fairly good health.

I asked Keating to put me in touch with a Harmony Singer, to find out what kind of music Klotzbucher liked.

"She sang tenor, mostly, because her voice was low for a woman," says Jacqueline Steck, the Harmony Singers' director. "She was a good musician, read music well, played the piano. She had a great love of music."

Though Klotzbucher was seated in Verizon Hall’s first tier, Boys Choir members didn’t miss a beat during “Old Man River” because from the stage it looked like only a minor commotion with a few people moving about.

Those people, it would turn out, were choir members’ parents, doctors who tried to revive Klotzbucher, said Jackie Schmenger, the choir’s managing director. And people getting out of the way.

The Boys Choir didn’t even find out until last Thursday, the day after the concert, that Klotzbucher died, said Schmenger. They didn’t find out until five days later, when I called them, who Klotzbucher was.

“Nothing like this has every happened before,” said Schmenger, who added that she is not sure if anyone has yet told the soloist that a woman died during his song.

“Everybody was very sad,” she said, which is quite understandable.

Ethel Klotzbucher, on the other hand, had the perfect ending, according to the people who knew her.

“She was a very sweet lady who always volunteered to help,” says Riddle Village’s Keating. “She loved music. I can’t think of a better way to die.”

“It was kind of beautiful,” says Harmony Singer’s Steck of Klotzbucher’s demise. “We should all be so lucky.”




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