It was mentioned in Mom’s obituary that she sang at Carnegie Hall with her Sweet Adelines group. It turns out that was not right. When she sang at Carnegie Hall, it was with her Church Choir! In 2007, she was a member of the Valley Presbyterian Church in Green Valley, AZ. MidAmerica Productions organized the concert and invited the choir to participate, along with other choirs from the Tucson area. The choir performed Vivaldi’s Gloria on May 22nd under the direction of Dr.

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Twyla Baker, my mother, passed away on Jun 27th, 2019 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was 85 years old. Mom was born in December 1933, and was the second daughter of Melvin and Gail (Joachim) Patterson. Her parents and her siblings, Dolores, Layton and Lyndon, have already passed on. As her father was a Presbyterian minister and her mother was a church organist and choir director, she grew up in the church, and loved to attend services.

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I found out today that Dolores (Joachim) Cantrell, my Aunt Dee, passed away last month, on Feb 17th. Aunt Dee was my mother’s sister, and the oldest daughter of Melvin and Gail (Patterson) Joachim. She has been married to Donald Cantrell since 1954, and they have two children, my cousins, David and Diane. I remember visiting the Cantrells often as a child; sometimes we would visit them, and other times they would visit us in Michigan.

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