http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1208565.eceTAMPA
Officially, her arm is the villain. When Margaret McAlister reaches wide right to pull on a stop knob in the upper row of the pipe organ at First Presbyterian Church, her muscles balk.
"It's time," she says, too often now.
She retires next month, at age 88, from a position she took when Harry S. Truman was president. For 65 years, she has been the organist at the downtown Tampa church.
It saddens her to go. Old age aggravates her, leaves her bemoaning $5,200 hearing aids that don't work and grown children who insist on driving her everywhere.
She might be tempted to stay, to keep playing the organ, if not for the slipping attendance at her church's traditional service. She remembers peering over the balcony once and seeing only four people.
"The whole attitude about church has changed," she said.
The earlier, contemporary service rattles the rafters and stuffs the pews but needs no organist. The sermon is the same but those worshippers eat bagels and drink orange juice. McAlister rolls her eyes and dubs it "the tailgate party."
She started playing organ at 13, would have majored in it at the Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee (now Florida State University), except that her mother insisted on a marketable skill. So she chose music education.
She met her husband, Jim, while playing at a wedding. He was a Navy veteran attending the University of Tampa, where she taught. They married in 1951, had six children and were together until his death in 1988.
She has seven grandchildren, three great grandchildren, and — at home — three grand pianos, a Yamaha, a Lester and a Chickering from the 1800s.

