The Von Baldridge Family Singers
The hills of the Driftless Area are alive with music! The voices of one special family have enlivened these hills with glorious music for almost two decades. Let us meet the Baldridge family, Dennis and Jane and their five offspring: Jana, Timothy, Shelley, Mark, and Ryan.
Dennis and Jane met while they were both attending Olivet Nazarene College (Now Olivet Nazarene University), in Bourbonnais, Illinois, as music education majors.
“I started noticing her in our sophomore year,” recalls Dennis. “One day, after class, I walked her back to her dorm. “As we walked, we talked, really for the first time. As Jane walked into her dorm, Dennis distinctly recalls saying to himself, “Now that’s the girl I’m going to marry.”
For her part, Jane says, “My ideal was to marry a musician.” She adds, however, “If Dennis had not been a musician, I might have married him anyway.”
Jane sang and played the piano and French horn, while Dennis was a trombonist. “I needed an accompanist for my trombone,” jokes Dennis, while Jane recalls thinking that “The French horn and the trombone make a good match.” Apparently so; the couple married four days after graduation. That was 1976.
Within a few weeks of their graduation and marriage, they were hired as a team: Dennis as Minister of Music and Jane as church accompanist. Over the years, Dennis has served many churches—congregations of 100 members up to nearly 1,000—directing choirs, leading worship, writing arrangements, and conducting instrumental ensembles. He is also a licensed and ordained minister.
Dennis did post-graduate study with two principal players from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has worked as a freelance performer with the Kankakee (Illinois), Madison, and La Crosse Symphonies and the Madison Brass Quintet.
Dennis and Jane come by their love of music naturally. Dennis grew up in a family centered around church and choir. His grandmother taught piano, while his mother played the piano and trumpet. “Dennis’ mom insisted that every home should have a piano,” recalls Jane. Dennis adds, “My father sang in a men’s quartet and played the mandolin, even performing on the Chicago radio show, “Barn Dance.”
Jane, likewise, was steeped in music from an early age. Her grandparents and parents were active in church music. “Mom grew up with three sisters who all took piano lessons,” says Jane, “They would sing in three-part harmony while they washed dishes.” Their two younger brothers comprised half of an a cappella quartet in their late teens and early 20s. Everyone sang at family get-togethers and while traveling in the car. Jane sums up the separate musical paths that converged at Olivet Nazarene College in 1976: “Music was a part of family life for both of us.” It was a match made in heaven.
Dennis returned to Olivet Nazarene for a master’s degree in education, with an emphasis in science. Science was a logical specialty, given Dennis’ natural curiosity and analytic mind. He joined the staff of Olivet, in the science/tech department. As part of his duties there, he worked on the small college radio station. “Growing up, I always liked to tinker,” he says. “Jane’s dad introduced me to ham radio.” Dennis studied electronics engineering and FCC regulations diligently, eventually obtaining the First-Class license required to run a commercial radio station. During his tenure at Olivet, the station went from 10 watts to 35,000 watts on a 500-foot tower. The knowledge Dennis gained in the process would enable him to found classical Christian radio WCNP-FM 89.5 in 2013. He continues to operate the 24/7 station as General Manager, engineer, and announcer. It is a challenge to run a full-size station remotely with no paid staff on a low budget, Dennis admits, but the result is top quality sound and an opportunity to witness for Christ through music.
Dennis and Jane moved to Wisconsin in 1993. What prompted them to leave their great jobs at the university and Minister of Music for a church of 1,000? Why did they settle in the Driftless Area, where they didn’t know a soul? “We were looking for a change,” Dennis says. “We had fallen in love with Southwest Wisconsin while camping there.”
Jane had worked as a counselor at Trail Ridge Ranch, a Christian camp and conference center near Hillsboro, one summer while she was in college. She remembered how beautiful the area was. She thought it would be a nice place to raise kids. After living a couple years in Gillingham, near Richland Center, they moved to Hillsboro to be closer to Trail Ridge Ranch. They settled on a 19-acre hobby farm with ducks and chickens, where they homeschooled their five children. “We can’t imagine living anywhere else,” says Dennis.
Dennis put his master’s degree to work, teaching science courses for Upper Iowa University at its extension campuses in Richland Center, La Crosse, Viroqua, and Prairie du Chien.
At the same time, he and Jane taught courses for the International Academy of Music, in Indianapolis. The International Academy of Music serves home-schooled musicians in their late teens and early twenties. It provides intensive one or two-week college-level courses to enable students to use their musical abilities in practical situations, such as private teaching and church work. In the early 2000s Jane and Dennis would go to Indianapolis once or twice a year for a couple of weeks. Jane taught Music History, Hymn Improvisation, and Piano Pedagogy (instruction). Dennis taught Music and Worship, Elementary Conducting, and Advanced Conducting. He also conducted the orchestra. Classes varied in size but contained as many as 75 in orchestra. During those years, Dennis earned a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. in church music and worship from Louisiana Baptist University.
In 2012, after attending a choral conducting workshop at the University of Michigan, they were inspired to form the Gloria Homeschool Choir, with Dennis as conductor and Jane as accompanist. Their goal was to teach young people the art of singing and to develop in them a love for quality music. The 20-30-voice choir performed Christmas and Spring concerts for five years and were enthusiastically acclaimed by audiences in Hillsboro, Richland Center, Ontario, Elroy, and Tomah. Choir members expressed their appreciation and affection for Dennis and Jane at the conclusion of their concert in Tomah. They gathered around the couple and presented a “petition” (on a paper napkin), signed by all the homeschoolers asking for the continuation of the Gloria Homeschool Choir. It was a touching tribute to witness.
Jane’s training in Music Education has served her well as a piano teacher for over 40 years. She continues to operate a thriving studio from her home and teaches students of all ages, including adults, beginner through early advanced levels. She is an active, certified member of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and the La Crosse Area Music Teachers Association (LAMTA) and holds Permanent Professional Nationally Certified Teacher of Music status with the Music Teachers National Association. Her students consistently receive high ratings in the La Crosse District Auditions, and several have won top awards in the WMTA Badger Keyboard Competition. Mrs. Baldridge is currently active as organist and pianist at her church.
Jane’s teaching philosophy is as follows: “Music is a divine gift, given by our Creator to be used for the glory of God, and for our edification. Music provides an outlet for our creativity and emotions, and enables us to communicate in ways that words alone cannot express. It enriches our lives as individuals and as a society.
“It is my goal as a piano teacher to provide an environment suitable for the instruction and enjoyment of music. Lesson programs are designed to meet specific needs of each student. This includes a balance of theory, sight playing, ear training, and repertoire appropriate to the student’s level of proficiency. Each student is encouraged to develop these skills for the purpose of personal enjoyment and service to his or her family, church, and God.”
Throughout the years on their hobby farm in Hillsboro, Jane and Dennis were raising their five children with an appreciation for, and understanding of, music. Jane taught each of the kids to play the piano, of course, and the family sang together at nursing homes, at Trail Ridge Ranch, and at church events. Their now grown-up sons and daughters express appreciation for the confidence they gained performing in public. They have all gone on to successful careers with families of their own. And yes, there is already evidence in the growing number of Baldridge grandchildren that the legacy of music will continue in the next generation.
“Dennis is a visionary; he always has ideas for something new,” Jane says. When Dennis and Jane became empty nesters, Dennis decided to take up a new instrument—the harp. He found a teacher, Josh Layne, from Calgary, Canada, who teaches via Skype. Lessons were going well, and Dennis was thoroughly enjoying this new musical hobby, when in the fall of 2017, his life took a different turn.
“I was at a harp workshop in Baraboo in the summer of 2017,” Dennis says, “and I had to leave early. I had a lot of back pain. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.” In September, Dennis was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. Doctors told him that the cancer had gone into his spine and was “pretty advanced.” He got so weak that he couldn’t walk. He asked a doctor, “What does this mean for my life?” The answer was, “Six months to a year at most to live.”
During twelve days in the hospital, Dennis underwent two surgeries and radiation therapy. He was advised that the next step was chemo therapy. Dennis and Jane had friends who had undergone chemo therapy; it was so hard on them that Dennis felt he could not go that route -it was not in God’s plan. His rational, analytical self-came to the fore. He asked Jane to bring his laptop. From his hospital bed, Dennis searched online for alternative treatments. He told Jane, “renew our passports; we’re going to Mexico.”
The Immune Therapy Center, in Tijuana, Mexico, promotes a variety of alternative, natural treatments, rather than invasive surgery and chemotherapy. “They work on jump-starting the immune system to fight the cancer,” says Dennis. He reports that four weeks at the Immune Therapy Center was a wonderful experience. It left him "recovering, better, stronger.”
After Tijuana, Dennis and Jane went to the Conners Clinic, in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. Dr. Conners starts with a case review and a genetic test to determine the cause of the cancer. Several genetic defects related to prostate cancer were identified in Dennis’ body, and specific therapies were prescribed to fight the disease, including laser, oxygen, and magnetic energy. Nutritional supplements were prescribed to strengthen his immune system and promote general health. Dennis went off sugar and gluten. “We have been with the Conners Clinic since 2018, and I’m actually feeling pretty good,” Dennis reports. He went from a wheelchair to a walker, and now he can get around with just a cane. Only recently, he and Jane walked a mile down their road, “which is something unheard of for me,” says Dennis. “I’m not saying this [alternative therapy] is right for everyone,” cautions Dennis, “follow your doctor’s orders.”
“Doctors have been very helpful, and we still connect with them to find out what’s going on with the cancer in my body,” says Dennis, “It hasn’t all gone away. Once it gets in your bones, it’s really hard to get out. It’s slowly diminishing. I’d like to go ten more years.”
Dennis’ determination to take charge of his own fate by learning as much as possible about prostate cancer and the options for its treatment earned him the respect of his physicians. One doctor told him, “I’ve never had a patient who understood as much as you do about what was going on in your body.” Dennis asked informed questions about alternative therapies.
To one such question, his doctor said, “I’m not going to tell you the answer to that, because you will go home and do it yourself.”
“We even had to switch oncologists,” Jane said, “because the first oncologist assigned to Dennis would just laugh off these alternative therapies. When Dennis would ask technical questions, he just wasn’t interested in finding those answers.” They found another oncologist at the same hospital who was more willing to work with Dennis. If Dennis did not want to take a particular drug, that doctor was willing to let him go with his natural therapies, according to Jane.
Dennis attributes his amazing rally in this battle with prostate cancer to “the grace of God.” God gave Dennis the intellectual gifts to analyze the options and seek alternative, as well as conventional, treatments. God gave Dennis, Jane, their family, and friends across the country the spiritual strength to humble themselves in prayer for His intercession. Through faith in God and the will to live, Dennis has regained sufficient health and strength to return to music. By April, 2018, Dennis was able to resume lessons, and he practices regularly. He is an active member at First Congregational Church in Hillsboro, singing in the choir, assisting Pastor Thompson in leading worship and serving as deacon. His first public harp performance was at last year’s Christmas Eve service. Though he still considers himself a novice harpist, Dennis gratefully desires to show his love for music with his family, church, and community.
Asked what message he has for readers of Driftless Now during this time of crisis, Dennis said the following: “God’s got the whole world’s attention now. Times like this make us think about life…now is the time to turn to God…and trust in Him.”
Bob Potter, contributing writer for Driftless Now, is interested in recording the tales of Driftless Region folks. If you care to share your story with our readers, please contact Bob at robertdaypotter@gmail.com.
