When I married Mahlon in 1974, he lived in Bloomingburg, NY and was raising his three sons as a single father. He was a music instructor at The Otisville School for Boys. His next important position was as Farm Manager of a 300-acre organic university farm at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. When the university decided to close the farm, Mahlon enrolled in a PhD program in Higher Education at Penn State. His dissertation was on the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. During his last year at Penn State he did an extensive job search. As he applied for academic positions, many of the universities he was applying to requested that he write position papers (as part of the application process). After a year in which he failed to find a position, he left academia behind and started a new career.
We moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma for my academic position at OSU and Mahlon started a private music studio (SUZUKI STRINGS) in which he gave private lessons on violin, viola, cello and piano. The studio grew quickly as his reputation as a Suzuki music instructor developed. In addition to teaching 25-30 private music lessons a week, he played in a number of chamber groups in the community. He founded and conducted the Stillwater Youth Chamber Orchestra (SYCO) and singlehandedly developed this into a very popular institution that lasted for approximately ten years. He also developed a summer music concert series at the Sheerar History Museum. He was instrumental in promoting and developing a rich musical life in this college town during the 30 years that we lived there.
-Gene, his wife