A long planned-for dream came true on a rainy November day when thirty-eight Allen Choir members, accompanied by the principal, Julia Titus, Troy Conference home missionary, Carol Chaney and Winifred Wrisley, music teachers, started toward Troy Conference on a Trailways bus. We were scheduled to take part in fifteen services of worship by music and spoken word, over thirteen days, November 9-20, 1963. From a setting of "Let All the World in Every Corner Sing," to a closing unison Kagawa poem, "Discovery" about God ". . . .using my hand," we witnessed to our faith through music, words and lives, developing friendships and sharing multi-racial and intergenerational experiences throughout Troy Conference, from Albany and Schenectady to the Canadian border in Swanton, Vermont. Following our final program we again climbed into the bus in the rain, and at 1:00 A.M. obeyed our loyal bus driver as he insisted that we climb the steps to the Lincoln Memorial to reflect on those days in the glow of Lincoln’s face. Finally reaching Allen’s parking lot on Friday afternoon, we learned that President Kennedy had been shot and had died in Dallas.
Looking back and catching up with reality, as we caught up on school work and wrote thank-you letters to each host family, we found that we had money left over–and decided unanimously to buy three new Everett studio pianos for the school.