Ida Hutchison
1912-2000

Ida

My father performed with Ida, an excellent pianist, for many years after she returned to Colorado Springs, her home town, in the 1950s. After my mother passed away in 1983, Dad and Ida grew to be good friends, and Ida began to include Dad, and then me too, in the frequent gatherings that her large, wonderful, interesting, and creative extended family would hold. Ida, knowing of my interest in recording, hired me to record some of her performances with friends and piano students. (Click here to hear a sample of one, Poulenc's Sonata For Flute and Piano, that she performs with her brother Harvey, a concert flautist with the Dallas Symphony.)

Ida and I became good friends as well. I was living in Seattle at the time but would return during the summers to hike the Rockies and would often stay with Ida while in Colorado Springs. When she passed away suddenly but peacefully in 2000, I thought perhaps my time with her extended family, the Tudors, would end. But to my surprise and gratification, I was invited to stay in her house until her daughter and son-in-law could return. When they did, I stayed to help care for them. Ever since, I have been kind of the middle-aged orphan dropped on their doorstep, and they have welcomed me as one of their own. Ida's intelligence, wit, talent, and wonderful heart have had a profound and lasting effect on my life. Among many other things, she adapted a short story I wrote into a radio play that was eventually produced. For more information about it, see Plays in the writing section. She is much missed.