Anna Ray Borho

Anna Ray Borho

Written by Kathy Lesko Saturday, 07 October 2006

When Anna Ray Borho was 13 years old, her aunt taught her to play the keyboard on an old pump organ.

“I don’t even know how I reached the pedals,” she said, standing next to the instrument that now occupies a corner in the living room of her Leander home.

On the other side of the room is a piano, surrounded by small, neat piles of sheet music, most of the pages tattered and yellowed. Many of the selections are paper-clipped together, and gently tucked inside folders that are so worn they feel like treated leather.

This collection of memories represents 85 years of commitment to the parishioners of First Presbyterian Church in Leander, where Anna Ray has served as church pianist since she was a teenager.

“When I was 15, my Aunt Ethel, who had taught me to play and was also the church pianist, was getting married,” explains Anna Ray. “Since she couldn’t play at her own wedding, I was selected to fill in for her.”

Anna Ray continued lessons with her aunt, a music teacher, for many years, and often filled in when she was unable to play. When her aunt decided to retire from playing, Anna Ray was chosen as her permanent replacement.

Her commitment to making beautiful music for the Lord served as the cornerstone that carried the native Leander resident through many stages of her life.

“I used to stop before church at the post office where I worked so that I could sort the mail for the next day; then it was on to church in time to play for the service,” she said.

When her children were toddlers, Anna Ray would have her mother watch them so she didn’t miss her Sunday commitment.

Anna Ray occasionally gave up her piano bench to visiting ministers’ wives, but she remained a fixture in the church, as well as in Leander. She is part of an elite group who actually witnessed the first plane landing in the city – it touched down in a field behind her home – and one of the first residents to see a motorized car. “It looked unremarkably like a buggy,” she remembers.

Changes also occurred in the church, and Anna Ray notes that through the years the musical criteria for the services expanded to include preludes, postludes and offertories in addition to the traditional hymns. She says one of the biggest challenges she faces at age 98 isn’t getting to church, or even reading the sheet music (her ophthalmologist recently told her that “her eyesight is wonderful for someone her age”), but making sure she doesn’t play “the same old songs all the time,” she admits.

Her daily practices in her home are sometimes attended by one of her seven grandchildren or 10 great-grandchildren, many of whom live in the area, who stop by to just sit and listen. For the parishioners at First Presbyterian Church, 11 a.m. on Sundays is their special time with Anna Ray.

Other musical interludes

• Anna Ray’s family is steeped in musical tradition.
• The same aunt who taught her to play piano, played for Leander’s high school graduation ceremonies for years.
• Anna Ray succeeded her and provided the musical accompaniment until the school decided to use their band for the ceremony.