Forrest R. Goodenough

Family-Placed Obituary

Forrest R. Goodenough was born July 27, 1918 in South Bend, Indiana, and passed on August 14, 2004, in Gravette, Arkansas. He lost his sight at age five and grew up during a time when our culture had a limited view of the amazing potential of children who didn't see. He was around people who loved him and believed he could do nearly anything - which came to include, carpentry, digging a basement under an existing house, building a cabin, ice skating, riding a tandem bicycle, cooking, finding his way around New York City attending Butler University and DePauw University and earning a Master's at Eastman School of Music. His earliest musical compositions and performances were in grade school. In 1965 he ranked 9th of the top 150 American composers by the American Composers Alliance. In the 1940's he lived in New York City and was the staff pianist of NBC and held two other regular jazz piano jobs at posh hotels in the Cotillion Room and the Barbary Room. At that time he met and ran around with George Shearing and Lenny Tristano. In Woodstock, New York, he had a year long sabbatical to live in the Old Maverick House and complete classical compositions. His first wife, Lucia C. Greer, and daughter have fond memorials of their arts colony life. In 1949 he accepted a faculty position at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, teaching theory and composition. In 1952 he and his to be wife of 51 years, Dorothy Churchill Goodenough, began 25 years of teaching at the Texas State School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Under their guidance, the music programs blossomed to include a string ensemble, an orchestra, band, and numerous aware winning soloists. Forrest Goodenough passed on in Gravette, Arkansas, while an auditorium of a few hundred friends, former students, and family (unaware that he would slip away) celebrated his life and contributions. The auditorium was renamed the Goodenough Performance Hall and a charitable fund was established to benefit future students. He is survived by Gravette residents; his daughter and her husband, Crow Johnson Evans and Dr. Arthur F. Evans; and by Lucia C. Greer, his first wife and mother of his only child; and by his niece by marriage and her husband, Diane Churchill Rautenberg and Norman Rautenberg of New Hampshire. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, a charitable donation in any amount may be sent to: All Blind Children of Texas, 1100 W. 45th Street, Austin, Texas 78756, Attention: Goodenough Fund. All contributing will receive a DVD of the dedication ceremony and gathering.