Janet Robbins Dahlberg

1927 - 2016

NORTHAMPTON – Janet Robbins Dahlberg, 88, died Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, at home with her family after several years of declining health. A longtime resident of Northampton, Janet was Minister of Music Emerita at First Churches of Northampton.

Janet was born July 12, 1927, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the daughter of W. Rei and Helen Robbins. She grew up attending the Presbyterian Church and found joy and meaning in playing piano and studying sacred music. She shared this spiritual love of music with innumerable church members, friends and family during more than half a century here in Northampton.

While attending Douglass College, Rutgers University Janet began taking organ lessons. After graduating with a bachelor's degree from Douglass in 1949, she taught organ and piano for one year earning money to continue her education. She then attended Union Theological Seminary, where she met her future husband, Bruce Dahlberg, while they were both students studying systematic theology with Paul Tillich. Janet and Bruce became close friends after she played organ for a service at his church in Brooklyn, and they married in 1952. Janet wrote her thesis 'Music in the Religious Development of Children' and received her Master of Sacred Music degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1952. She served as organist and choir director at several churches in New Jersey before moving to Northampton with Bruce and continuing her career in sacred music.

She first became organist and choir director at the old Methodist Church on Elm Street in 1957 and then at South Church in Amherst. In 1966 she began a 45 year career at First Church in Northampton. Janet was organist and choir director for 22 years at First Church of Christ, U.C.C. After First Church merged with the First Baptist Church, becoming First Churches of Northampton in 1988, she continued to share the role of Minister of Music with her dear friend Dana Pasquale. Janet retired from First Churches of Northampton in 2011, becoming Minister of Music Emerita.

Janet was tireless in creating and sharing music. She would research music for the choir during the week, direct choir practice Friday nights, play weddings and give organ lessons on Saturdays and then play organ and direct the choir for Sunday morning rehearsals and worship services. As a member of the American Guild of Organists, Springfield Chapter, playing the 1936 E. M. Skinner and son organ at First Churches was one of her great joys. With its booming giant bass pipes and the many timbres of its soprano pipes this magnificent organ fills the large First Churches sanctuary with glorious accompaniment to the congregation, choir and the many children and other instrumentalists who create music there. On week days Janet gave piano lessons in her house to children and adults. For many years after Sunday church services she played organ at services for patients of the former Northampton State Hospital and the Northampton VA Medical Center, sharing music with people whose mental illness kept them isolated from society. Janet also played organ for graduations at Northampton High School, Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School and Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech, celebrating the graduation milestones with generations of students and their families.

In addition to her ministry of music Janet worked in community outreach. In the early 1970's, with Rev. Don Fonda of the First Baptist Church on West Street, she co-founded Decisional Training which she then coordinated for several decades. The program recruits college students and other local volunteers to work with inmates at the Hampshire County House of Correction. The training program is designed to help inmates take responsibility for actions, separate feeling from actions, set goals and make choices for the future. In the 1980's Janet trained as a supervisor of Clinical Pastoral Education at Mercy Hospital in Springfield. She then trained hospital chaplain interns for many years in the Clinical Pastoral Education program, based at the Passionist Clinical Pastoral Education Center in West Springfield, where students learned to counsel patients with long-term illnesses, cognitive disease and palliative care.

Janet had a deep, spiritual love of nature. She spent many summers at her family's old camp on Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey. She continued to return to the wilderness over decades with her family and the Robbins clan on long canoe trips to remote rivers and lakes such as the Allagash, the Missinaibi River to James Bay and La Verendrye and Quetico Provincial parks. On these trips, she collected minerals, rocks and seedlings from throughout North America. She loved loons and found peace sitting by a camp fire listening to their eerie mournful calls echo across wilderness lakes.

Janet was Grandma to her grandchildren Erin and Megan Brasch, Jonathan and Ellen Dahlberg, Desmond, Nora and John Dahlberg and to her step-grandchildren Eric, Tyler, Michael and Mia Pariseau. She was Aunt Janet to her nieces and nephews. She shared her love of music with the children, encouraging them to study musical instruments, play in concerts and accompany the First Churches choir. She read innumerable books and stories and played games such as Uno and Backgammon. She had a gift for truly listening and showed the children genuine warmth and unconditional love.

During her final years of illness the devoted care of her son Andy and his wife Kim made it possible for her to remain at home where she died with her family at her side. Classical music, hymns and carols were played and sung by visiting singers, a harpist and Janet's family. Recordings of loon calls echoed past wilderness canoe trips.

Janet leaves four children, Seth Dahlberg, physician, of West Boylston, James Dahlberg, attorney, of Arlington, Virginia, Judith Brasch, research nurse, of Rochester, New York, and Andrew Dahlberg, intensive care unit nurse, of Northampton; seven grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; and an extended caring circle of family and friends.

She is predeceased by her only brother Allen Robbins and by her husband Bruce, Professor of Religion Emeritus at Smith College, and their first son Stephen.

Reflecting her love of education and teaching, Janet Dahlberg donated her body to the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Janet's family would like to thank the staff at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Cooley Dickinson VNA & Hospice, and Comprehensive Home Care for their dedicated care.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, June 18, at 11 a.m. at First Churches of Northampton, 129 Main Street.

Gifts of remembrance may be made to The Organ Fund, First Churches of Northampton, 129 Main St., Northampton, MA 01060 or to Decisional Training Volunteers Of Hampshire County, P.O. Box 65, Northampton, MA 01061.

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