Celebrate the Gift

Reprinted with permission from The Columbus Dispatch

Article by Mary Beth Lane

GALLIPOLIS, Ohio — Nobody in the local symphony orchestra has ever met Ann Carson Dater. As quietly as a soft violin note, Dater has donated $3 million in recent years to endow the Ohio Valley Symphony Orchestra.  And last year, she gave the orchestra a permanent performance home in downtown Gallipolis.

She provided $1 million to the nonprofit board that runs the orchestra and affiliated arts organizations so that it could buy and renovate the brick building that houses the historic Ariel Theatre.  "This is all her idea," said her attorney, Quintin Lindsmith, of Columbus. "She has never heard it perform, never met anyone associated with it. But she knows that for that part of Ohio, for there to be a symphony at all, really is a small miracle."

Dater did not want to talk about her donations, preferring to remain in the shadows.  But this weekend, the longtime patron of the arts in this Ohio River village will be in the limelight usually reserved for the musicians.  Dater’s name appeared this week on the new marquee of the renamed Masonic Lodge building at 426 2 nd Ave. And the 89-year-old is expected to attend today’s rededication ceremony of the Ariel-Ann Carson Dater Performing Arts Centre and the 8 p.m. symphony concert in her honor. The concert will include a new work specially commissioned to pay tribute to her.  The building was first dedicated April 23, 1896, when it belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and included the Ariel Opera House.

What a gift for Gallipolis, said Lora Lynn Snow. The professional oboist founded the Ohio Valley Symphony Orchestra in 1989 in the Gallia County seat, about 90 miles southeast of Columbus, and now manages it and performs with it. Co-founder Ray Fowler is the maestro.  "It doesn’t make sense to have an orchestra in a town of less than 5,000," Snow said proudly. "But we do. It is happening." Thanks to Dater’s generosity.  The quiet philanthropist lives in an assisted-living development in Prescott, Ariz. Her roots lie here by the Ohio River, though, and so
does her earliest immersion into classical music. Her history will be shown on a plaque the Board of Directors of the Ariel Cultural & Performing Arts Centre plans to install.

Dater grew up in Rutland in neighboring Meigs County and learned to play a Montgomery Ward violin that her parents bought for her when she was in the eighth grade at Parker Elementary School, a one-room
schoolhouse.  She went on to perform with student orchestras at Rutland High School and in college.  She attended what is now Rio Grande University and paid tuition by raising and selling chickens and borrowing money from her grandfather.  Dater earned an education degree, became a schoolteacher and later married Cincinnati businessman and philanthropist Charles Dater. He died in 1993, but she has quietly continued the couple’s good
works.  Dater has said that she always drew comfort from the beauty and elegance of classic symphonic music.

The Ohio Valley Symphony Orchestra had been performing in Gallipolis for about eight years when Snow received a surprise phone call.  It was Dater, who had heard of the symphony. She asked what was needed, and the stream of contributions began.  The symphony is excellent, said Lindsmith, who has attended performances.  Snow takes pride in that.  "We are losing our timpani player to the Cincinnati Orchestra," she said. "We lost one of our horns to Philadelphia. Even in a town much larger, people wouldn’t expect it to be this good."

The symphony orchestra had been renting its performance space from the Gallia Masonic Co. When the Masons decided to sell the three-story building in July, Dater donated the money so that the arts board could buy it. The building bustled with activity this week as community volunteers painted and cleaned, preparing for today’s concert and rededication. "Think of the mark a lady can leave. She is leaving her mark, and this kind of facility will definitely leave a mark on a lot of people,"
said retired highschool teacher Lloyd Danner, who was perched atop a ladder painting the ballroom.

In addition to the symphony, the balconied, 465-seat Ariel Theatre and the rest of the performing-arts center are home to a dance troupe, adult and youth community-theater groups, and a women’s chorus. Dater plans to fly in by private jet with her daughter and a caretaker to attend the rededication and concert, Lindsmith said.

A bronze plaque will tell her story, ending with her life philosophy: 

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