Selene Harmon Howe

Boston – Mrs. Selene (Harmon) Howe, of Boston, formerly of Weston and Wellesley Hills, died Sunday, April 19, 2015 in Meadow Green Nursing Home in Waltham following a period of declining health. She was 95.

Selene was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, a daughter of the late Dudley and Selene (Armstrong) Harmon and was raised and educated in Wellesley Hills. She developed a talent for music as a child and became an accomplished pianist at an early age. She studied at the Erskine School in Boston and at the Smith College Summer School of Music for three years where she leaned composition and choral conducting.

As a pupil of Adele Leonard in Wellesley and, later, of Stanley Chapple, head of the London Academy of Music, Selene became an accomplished teacher and composer in her own right.

Selene started her career in 1947, writing five original songs for the show "Everything's On Ice". In 1950 she appeared on the Steve Allen radio show, Songs for Sale. Later as a housewife in Weston she started a singing group called the "Kitchen Canaries"; a group of twelve women who sang for fun and performed for hospitals, nursing homes and clubs in the Boston area. She played the piano and wrote all the arrangements for the songs they sang as well as teaching piano to many of the children in Weston.

She was much in demand for private parties in Boston, frequently playing at the Ritz Carlton, the Boston Harbor Hotel, the Park Plaza, Parkman House, the Harvard Club and at Pier Four. She also played several brunches for Julia Child at her home in Cambridge and had been a longtime board member of the College Club of Boston

For eleven years she was the resident pianist at the Hampshire House on Beacon Street in Boston and in 2005 was awarded the James T. Holmwood Award for her spirit of giving and tirelessly volunteering her services to Cheers for Children.

During the summer she played on the Cape at Bishops Terrace and Eastward Ho Country Club, on Nantucket at the White Elephant and at the Harborview Hotel in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard. In New York she was honored to have been asked to play at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at a luncheon honoring Richard Rogers.

During the Nixon-Ford Administration she wrote a patriotic song called "Lift Up Your Hearts All America". One performance was for the town of Weston's Bicentennial Celebration in 1976. Selene played the piano and her daughter Betsy sang with the Weston Chorus. In the 1980's she wrote a composition to commemorate the Tall Ships coming to Boston. It was called Operation Sail and was played as they came into the harbor as Selene watched proudly from aboard one of the ships.

In the early 1960's Selene moved to Beacon Hill, where she loved to walk through the Public Garden. She was a Boston treasure and as her minister, Stephen Kendrick, said "Music poured out from her fingertips".

She leaves her daughter, Betsy Kaden and her husband, Bill, of Weston; her grandchildren, Felice and David Laird of Bethesda, Maryland, Ben Kaden and Roxanne Gruden of Weston, Greg and Julianna Kaden of Weston, and Matt and Janey Kaden of Miami, Florida and six great-grandchildren.

Family and friends will honor and remember Selene's life by gathering for a memorial service at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 30th in The First Church in Boston, 66 Marlborough Street [cor. of Berkeley], Boston.

Memorial donations may be made to Rosie's Place, 889 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118.