During St. Alphonsus Parish’s 150th anniversary celebration in early 2020, Joyce Thompson (standing in blue dress) and Daisy Gibson (seated in white sweater) are seen singing in the choir. COURTESY OF KAY BETH RINEY
‘Very loyal’ cousins lifted voices in song together for decades at St. Alphonsus
BY ANDY TELLI, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
Daisy Gibson and Joyce Thompson were born with a song in their hearts. And for more than 70 years they shared those songs and their love of music with the parishioners of St. Alphonsus Parish in Daviess County by signing in the choir.
“I love to sing,” said Gibson. “You get more out of Mass (singing) than you do just sitting. Graces I’m talking about. And God knows I need them,” she added with a chuckle.
Both Gibson, 88, and Thompson, 85, had to step down from the St. Alphonsus choir earlier this year because of health concerns, ending decades of musical service to their parish.
They both started singing at St. Alphonsus when they were children attending the parish school there.
“I’ve been singing ever since I was in the fifth grade,” said Gibson. “I remember that. They started us out in the fifth grade if you wanted to sing.”
“As soon as I was old enough, I started,” added Thompson. “When I joined the choir, I was a student over here at the school… I don’t know what grade I was in, but I was 13.”
Gibson and Thompson are first cousins. “Our daddies were brothers,” and their last name was Dant, Thompson said.
In this recent photo, Joyce Thompson, left, and Daisy Gibson started singing at St. Alphonsus Parish more than 70 years ago. The first cousins were stalwarts of the parish choir for decades. ANDY TELLI | WKC
“We all grew up in” the parish, Thompson said. Their families each had farms in the Elba community of Daviess County not far from Maple Mount where both attended high school at Mount Saint Joseph Academy, across the road from St. Alphonsus.
In Elba, “there used to be two grocery stores,” Thompson said. “We caught the school bus at the grocery store. It was very small.”
“We grew up about a half mile away, if we went the long way,” Thompson reminded Gibson one recent Saturday evening as they sat in the pews at St. Alphonsus after Mass.
Music was part of life growing up for both Gibson and Thompson. “There was always somebody who would play a bass and a fiddle and a guitar,” Thompson said.
When she got older, Thompson and her brother, who would play the guitar, would sing for the family. “We could visit family and they’d say, ‘Now well you’re going to sing. Sing this, sing that, sing something else.”
Gibson’s family also was musical. “My mother could sing and my sisters could sing,” she said. Together they would sit in the porch swing at home and sing. “We would swing and sing.”
After they started their own families, both Gibson and Thompson kept singing at St. Alphonsus. Gibson “was a really good alto, and Joyce is a soprano,” said Kay Beth Riney, the music director at St. Alphonsus and its sister parish St. Elizabeth Parish in Curdsville.
It will be hard to replace Gibson and Thompson in the choir, Riney said. “They’ve been very faithful about coming to rehearsals and showing up on the weekends and practicing and getting things down right,” she said. “They’ve just been very loyal. I don’t know that I’m going to have anybody like them that’s lasted as long.”
Andy Telli writes for The Western Kentucky Catholic from Owensboro.
Originally printed in the October 2024 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
