Lois Antoinette Hinton Blackburn, a musician, teacher and civic activist, died Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, at her home in Albuquerque, N.M. She lived in Moscow from 1991 until 2011.
Lois was born Oct. 29, 1932, in Chicago to Paul and Lois Hinton, who were commercial artists. Her family lived in a farmhouse in a rural community, where Lois attended a one-room schoolhouse. When she was in elementary school, the family moved to Springfield, Ohio.
She met Elisha Phillips “Phil” Blackburn at Purdue University in Indiana, where Phil studied engineering and Lois majored in English. They married after graduation and moved to the Los Angeles area when Phil was hired by Boeing. They had three children: Paul Robert, Amy Catherine and John Phillips.
Lois learned to play the cello when her children were young, and she taught cello lessons. The family sang together on the porch on warm evenings, and Lois played the zither. Her children took music lessons throughout their childhood, and all became musicians as adults.
After Phil transferred to a new job, the family moved to Vienna, Va., outside of Washington, D.C. Lois earned her master’s degree in musicology from The Catholic University of America. After a year and a half in Virginia, the family moved back to Los Angeles.
Phil died of a heart attack in 1970 at the age of 39. Paul was 14, Amy was 13 and John was 11. Lois stayed in California for two more years before she moved the family to Santa Fe, N.M., near her parents’ home in Taos.
In Santa Fe, Lois created a music program for the Santa Fe Preparatory School. When her children graduated from high school, she bought a five-acre farm in Corrales, just north of Albuquerque. She taught elementary strings for Albuquerque Public Schools, grew alfalfa and rode horses.
In the early 1980s, Lois moved to Tucson and earned a doctorate in music education from the University of Arizona. Her dissertation, “Whole Music, A Whole Language Approach to Teaching Music,” became a textbook for music educators.
After completing her Ph.D., she taught music at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va., and finally, the University of Idaho in Moscow. After retiring from the UI, she taught private cello lessons and was active in the Moscow Civic Association, serving as its president and writing a “Town Crier” column for the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
In 2011, Lois moved to Albuquerque to be closer to her children. She visited Moscow in 2012 for a gala 80th birthday party, attended by more than 80 of her friends and former colleagues. Her son, John, died of cancer May 9, 2021. She is survived by her two remaining children, Paul, of Questa, N.M., and Amy, of Albuquerque.
A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 29, on what would have been her 89th birthday, at the 1912 Center, 412 E. Third St., Moscow. Guests are asked to please wear masks and observe social distancing. The family suggests memorial contributions be made to Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute, P.O. Box 8596, Moscow.
