Devoted Musician Keeps Harp Close to Her Heart

When she was a student at Redlands College, Sylvia Fellows had a musical dream.

“I remember dreaming I was playing a harp and the dream persisted for a year, so I decided to do something about it,” she said. “It was like I was being pursued by the harp.”

Well, the harp caught her and she learned to play it, and today six of the instruments sit in her Anaheim Hills home. They graduate in size from one small enough for her 4-year-old daughter to a full-size pedal harp that she transports in a station wagon and plays at garden weddings, fashion shows and other elegant events.

“Once I played the harp at a boat wedding,” she said. “That was different.”

But these days, Fellows, 42, is spending most of her time at Disneyland sitting on a porch of a log cabin in Big Thunder Ranch spinning yarn on a spinning wheel, singing and relating tales of the 1800s. She’s known as the “Singing Spinster.”

“Actually, I made the job,” said Fellows, who was working as a silhouette artist at Disneyland when the ranch was installed. “I thought it would be a fine place where I could do my hobby of spinning. I told them, ‘I think you need me.’ ”

She has worked 3 years in that daily job along with night performances at Medieval Times in Buena Park. But on weekends Fellows enchants wedding audiences with her harp music, especially the tunes she plays on her folk harp.

“The folk harp is really catching on,” said Fellows, who earned her music teaching credentials from USC and worked for a time as a music teacher in the Orange Unified School District. In schools she would play Irish folk music to illustrate the cultural importance of that country’s music.

To celebrate her Irish heritage, Fellows recently donned her leprechaun ears and a swallow-tailed coat and played her folk harp at a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Orange. Although admittedly disenchanted with rock music, she credits singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg with helping to promote harp music.

“The opening act at his concerts would be a dulcimer-and-folk-harp duo,” said Fellows, who is chairwoman of the International Society of Folkharpers and Craftsmen Inc. “That really helped and a lot of people are becoming interested. Now we’re getting about one new member a day.”

Fellows, who is also an accomplished flutist who has played with the Orange Symphonic Band, and her husband, Bruce, have long promoted folk harp music through her personal appearances and through the quarterly Folk Harp Journal, which has showcased the Fellows literary and musical talents.

As if to explain her feeling and love for the instrument, Fellows wrote:

“The flute appeals to the intellect, the harp to my heart. You can hug it, and feel the live feeling instantly.”

The Yorba Linda Public Library will continue its 75th anniversary celebration in style with a catered “Supper in the Stacks” on April 25 in the library community room.

And the library is planning an interesting after-dinner entertainment treat, according to library spokeswoman Wilda Kovich.

She said that the theatrical group named Suspenseful Moments will present an evening of mystery, murder and mayhem.

Pauline Denning is affectionately known as “Aunt Polly” around the newborn nursery at Saint Joseph Hospital in Orange, where she has worked for 45 years.

“Polly is a remarkable woman,” said Tes Pane, R.N., who directs the hospital obstetrics. “She’s now delivering her third generation of babies. It must be a tremendous feeling when a new mom says, ‘You took care of my grandmother.’ ”

Denning is credited with caring for 100,000 of the 150,000 babies who have been delivered at Saint Joseph since the hospital opened in 1929.

Jerry Dunn, executive director of the personnel department, notes that “many people today constantly search for the perfect job. Perhaps Polly is one of the rare individuals who found the secret to a happy work life.”

Denning, a licensed vocational nurse who lives in Garden Grove, was recently recognized at the hospital’s employee banquet for her years of service. She says she thought the recognition was a little much.

But she has a new and higher goal. Denning wants to return in 5 years for her 50-year pin.