Musician, Author, Businessman. Born in Decatur, Illinois, the younger son of Magdalena Beatrice (Frick) and Charles Anderson Swarm, he began studying the violin at four and attended the Millikin University Musical Kindergarten. He was graduated by Stephen Decatur High School in 1935 and by Washington University in Saint Louis in 1939 with a double major in music and business. While his first love was music he kept that an avocation and became first a partner and then full proprietor of his father's insurance business in Decatur. During WW II he served in the U.S. Coast Guard (1943-46) as a lieutenant including service in Europe. During his overseas service he had the opportunity to study the pipe organs and church music programs in churches on the continent and in England, about which he wrote in a series of articles for "The American Organist" and "Diapason" magazines. In 1949 after five years of preparatory research he formed The Church Music Foundation, which published his book "Guideposts For The Church Musician" and set up a research and consultant department for organists and choirmasters. He lectured widely on music, business and insurance. His last two decades of life were lived in his favorite city by the bay, San Francisco. (bio by: David McJonathan-Swarm, his son)
Musician, Author, Businessman. Born in Decatur, Illinois, the younger son of Magdalena Beatrice (Frick) and Charles Anderson Swarm, he began studying the violin at four and attended the Millikin University Musical Kindergarten. He was graduated by Stephen Decatur High School in 1935 and by Washington University in Saint Louis in 1939 with a double major in music and business. While his first love was music he kept that an avocation and became first a partner and then full proprietor of his father's insurance business in Decatur. During WW II he served in the U.S. Coast Guard (1943-46) as a lieutenant including service in Europe. During his overseas service he had the opportunity to study the pipe organs and church music programs in churches on the continent and in England, about which he wrote in a series of articles for "The American Organist" and "Diapason" magazines. In 1949 after five years of preparatory research he formed The Church Music Foundation, which published his book "Guideposts For The Church Musician" and set up a research and consultant department for organists and choirmasters. He lectured widely on music, business and insurance. His last two decades of life were lived in his favorite city by the bay, San Francisco. (bio by: David McJonathan-Swarm, his son)
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