W. Richard Weagly
(May 7, 1909 - June 4, 1989) was a director of music at the Riverside Church
for 21 years.Partner Virgil Fox
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7009 Kenleigh Rd, Baltimore, MD 21212
The
Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Dr, New York, NY 10027
Kriders Lutheran Church Cemetery
Westminster, Carroll County, Maryland, USA
W. Richard Weagly
(May 7, 1909 - June 4, 1989) was a director of music at the Riverside Church
for 21 years.
Beginning in 1936, Virgil Fox was organist at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore while teaching at Peabody. Weagly was Choir Director. They lived together with Weagly's mother.
In 1946, the Church hired a “partnership” (terminology used in The Church Monthly publication of The Riverside Church) of Organist, Virgil Fox, and Choir Director, Richard Weagly. Fox and Weagly lived together, took their vacations together and were referred to by the staff as in “a relationship.” In the late 1950’s, they broke up as a couple but still worked together under tense circumstances. The Fox biography, The Dish, Virgil Fox (2001), by Richard Torrence documents the gay couple.
Rev. McCracken was available for counseling after the “relationship” of Virgil Fox and Richard Weagly broke up. Richard Weagly was given a year’s sabbatical in London paid for by the Church.
During his tenure at the church, from 1947 to 1968, Weagly also gave voice recitals and taught voice and piano. He left to head the music department at the Bishop's School in La Jolla, Calif.
During World War II, Weagly served as a chaplain's assistant in the United States Army Air Corps. He was a graduate of Western Maryland College and the Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music.
He died of coronary disease on June 4 at his home in San Marcos, Calif. He was 80 years old.
Virgil and Richard Weagly at The Riverside Church's new five manual Æolian-Skinner console for the Hook and Hastings organ.
Photo taken from "The Church Monthly", a publication of The Riverside Church, Volume 23, November 1948.
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