Longtime Pine Street Presbyterian Church music director ‘cut wide swath’ in community

By Monica von Dobenbeck

 

HARRISBURG, PA — There will be no eulogy and no sermon for Donald L Clapper during his memorial service at Pine Street Presbyterian Church where he served as minister of music for 43 years.

But hundreds of people who were touched by the 83-year-old Clapper’s kindness over the decades are likely to attend the June 14 service, and those who can’t make it can watch it live streamed over their computers. Clapper, who died May 29 and who retired as minister of music in 1998, was a humble man who never realized how much people loved him, Clark-Jones said.

 

“He was someone who was really, really important in their lives,” he said. “From the time he got here, they adored him.”  Clapper, who was named one of Harisburg’s Living Legacies in 2010 “cut a wide swath in this community,” Clark-Jones said.