Wineka column: Pastor Bruce the singing chaplain

Gene Bruce, the Chaplain at the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, works his way down the halls greeting residents. Pastor Bruce is known for singing of hymns for all to hear as he visits those staying at the home. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Gene Bruce, the Chaplain at the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, stops to speak to Pauline Iddings during a recent visit. Pastor Bruce is known for singing of hymns for all to hear as he visits those staying at the home. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Gene Bruce, the Chaplain at the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, works his way down the halls greeting residents. Pastor Bruce is known for singing of hymns for all to hear as he visits those staying at the home. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Gene Bruce, the Chaplain at the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, works his way down the halls greeting residents. Pastor Bruce is known for singing of hymns for all to hear as he visits those staying at the home. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Gene Bruce, the Chaplain at the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, stops a bingo game to fill the cafeteria with song. Pastor Bruce is known for singing of hymns for all to hear as he visits those staying at the home. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Gene Bruce, the Chaplain at the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, works his way down the halls greeting residents. Pastor Bruce is known for singing of hymns for all to hear as he visits those staying at the home. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Gene Bruce, the Chaplain at the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, drops in on Ronnie and Lorraine McCorkle to share a song. Pastor Bruce is known for singing of hymns for all to hear as he visits those staying at the home. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

The Rev. Gene Bruce moves down the Lutheran Home halls at a pace good for any second tenor.

You never know when this singing chaplain might break into a song.

As Bruce walks up to a nurse’s station where several residents are waiting in wheelchairs, he begins a verse of the Christmas song “Joy to the World,” even though it’s early September.

Christmas songs spread “the good news” no matter what time of year it is, Bruce would explain later. He also likes to bring out a rousing version of “Jingle Bells” to cool things off in the dead of summer.

A resident along the wall grins as Bruce’s booming voice rises to a big finish.

“Boy, it’s good to see that smile,” Bruce says, squeezing her hand.

Farther down the hall, Bruce pushes through a door so he can visit with Lorraine and Ronnie McCorkle.

“Ronnie loves a song — he loves the Messiah,” Bruce says. The men are quickly harmonizing in “Hallelujahs.”

“I love it,” Pastor Bruce says.

Ronnie asks for prayerful counsel on a health problem before Bruce leaves.

“Pastor Bruce” — that’s what everybody calls him — isn’t sure when or why his singing started. In his 40-plus years as a Lutheran minister, he often would interrupt his own sermons with snatches of a hymn or song that applied to his message.

As chaplain at the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, Bruce thinks impromptu singing can be a strong communicative tool in reaching out to someone. A familiar hymn or Christmas carol might strike the right chord in lifting a resident’s spirits, he says.

When he was a pastor in Catawba County, Bruce once visited a church member in a Morganton nursing home. She could not speak, and Bruce felt as though she were only communicating with him through her eyes.

Before he left one day, Bruce decided to sing “Amazing Grace.” He noticed the woman’s reaction, as though she wanted to sing along but couldn’t.

“Can you hum?” Bruce asked.

The woman discovered she could and, from that point on, she hummed all the hymns of her faith that she knew by heart.

The experience stayed with Bruce.

At the Lutheran Home, Bruce continues on room to room, yelling his arrival as he checks in with people lying on their beds or sitting up in chairs, looking forward to his brief visits.

“Sarah, are you behaving yourself today?” he asks.

He knows most everybody by their first names.

“God bless you, and we’ll see you next time,” he says, exiting back into the hall.

Bruce stops for a visit with 104-year-old Pauline Iddings, whose late husband White, was a longtime Lutheran pastor. Iddings had always sprinkled his ministry with stories and jokes.

“He said the Lord needed someone to be a clown,” Pauline says of her husband.

Pastor Bruce compliments Iddings on the CD of church music she’s listening to and says his goodbyes. “God bless you,” he adds, “and keep listening to that good music.”

Bruce also checks in with Frances Barnes, whose husband, Wes, is visiting from nearby Trinity Oaks. Wes happens to be Pastor Bruce’s neighbor there.

“I don’t know if it’s fortunate or unfortunate,” Bruce laughs.

Frances and Wes recently celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary, a fact not ignored by Bruce. The singing chaplain croons a verse of “Jesus Loves Me” before he leaves.

Later, Pastor Bruce steps to the bedside of Dorothy Stegall, who is having a particularly tough day. She misses home, Stegall confides in Bruce.

Thank goodness, he answers, that she’s at a place with caring nurses and the medicine she needs to get better.

“Know that Jesus loves you,” he says before praying with her.

Pastor Bruce, 67, credits part of his love for music to the Lutheran pastor he had as a youngster growing up in Faith.

The Rev. Dr. Michael C.D. McDaniel, who would someday become bishop of the N.C. Lutheran Synod, had a regular Sunday evening radio program called “Music of the Masters.”

“He taught us a lot and was an inspiration,” Bruce says.

Bruce went on to Lenoir-Rhyne College, then the Lutheran seminary in Columbia, S.C. He sang in choirs or musical groups at both stops. Even in retirement, he sings with a group at Trinity Oaks.

Bruce began his long career as a Lutheran minister with a church in Lincoln County, followed by 18 years at Grace Lutheran Church in Catawba County, where he and his wife, Pat, raised their three children.

Bruce also pastored at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in western Rowan for 10 years and for six years covered two congregations in Iredell County that were only 4.5 miles apart.

During the summers of 1978 and 1979, his church gave him leave to serve as protestant chaplain for the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. He also served as chaplain for Boy Scout National Jamborees on four occasions.

When he retired two years ago, Bruce lasted three months before going stir crazy.

Now he’s serving as interim pastor at Amity Lutheran Church in Cleveland, besides conducting regular Sunday services at the Lutheran Home (2:30 p.m.) and Trinity Oaks (3:30 p.m.).

He makes regular rounds at the Lutheran Home as its chaplain, visits the Alzheimer’s unit regularly, has Bible Study every Tuesday morning and likes to check in at the Abundant Living Daycare Center for Adults.

The busy Bruce also leads devotions and hymns on the skilled living floor of Trinity Oaks.

“They just love to sing,” he says.

Bruce’s own mother lived her last few years at the Lutheran Home, and he remembered how much she loved to get out and eat at a restaurant.

Whenever there’s an outing for some of the Lutheran Home residents now, Bruce tries to go along.

“We really appreciate that, too,” Administrator Bill Johnson says. “... He’s doing a great job. He brings a lot of enthusiasm to his visits.”

Before the afternoon bingo starts, Bruce likes to warm up the crowd with a few songs.

He gives them two quick ones this time, walking among all the tables.

“You have to watch Cindy,” Bruce warns on his way out. “I think she has some lucky cards.”

Staff nurses let Bruce know if someone is not doing well. He also pays closer attention to residents who don’t have their own pastors routinely calling on them.

It’s tough sometimes when residents learn of the loss of a family member. Often, they are in no condition to attend the funeral, and that upsets them.

Bruce tries to provide some comfort with prayer, readings from Scripture, maybe even a hymn or two.

In the Alzheimer’s wing of the Lutheran Home, Bruce grabs a hymnal they keep on hand and leads the group in singing 14 songs.

There’s something about a song and singing, Bruce says, that awakens and stimulates. An old hymn often leads to a recognition, which is always thrilling in this wing.

Several in the Alzheimer’s group sing along.

“Any singing, any music, you can tell that’s their favorite activity,” says Linda Beaver, the unit secretary and a nursing assistant. “There’s not too many things that you can keep their attention with, and this is one of them.

“And, of course, Gene has always had that wonderful voice.”

After leaving the Alzheimer’s unit, Bruce talks about the spirit and faith he still sees just beyond the shadow of the disease or, with his Lutheran Home friends, just past their challenges.

“You think sometimes you’re ministering to them, but they’re ministering to you,” he says.

Up ahead, Bruce sees Ronnie McCorkle wheeling his chair into another room. He shouts out a greeting and tries to catch up.

Pastor Bruce still has a few “Hallelujahs” left.

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@ salisburypost.com.