ALAMOSA — Merna Lewis may not have been born with a fiddle in her hand, but she came about as close to that as a person can get.
A native of Monte Vista and part of a large family of farmers, entrepreneurs and musicians, Merna’s mother – Bobbie Heersink, Aunt Bettie and Uncle Dan Freel plus her Aunts Bonnie and Billie would gather together after church on Sundays for a jam session. Named for the Bowen Community Methodist church in Monte Vista, the Bowen String Band played at weddings and funerals, festivals, blue grass jams and contests.
“I grew up listening to that music and, from the time I was itty bitty, I was drawn to the fiddle,” Lewis says. “My mother tells the story that, in the middle of a jam session, I would run up to my Aunt Bettie and ask her to put the fiddle under my chin so I could pull the bow across the strings. I just loved it. I grew up listening to that music and-I've told this story before the time I was itty bitty.”
Lewis explains that the violin and the fiddle are the same instrument. The difference is in the style of music that’s played. “Call a fiddler a violinist, and it’s a compliment. But call a violinist a fiddler, well, they’re going to get offended,” she says. Finally, when she was seven years old, Lewis’ parents said she was old enough to learn.
The presence of music in her family goes way back past the band practicing after church. Lewis says her great (“or maybe it was great-great”) grandfather played the fiddle – left-handed, no less - and her great grandmother, Merna, played the piano. But her grandmother, Marie Bond-Riggenbach, made music part of the foundation of her family’s life.
“Grandma Rie’”, as Lewis calls her, was a virtuoso violinist who graduated from the prestigious Julliard School of Music, as well as a “teacher of violins,” at Brearley School for Girls in New York City and, when she returned to the San Luis Valley, founder of the Riggenbach School of Music in Alamosa.
When Grandma Rie’ gave birth to four daughters, she required they all learn to play the piano first and then, after a few years, they could choose another instrument. “A couple picked up the violin, a couple chose the cello. My mom hated all of it so she chose the guitar.”
With Grandma Rie’ as their teacher, all four daughters were classically trained. The same would likely be true of Lewis but for her Aunt Bettie who took the music in a different direction.
“When she was in her thirties, she married Dan Freel. He was also from the Valley and he was a bluegrass picker. He told Aunt Bettie he would teach her how to play the fiddle.”
And that is how Lewis first got her start. “If Aunt Bettie hadn’t learned that, I probably would be playing classical today.”
Lewis continued to play all through school and then things took a more serious turn.
“My Aunt Bettie was teaching 40 students and playing gigs part time. Then, when I was in high school, she got very sick - she had breast cancer and fought it for many years. So, I helped out with both of those things. When she was going through treatment and was just too sick to play, she taught me the standard fiddle tunes.” Lewis lists them off without even thinking. “Amarillo by Morning, Much Too Young to Feel this Damn Old, Orange Blossom Special, Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band, Louisiana on a Saturday Night, Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
During those times when Bettie was too sick to perform, Lewis said, “…my parents would bring me to the bar at fourteen and I would get up and play with the band.” Sadly, Aunt Bettie passed away when Lewis was seventeen years old.
“Music has always defined me,” Lewis says. She knew it was what she wanted to do with her life and, after going to college, felt Nashville was the place to do it. But after a few years on the music scene in Nashville, she just got “burned out” and left music for eight years. She got a job tangentially connected to music and the steady income was helpful.
“Then, one day, I’m on the phone listening to some guy yell at me because he didn’t get his order on time and I thought…what am I doing? My soul is dying, and this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing. Music is in my blood.”
But it was another thought that brought her back to music and has kept her there ever since.
“I remembered my aunt…she fought so hard to play. Even on her deathbed, she played until she drew her last breath. And I thought of others I’ve known who’ve lost a limb or been diagnosed with something where they couldn’t play anymore. I realized I’m blessed with a gift and I want to share it with the world.”
After returning to music, Lewis’ extraordinary skill and talent has become increasingly well known, leading to tour opportunities with Trent Williams and Tanya Tucker as well as studio music recordings. In 2023, she was nominated as International Western Music Association’s Best Musician of the Year.
And now, in a serendipitous, circle-of-life kind of development, Merna Lewis has found her own “three sisters” to play with – award winning singers/songwriters/musicians Mary Kay Holt, Micki Furhman and Tecia McKenna. Described as having “exquisite harmony, superb original songs and fresh takes on Western classics,” this all-woman band is called “Gone With the West”.
At the close of the interview, Lewis was asked what she thinks her Aunt Bettie would say about where she is now. She was quiet for a moment before answering. “A lot of people have told me I favor her. I feel her presence sometimes when I play.”
Gone with the West will be in concert at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 26, at Society Hall, 400 Ross Ave., Alamosa. Doors open at 6 p.m. Buy tickets at the door or online at www.societyhall.org.
