Wake Up Singing!

About the Book

Wake Up Singing is the story of Mary Helen Richards and her revolutionary approach to teaching, Education Through Music. Written after her death by her husband, Cedric “Ricky” Richards, and edited by their children, it is a both a love story and a history. It tells the story of their lives over the course of more than half a century together – as they worked and played, suffered and rejoiced through the birth, growth and development of their children and their work, ETM and the Richards Institute of Education and Research. To Ricky’s long narrative, written during the four years before he too moved on to join his beloved Mary Helen, their children have added some of Mary Helen’s and Ricky’s personal writings about the years before they met, as well as love letters from their courtship, and an epilog about the last years of their lives. Telling the story of the dedication and love of life that made their work possible, this book is a testimony to the way a shining intent can unfold through doubt and delight, anguish and adventure, into reconciliation and beyond…

About the Author

Cedric W. Richards, born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1913, married Mary Helen Bush in 1945, before going overseas in World War II. After the war they moved to California and began their teaching careers - he at Stanford University, she in the Portola Valley Public Schools. During the many years she developed her life work, Education Through Music, he supported her in every possible way, and after his retirement continued as a key figure at the Richards Institute. After Mary Helen’s death in 1998, he spent the last four years of his life writing the story of their life together.