For almost 40 years, a group of community musicians has gathered to sing in Cary's holiday season with Handel's "Messiah." For most of those years, Charles Gatwood was the man directing them.

He never knew how many people would show up at the first rehearsal, which ones wouldn't be able to read music, or whether he'd be heavy on sopranos and light on tenors, but whatever musical hand he was dealt, Gatwood played it masterfully.

"He was still absolutely able to pull the best out of each of those singers," said Kay Struffolino, a leader with the Cary Community Choir during Gatwood's tenure who continues to perform with the group. "He'd manage the most spectacular balance for the performance."

Gatwood was 88 when he died of cancer Sept. 18.

A World War II veteran, Gatwood was originally from Indiana but came to North Carolina via Fort Bragg. While stationed there, he went to South Carolina with a buddy to visit that young soldier's fiancée. There, Gatwood met her sister.

Then 20, Carolyn Gatwood looked up from washing dishes to see the uniformed visitor talking with her father in the yard.

"I thought, 'He's the one,'" she recalled. They had been married 63 years when he died.

With degrees in music education and music theory, Gatwood went on to teach at the junior college level after leaving the military, but then became a church musician. Eventually, he would serve as director of the church music department of the N.C. Baptist State Convention.

At home, he shared his deep love of music with his wife and three children.

"It was his passion," said his daughter, Susan Snyder. "It was his career, but he loved every moment of it."

On Saturday afternoons, Gatwood would gather all the shoes that needed polishing and take them to their living room, she recalled.

"It was always at the time that the New York Metropolitan Opera was on the radio, she said. "He'd listen to that and shine shoes. You'd know what time it was."

The family purchased a secondhand Steinway grand from a doctor in Philadelphia that they played for years.

"We thought we were in high cotton," Carolyn Gatwood said. "We enjoyed that piano so much. I loved beautiful music, and I loved the way he played."

Daughter Ann Blackmon said her father cared about the effect music had on others.

"What was important to him was that other people were singing with him or listening," she said. "That their faith was strengthened by the music."

Her father also had a wicked sense of humor, she said. In his final days, a hospice chaplain came by to pray with him, promising not to be long. Very weak and with his eyes still closed, Gatwood cracked, "You have 20 seconds."

Making music in Cary

While at the Baptist State Convention, Gatwood brought together ministers of music from across the state to form The Singing Churchmen, but it was his commitment to Handel's "Messiah" that earned him recognition from the town of Cary, which marked Charles Gatwood Appreciation Day on Dec. 7, 2008.

From the choir's first performance in 1971 until his retirement as director after the 2001 performance, Gatwood had years when 100 singers showed up for the first rehearsal, and years when 40 showed, Struffolino said. Then as now, they'd meet for a handful of practices before the performance of the Christmas portion of the "Messiah." Over time, accompanists have been added and locations have changed. Gatwood remained committed to the choir, even after he and Struffolino retired from leadership roles.

"We did not want this to go away, and neither did most of the chorus members," she said. "It had become a Cary tradition, and Cary doesn't have much tradition."

This year's performance will be difficult, she said, with some sort of remembrance of Gatwood planned.

"There are a couple of us who have been there since the beginning," Struffolino said. "It will be very hard."

Gatwood is survived by his wife; two daughters; a son, Elden Gatwood; and other relatives. Family and friends are making donations in his memory to the Siler Garden in care of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh or to the American Cancer Society.