Biography on Eve Knudsen, a Resident of UMH

Her fingers glide across the keys, making that rare kind of music you hear with your ears but feel with your soul. Eve Knudsen, a resident of United Methodist Homes Francis Asbury Manor, is a gifted pianist.

Eve Knudsen, born in Manhattan in 1921 is the only child in a loving home where music sessions were the norm. As she balanced her studies between school and music, Eve was a good student.

Eve did many solo works, local concerts and symphonies in Newark with the help of Ruth Dautel, her music teacher and a protégé of the dean of the Julliard School of Music in New York City. Her strong suit, however, was as an accompanist. “I spent three years during high school and the first year after graduation doing accompanying work for many groups, including the New Jersey State Chorus, the New Jersey Symphony, various church groups, and even the Russian Cossacks, who traveled here from Russia.”

Eve earned her scholarship to Julliard following high school. When she is about to participate in a solo for Julliard’s dean of music, who would finalize the scholarship, an unfortunate and surprising turn of events occurred. “The dean passed away of a heart attack the night before my test,” Eve says. Instead of waiting six months to finalize her scholarship, Eve took a job as a bank bookkeeper to “repay my parents in some small way for all they had invested in my musical education.”

Eve looks back on a life filled with music as “very rewarding.” She is now a great grandmother of six and an excellent spokesperson for The United Methodist Homes communities. Francis Asbury Manor has been her home for almost 20 years.

United Methodist Homes is dedicated to our communities, associates, volunteers and residents.  We celebrate the experiences, stories and lives of all those that make our close knit communities. To find out more information about UMH, visit http://www.umh-nj.org/