Thomas Evans GILES

                   OCCUPATION:
    Professor



BIRTH: Family Bible.Wednesday 4:45 a.m.
F.H.L. Film #0,026,675, Items 3-5,  Blessed by R. J. Burton, Salt Lake 15th Ward Records.
MARRIAGE: F.H.L. Film #482,502, Tooele County Marriage License Record, p.346.
DEATH: Deseret News Obituaries, Feb. 2, 1959  p.B-9 & Family Bible. Saturday 3:00 p.m.

BAPTIZED: Deceased Membership Record File, F.H.L. CR-298-7, Special Collections.
ENDOWED: F.H.L.Film #184,076 SLAKE, p.156, #3265
SEALED TO PARENTS: BIC.
SEALED TO SPOUSE: F.H.L. Film #186,217 SLAKE, previously married, p.484, #10,157.

OBITUARY:                  THOMAS GILES, 77, Dies in L.A. of Heart Ailment

Granda Hills, Calif. - Prof. Thomas Giles, 77, former Utahn, died Saturday at 3 p.m. in a Los Angeles Hospital of a heart ailment. He was the retired head of the University of Utah music department.
       Prof. Giles was born Dec. 21, 1881, in Salt Lake City, a son of Henry E. and Catherine Evans Giles. On Oct. 25, 1917, he married Vera Johnson in Salt Lake City, The marriage was later solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
       He had served as head of the music department at the university from 1913 until 1948, and had directed the old University Men's Club, the predecessor to the U. Men's Chorus; conducted first complete concerto program in Utah, and also had given private lessons.
       Retired in 1948
       The professor retired at the end of the 1948 school year, and moved to Granada Hills.
       In Granda Hills he was chorister for Reseda Stake, and also had conducted a piano studio for pupils in Los Angeles area.
      While at the Universtiy of Utah, he organized tours of Utah and surrounding states for the Glee Club and served as a judge for national music contests in 1925, 1927 and 1935.
      The professor also served as adjudicator for the Welsh Eisteddford Society's contest in Los Angeles in 1935.
       Studied in Europe
       Prior to that appointment he studied music for a total of six years in Berlin, Vienna, Paris and Rome.
       Later he went to Paris for another 18 months of study. He studied both piano and grand opera.
       In 1926 he directed the University of Utah production of "Aida."  It was the first grand opera presented by students west of the Mississippi River. Later he directed the university's grand opera productions which were put on every year, and inaugurated concerts using eight pianos. He also directed the Men's Glee Club in performances of the "The Creation" in the Salt Lake Taberacle and at the University of California at Berkeley.
       Survivors Named
       His survivors include his widow; three sons and one daughter, Thomas Gordon Giles, Van Nuys, Calif.; Irving J. Giles, Encino, Calif.; Charles Burke Giles, Granada Hills: Mrs. Paul R. (Catherine) McDonough, Salt Lake City; eight grandchildren; one brother and four sisters, Mrs. Jenalynn G. Cline, Mrs. June B. (Ida) Sharp, Mrs. Margaret G. Scharman, all of Salt Lake City; Mrs. Catherine G. Engberg and Clarence L. Giles, both of San Francisco, Calif.
       Funeral services will be conducted Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at University Ward chapel, 160 University, Salt Lake City. Friends may call at 260 E. South Temple Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon. Burial will be in Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park. Deseret News Feb 2, 1959, p.B-9.

Deseret News, Sunday May 23, 1948, Salt Lake City,Utah - F.3.
Service Marks Career of 'U' Prof. Thomas Giles. by Colleen Moore.
'Open sesame"..The words used by mythical storybook characters to open the door to richesl, is put to shame by Prof. Thomas Giles who waved his magic wand of "love fomusic" to  open up a weath of cuture for Utah audiences and students.
     World Traveler,family man, church worker and teacher, but first of all a musical, Prof. Giles will retire from his position as head of the University of Utah  music  department at the end of the school term, a position which he has held for the past 35 years.
     In appreciation of his services in working for the betterment of music in Utah, Prof. Giles will be honored at a testimonial concert tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. in Kingsbury Hall, at which faculty members, civic and governmental heads wil pay tribute.
Born in Salt Lake city, Dec. 21, 1881, Prof. Giles is a son of Henry e. and Catherine Evans Giles.
     Instead of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was lucky enough to be born into a musical family which encouraged and helped his love for music.
     His father was the son of Thomas D. Giles, widely known as the "blind harpist, " and many's the time that young Thomas sat at his grandfather's knee awed into silence by the tales of early days in a  pioneer village of Salt Lake City.
     Not the least outstanding of these and most popular with the tiny boy who  inherited  his grandfather's gift for music, were tales of the elder Thomas' trek across the plains with a hand cart company.
     Grandfather Giles was the only blind man to cross the plains on foot, and  his harp which gained  him his repurtation now is on display in the collection of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers at the State Capitol.
    Prof. Giles' musical career began at the early age of six, when he started playing the piano. His father had been sent to Brigham Young University by the authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to organize a music departmnet and his family moved to the central Utah city with him.
     "If I didn't practice," Prof. Giles laughingly recalls now,' it was with the overhanging threat that I might have to give up music altogether, so I practiced.
     Many time on tour with the University of Universtiy of Utah Glee clubs Prof. Giles can recall his first and most exciting tour, which began with the professional vocal lessons when  he  was eight years old.
     "I develoed a soprano voice and Raymond Clayton and I  went throughout the state singing duets when we were  nine and  10 years old.
    When he was 12 years old, young thomas became practical and used work in the woolen mills in Provo on spinning machnes which the boys called "mules".
     As he gres, he kept on studying the piano and as he recalls now "music was around us all the time in the  ho use."
     He received his  academic education at Brigham Young University.
     "We moved to Salt Lake City again before I graduated and it was then I decided to go to Europe for the serious study of music," he added.
     Prior to leaving fof abroad, he was assistant to JJ.McClelland, then organist at the Salt Lake Tabernacle, of which he carefully points out, "Mind you I wasn't assistant organist, but merely assistant to THE organist."
     He was 20 yeas old when he first went to Europe, where he studied piano, conducting and theoretical subjects for the next seven years under Gowdosky and Dr. Edgar Stillman Kelly, as well as other masters.
     He studied in Berlin for four and one-half years, for 15 months in Vienna and divided a year between Paris and Rome.
       While studying music he learned the languages and speaks German and French fluently and "can make my way in  Italian."
     Although Prof. Giles never has been formally called on a mission for the church, he is on the church records as having served two missions while studying in Berling. He was superintendend of the Sunday School and teacher in Berlin for two yers, which accumulated enough time for the church to credit hm as one of its missionaries.
           Returning to the United States sever years later, he gave one of his first performances at Riverside, Calif., where critics commended his playing and stated: "He possesses inherent modesty such as seldom is found in the brilliant finished artiste that he is. He is an artist in the first place becasue of his predominant saneness and masculinity and with these he combines the artistic longing called temperament."
     He returned to his  native city sometime later and  began to teach private lessons wth studios in the templeton building. It was here that he first  noticed young Vera Johnson, secretary for the Utah Conservatory of Music in the same building.
     She used to call me to the telephone . . .then she became one of my students and on Oct. 25, 1917, we were married in Tooele," he grinned.
     Meanwhile, during the courtship of the lovely Vera, Prof. Giles had been appointed professor of music and  head of the music department of the University of Utah . . .and event whcih took place in 1913 and was to change the entire outlook of Utahns toward the musical world.
     Now senior member of the entire University faculty, which includes hundreds of professors and instructors, Prof. Giles recalls the diffculties he encountered with the faculty in at tempting to organize all of the campus musical groups now existing at the institution.
     Starting at the university when there were but two members of the music department . . . Mrs.              Edna Evans Johnson and himself . . . Prof. Giles now points with pride to the 19 members of the present-day staff.
     Under his direction the Men's and Women's Glee Clubs were  organized, also an acapella chorus, string quartet, orchestra, band and small ensemble groups.
     Included on the roster of his first Glee Club were the names of Lesley Goates,  now associate  Editor of the Deseret News; Attorney General Grover Giles ad Calvin Rawlings, Salt Lake attorney.
     At the beginning Prof. Giles had no easy time trying to convince the faculty that credit toward graduation should be allowed for musical courses rather than following the outmoded thinking that the classes were strictly entertainment courses.
     When he first assumed his duties at the universiy there were only give buildings on the campus . . . Physical Science, Liberal Arts, Home Economics, Geoloogy and Gymnasium.  All the others  including Kingsbury Hall, Union building and the Park Building have been built while he has been diretor the music departmant.
      During his stay at the establishment he has seen thousands of students pass through the portals of leearning and leave for    of their own.
     He has served under five Univesity presidents, including Pres.    T. Kingsbury, Dr. John A. Widtsoe, Dr. George      , LeRoy e Cowles and Dr. A. Ray Olpin.
     During his first year of teaching at the University the students put on the first grand opera ever put on by students west of the Mississippi River. Gand operas were then presented annually until World War II "when the war took all our boys and we had to call a halt."
     In 1916 under his direction the University staged "Aida" which received rave notices clear to New York City as "one of the most remarkable plays ever produced." It was put on in the Capitol Thearter and received editorial comments from all Salt Lake newspapers as well as being classed as "bewildering in its magnificence," and receiving comment n the New York Musical Corier.
    Prof. Giles went back to Europ on sabbatical leave from 1919 to 1921.
       Under hiis direction, since  his return from that trip, University studens have present "Aida" twice, in 1926 and 1939, but the theater has  been the plaza in front of the Park Building. Prior to the erections of Kingsbury Hall, "which was a red letter day in my booi, according to the genial professor, productions were stagaed in the Capital Theater, old Salt Lake Theater and Wilkes Theater.
     Memories surround Prof. Giles and the majority  of them are on the tim pf  his brilliantg mind merely for the asking. However, -in addition, he has two huge scrapbooks, packed with reviews, programs, newspaper articles and letters which  he prizes.
     Reminders of "Natoma" in 1929 which wa accompanied by the Los Angeles Philhaarmonic Orchestra are there, as are memories of the seven different University Glee Clubs which have toured the West Coast under direction of Prof. Giles and which in 1932 sang to 43,920 people in one week.
     Following a concert presented by Frances Gant, one of the professor's pupils, the young music instrctor  receieved a letter from the girl's father commending her work as a result of excellent teacing. The letter was handwritten on March 6, 1917, and  was signed Heber.  J. Grant.
     Programs of the t wo different  times Prof. Giles has conducted the Salt lake Oratoio Society in presentation of "The Creation" are to be found in the scrapbooks plus programs of joing concerts presented in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in 1927 by the University of Uah and University of California which was rebpeated in  Berkley, Calif, three weeks later.
     One of the professor's most prized memintos is a letter of reference from Alice L Reynolds, instructor at B Y. U. to the boaard aof regents at the time he became affiliated with the university in which she stats "no other person in Uah has seen as much grand opera as Prof. Giles."
     With  his many activities and his eager zest for living Prof. Giles has had time to rear four children with  his loveoyo wife. They are Gordon and Irving J Giles, both of Los Angeles and Mrs. Catherine McDonough and Charles Burke Giles, both of Salt Lake City. In addition he has two grandchildren.
    Plans following his retirement are a bit hazy so far for the professor who merely grins that "I don't know just what I'll do yet."
     "I think that the time has come when we  must pay more attention to actual music and not to exterior music," Prof. giles tells prospective musicians.
     "The mortality rate among students is too great and it is probably because drudgery of practicing exercises is killing off a love of music. There is no way or making exercises into music . . it simply cannot be successfully accomoished," he explained.
     And he practices what he preaches for whle all of  his sons and daughters play "but none seriousely" they have played simply for the love of playing.
     Scholar, teacher, professor emeritus . . .traveler, family man, conductor . . . all of these and yet the kindly, sparkling-eyed man of learning says, "I want to keep on studyinng. After all a person can always learn more, you know."

BIRTH: Family Bible.Wednesday 4:45 a.m.
MARRIAGE: F.H.L. Film #482,502, Tooele County Marriage License Record, p.346.
DEATH: Deseret News Obituaries, Feb. 2, 1959  p.B-9 & Family Bible. Saturday 3:00 p.m.

Granda Hills, Calif. - Prof. Thomas Giles, 77, former Utahn, died Saturday at 3 p.m. in a Los Angeles Hospital of a heart ailment. He was the retired head of thUniversity of Utah music department.
       Prof. Giles was born Dec. 21, 1881, in Salt Lake City, a son of Henry E. and Catherine Evans Giles. On Oct. 25, 1917, he married Vera Johnson in Salt Lake City, The marriate was later solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple, Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints.
       He had served as head of the music department at the university from 1913 until 1948, and had directed the old University Men's Club, the predecessor to the U. Men's Chorus; conducted first compalete concerto program in Utah, and also had given private lessonso.
       Retired in 1948
       The professor retired at the end of the 1948 school year, and moved to Granada Hills.
       In Granda Hills he was chorister for Reseda Stake, and also had conducted a piano studio for pupils in Los Angeles area.
      While at the Universtiy of Utah, he organized tours of Utah and surrounding states for the glee club and served as a judge for national music contests in 1925, 1927 and 1935.
      The professor also served as adjudicator for the Welsh Eisteddford Society's contest in Los Angeles in 1935.
       Studied in Europe
       Prior to that appointment he studied music for a total of six years in Berlin, Vienna, Paris and Rome.
       Later he went to Paris for another 18 months of study. He studied both piano and grand opera.
       In 1926 he directed the University of Utah production of "Aida."  It was the first grand opera presented by students west of the Mississippi River. Later he directed the university's grand opera productions which were put on every year, and inaugurated concerts using eight pi