LANARK – Lanark United Methodist Church’s organist knows her stuff when it comes to her chosen instrument.

Originally from Savanna, Millie Sturtz, 81, started piano lessons in second grade with her teacher, Gladys James, and honed her skills playing at school assemblies. James encouraged Sturtz to take up playing the organ.

“I have been playing the organ for more than 65 years,” Sturtz said.

She has a distinctive instrument to use at Lanark United Methodist – an 1890s Hinners tracker-action pipe organ, purchased in 1930 from the First Methodist Church of Wilmette for $500.

Hinners Organ Co. in Pekin built more than 2,000 of the tracker-action organs, which use mechanical linkages from the keyboards to the pipes to make music. The organ at Lanark UMC is one of only about 407 Hinners tracker-action organs still known to exist, and is one of the few still fully functional and used regularly.

Sturtz said the tracker-action organ’s sound is different from that of more conventional organs.

“It got away from that brassy, reed sound,” she said.

Sturtz minored in organ studies at the University of Dubuque in Dubuque, Iowa.She toured with the UD Concert Choir as an alto for all 4 years of college before becoming an elementary school teacher in northern Illinois and Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

She married Ronald Sturtz, and has three sons and five grandchildren. After her children went to school, she was a reading specialist for 25 years in Savanna, retiring in 2002. Sturtz traveled to Germany and Austria in 2000 to perform as a member of the Highland Chorale.

Ronald died in 2016, and Millie remains on the family farm north of Lanark, where one of her sons farms the land.

Sturtz took part on July 14 in a special performance of the pipe organ as part of Lanark UMC’s 160th anniversary. She was joined by guest organist Karl Bruhn, whose father, the Rev. Irving K. Bruhn, was pastor at the church in the 1950s.

Outgoing Lanark UMC pastor Jarrod Severing was a soloist at the performance. He spoke about the organ and Sturtz before he left to take a pastoral position at a church in Elgin.

“It’s one of those staples. You hear about pipe organs within a church, and whether churches are going to more of a contemporary music. It’s really nice to have something with this much history, especially with as rare as it is. Also, (we have) someone who’s actually able to play it,” Severing said.

According to the church website at lanarkumc.com, the organ was rebuilt in 1955 at the cost of $2,150, which was mostly paid for by subscriptions. A plaque with the names of those who helped pay for the organ rebuilding hangs in the choir loft.

“It’s a centerpiece of the sanctuary,” Severing said.