Marjorie J. Belles

Funeral services for Marjorie J. (Meinert) Belles, age 88, of Davenport, IA, will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 3, 2009 at the Cunnick-Collins Mortuary Chapel in Davenport. Interment will follow at the Rock Island Arsenal National Cemetery. The family will greet friends from 11:00 a.m. until service time at the mortuary. Mrs. Belles died on Saturday, August 29, 2009, at the Bettendorf Health Care Center.Marjorie Jane Meinert was born in Kewanee, IL on June 16, 1921, the adoptive daughter of Albert and Gertrude (Howard) Meinert. After graduating from Clinton High School in Clinton, Iowa, she studied and graduated from the University of Dubuque where she enhanced her skills on the pipe organ. She also studied organ in Chicago with NBC network artist, Lou Webb. On October 5, 1974, she married Eugene Belles in Davenport, IA. Marjorie was a musical child prodigy. When she was 3 years old, she received a harmonica in her Christmas stocking and immediately played "Silent Night." At the age of 7, Meinert played the piano on the WGN radio station in Chicago. At one time, she appeared on five radio shows and five television shows weekly. She worked at the Clinton radio station KROS with the original staff and came to WOC in Davenport in 1943 for a duo-piano program with the late George Sontag called "Twin Piano Time”.She was a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP, the American Guild of Authors and Composers, Song Writers' Hall of Fame, and the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences. She recorded at least 13 organ albums, and nine of them were her own originals. She wrote the popular "Dream and Awakening," a composition she used as the theme for her television show "Musical Moods." Marjorie recorded for RCA, Universal Records, and others throughout her career. Some of her albums include "Serenade for Lovers," "Viva la Difference," "Front Row Center," "Sitting Pretty," "Hi-Fi and Mighty," "Flying Fingers" and "Organ Fireworks." She once playing as a guest soloist on the "Lawrence Welk Show” and also on the “Arthur Godfrey Show”. She traveled extensively with her music, including a coast-to-coast concert tour as well as Canada for the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of Tonawanda, NY to introduce the electronic piano. She also appeared frequently with the big bands of Alvino Rey, Vaughan Monroe, and the Pennsylvanians. Survivors include her Husband: Eugene, of Bettendorf.She was preceded in death by her parents and a brother, Howard.Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society.