Blind pianist to make stage debut

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LEBANON — Approaching Lois Sargent’s one-bedroom apartment at Otterbein Retirement Center, the sound of lively piano music and energetic singing carries across the screen porch even before the visitor comes inside.

Sargent, 81, has been blind for more than 30 years, so she chooses to fill the apartment she can’t see with the sounds of music she loves.

“All my life, I wanted to play in a band,” Sargent said. “But in high school, I thought the only band I’d ever be with was a rubber one.”

Sargent will get a chance to fulfill her lifelong dream when she performs Saturday, June 12, at the Lebanon Grand Opry.

“I was invited to hear Lois play, and I just couldn’t believe it,” said Jessie Lyn Fisher, head of the Opry. “She’s just a delight and very talented.”

Sargent, a lifelong music lover, taught herself to play the piano after her parents bought her a $350 Wurlitzer piano for her 16th birthday.

“It was my treasure,” Sargent said. “God gave me an ear and a talent to play.”

Sargent married Charlie Sargent in 1946 and the couple moved to Blue Ash, where they lived until 2005, when Charlie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Although they now live separately at Otterbein, Sargent plays piano for him and others in the Alzheimer’s wing, as well as other parts of Otterbein. They have three children, five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren, many of whom will be in attendance for Sargent’s show.

Sargent is a fan of classic country performers, like Connie Smith, Ray Price and Ernest Tubb, legends whose songs she will be singing at the Opry.

“I got them all in my computer,” she said as she tapped her forehead.

In 1974, Sargent was diagnosed with retinitus pigmentosa, a degenerative retinal disorder that slowly took her sight.

“I felt like I was looking through a screen door,” Sargent said. “I thought my glasses were dirty, so I took them off and cleaned them, and the screen door was still there.”

Blindness hasn’t slowed down Sargent’s musical skill. She also has a lively sense of humor, encapsulated when she does a pitch-perfect recreation of the opening of “All in the Family,” recreating both characters singing “Those Were the Days.”

“We’ve had a wonderful life,” Sargent said. “You know, everybody has some hardship here and there, but God has really blessed us.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4544 or jmcclelland@coxohio.com.