WICHMANN

MINA BELLE PACKER

No one pursued the high calling of church musician with more energy, imagination, intelligence and love than Mina Belle Packer Wichmann. That earthly pursuit ended on Friday, May 23, 2025, but all who knew her passionate commitment to sacred music know she is certainly now pressing the heavenly choir to ever higher standards of excellence.

The only child of William Packer and Margaret Low Packer, Mina Belle was born in Pittsburgh on July 31, 1929. Growing up in Mt. Lebanon, she had the opportunity to use her precocious musical gifts to accompany innumerable singers and instrumentalists at the piano and on the organ.

In 1951 Mina Belle received the Bachelor of Music from Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA, in Piano and Organ Performance. Shortly after graduation she took up double duty as music department secretary and substitute organist at the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University), working under the supervision of Russell G. Wichmann. Wichmann encouraged her to continue her organ study at the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she received the Master of Sacred Music degree in 1955.

Shortly following her graduation from the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary, (M.S.M.), Mina Belle accepted the position of Executive Secretary at the school. Her administrative gifts blossomed at M.S.M., and in 1965 she was named Assistant Dean. In 1973 she joined three M.S.M. colleagues to found a new institute of sacred music in New Haven, Connecticut. She was soon named Assistant Director of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. In that role she encouraged and guided many young musicians who continued to honor her throughout her long life.

Mina Belle left Connecticut and returned to Pittsburgh in 1979 to marry Wichmann, by then a widower and father of four children. The marriage brought her immeasurable joy as stepmother, step-grandmother, and step-great-grandmother.

In Pittsburgh, Mina Belle plunged into volunteer activities at Shadyside Presbyterian Church, where her husband directed the music program for over 50 years. Deeply committed to preserving Pittsburgh's musical legacy, she spent more than 2,500 hours organizing the 115 volumes of the Charles N. Boyd Collection at the Music and Art Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

In 2009, 80-year-old Mina Belle made the decision to move to Providence Point, a new retirement community in Pittsburgh's South Hills, not far from her childhood home. In the following years she frequently expressed her gratitude for the quality of life and friendships she experienced there. Her family remains deeply grateful for the capable and compassionate care she received during her final year in Personal Care at Providence Point.

Mina Belle Wichmann is survived by stepchildren Robert R. (Buzz), Ann K., and G. Randall (Randy) Wichmann, along with six step-grandchildren and eight step-great-grandchildren. Mina Belle's flashing wit and enthusiasm drew many friends to her across her 95 years, with Phyllis Kuhn McNellis and Linda Blythe Everhart among the most faithful. A memorial service and celebration of her life will be held at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 5801 Hampton Street, Pittsburgh, at 2 p.m. on Thursday, July 31, 2025. She will lie at rest next to her husband in Pittsburgh's Homewood Cemetery.