Helen Hubbert Kemp, 97, musician and children's educator

Helen Hubbert Kemp, 97, of Jamison, Bucks County, a singer, composer, author, and retired professor at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, in Princeton, who was a pioneer in music education for children, died of heart failure Aug. 23 at home.

Mrs. Kemp came face-to-face with her calling when she went looking for choir resources for her children and had trouble finding them.

She decided to create her own, and in the process became known as "the Mother of the Children's Choir Movement."

Mrs. Kemp wrote music, developed instructional materials, and helped lead a choristers guild and a college music department with her husband, John, also a leading music educator.

Mrs. Kemp conducted choirs around the world and published more than 35 best-selling anthems. Her books and teaching aids have become standard classroom resources.

"When I started, I knew a lot about music and singing, but I didn't know a lot about children," Mrs. Kemp said in a 2008 interview. "That's what you have to develop: your knowledge of who they are, and think in terms of the possibilities of children."

Mrs. Kemp was known for using unusual teaching aids to help coax angelic sounds out of her students. Called "Mama Helen," she used satin ribbons and Slinky toys to connect with the young.

Born on an Easter Sunday in Perkasie, Mrs. Kemp grew up in a musical family and graduated from Westminster Choir College in 1941. At school, she met her future husband, John S.C. Kemp. They married at Westminster in 1942 and soon became teachers in the school's church music and voice departments.

The couple moved to Oklahoma in 1949 to become leaders of the music program at First Presbyterian Church, an Oklahoma City congregation with more than 700 singers. Mrs. Kemp formed a singing group with her five children and soon began developing children's music materials.

The Kemps also became founding members and leaders of Choristers Guild, the international organization for children's choirs.

Mrs. Kemp and her husband returned to Westminster in the early 1970s. She taught church music and voice, and he led the church music department.

The Kemps retired from Westminster in the early 1980s.

John Kemp died in 1997.

In recent years, Mrs. Kemp directed a choir of 70-, 80-, and 90-year-olds at her retirement community. She remained active as composer and teacher of other instructors until her death.

"She was on Facebook, the Web," said Scott Hoerl, executive director of Westminster. Mrs. Kemp saw herself as "not one of those people who always talks about how everything used to be and that everything used to be better," Hoerl said. Mrs. Kemp "wanted to know how to make tomorrow better."

She is survived by sons John Matthew Kemp and Michael E. Kemp; daughters Julia Kemp Rothfuss, Peggy KempHenry, and Kathleen Kemp Ridl; 11 grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, at Bristol Chapel, Westminster Choir College, 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton. (The service will be live-streamed at http://www.rider.edu/events/helen-hubbert-kemp-memorial-service)

Memorial donations can be made to the Kemp Endowment for Church Music, Westminster Choir College of Rider University, 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton, N.J. 08540.