Go Givers: Ellen Olson

Posted on November 9, 2012 By Editor Our Community

Ellen, Gina and Eric Olson

By Julie Kerns Garmendia
Resident Community News

When Tony Cruz, St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church Music Director and Cantor, suggested that members Ellen and Eric Olson should start a chamber music group and do a concert series, Ellen saw several opportunities. One of those opportunities was to raise money to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The Olsons are both Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra musicians and the parents of daughter Gina, 16, who was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age two.
The Olsons founded the San Marco Chamber Music Society in 2008. The 5th season has begun, and the next free performance will be 7 p.m. on Nov. 4 at St. Mark’s. String quartets will perform selections from Bach, Mozart and Shostakovich. The group’s website provides information and concert calendar.
“We have a pool of approximately ten symphony players who perform with the chamber group, sometimes in duets, quartets or chamber orchestra. The second concert of the 2012 season will feature string quartets and Eric will play the Bach Concerto for Oboe d’amore in A major. The Oboe d’amore is an unusual instrument, like an oboe but with a lower sound. The annual September concert always benefits the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation,” she said.
Ellen is from New York and Eric from New Jersey, but the couple has lived in San Marco for 26 years in a home Ellen admits she hated at first.
“It’s a ‘50s ranch, and the owners had covered all the beautiful hardwood floors with hideous green carpet and then put awful furniture on top of that,” she said. “But we’ve been very happy here.”
Eric, principal oboist for the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, has been with the symphony for 25 years. He teaches oboe, sings in St. Mark’s choir and spends a lot of time making the reeds for his instrument. He enjoys several sports, especially football and the Jaguars.
Ellen, a violist, played ten years fulltime for the symphony and is now on a part-time schedule. She has an unusual hobby working on vintage Barbie dolls, completely restoring them even down to re-rooting their hair. She has a side business selling the dolls on eBay and also enjoys restoring old furniture.
“About ten years ago my mother-in-law gave Gina her collection of old ‘70s Barbie dolls, but I was far more interested in them than Gina! They were in pretty rough shape and I decided to try to fix a couple. That led to making outfits and fully repairing the dolls back to their original condition,” she said. “I’ve also tried making some reproduction Bisque dolls, and now am working on creating one-of-a-kind Barbie dolls and hybrid dolls.”
The Olsons come from musical and volunteering families: Ellen’s father was an amateur guitarist and Eric’s mother played organ for churches. Eric’s mother also worked as a volunteer tutor for inner city youth in Trenton, NJ. Besides her work with the chamber society, Ellen is also a volunteer with Literacy Partners at St. Marks, tutoring a fourth grade student in reading.
Gina is a student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts where she is a creative writing major. She also plays piano and studies ballet at Studio K Dance. The other member of the Olson family is Eleanor, the rescue cat, who was named for the former president’s wife because she is “presidential looking”, according to Ellen.
A favorite summertime activity of the family is attending the Peninsula Music Festival in Northern Wisconsin for three weeks every summer, where Eric plays oboe. They attend concerts, events and Gina has made many friends there over the years.
Ellen said that the family made a commitment to support juvenile diabetes research because they knew firsthand how the disease affects the youth who are diagnosed with it, and their families.
“It was very hard when Gina was little, she was not quite three when she was diagnosed and she had to have the insulin injections every day….we called her our little pin cushion – it was definitely no fun. Now, there are so many improvements in treatment, it’s much better for the patients…but the goal is to find a cure,” she said.