[3] After a hand injury when she was in her early 30s, she played a self-described farewell concert in Oklahoma in 1962 and retired from marimba performance to focus on mission work.
[5] Chenoweth's family owned a music store in Enid, Oklahoma and she was encouraged by her older brother to take up classical marimba.
[6] While in high school in 1948, she studied under Clair Omar Musser at Northwestern University and was a member of his marimba orchestra, which performed in Chicago in 1948.
She attended William Woods College in Missouri, transferring to Northwestern for her final two years of study and emerged with a double degree in music criticism and marimba performance.
Chenoweth made her solo debut in Chicago in 1956, followed by a successful recital in New York and numerous other concerts around the world.
She retired as International Consultant for Wycliffe and as Professor of Ethnomusicology at Wheaton College and archived her nearly 1000 field tapes of world music in the Library of Congress.