Abel Posse
Abel Parentini Posse was born on 7 January 1934, in the Argentine city of Córdoba where he only lived the first two years of his life. Two years after birth the family moved to the capital city of Buenos Aires due to his father's work commitments. His mother, Elba Alicia Posse, belonged to the creole landed oligarchy of Galician descent who held vast sugar mill estates in the North West province of Tucuman. Amongst the influential members of the Posse clan in the 19th century, the liberal Julio Argentino Roca stands out, twice president of the republic from 1880 to 1886 and also 1898 to 1904 (3). Posse fictionalized 19th century Tucuman in his novel El inquietante día de la vida (2001), where two distant family relatives are the protagonists; his maternal great-grandfather, Felipe Segundo Posse, and Julio Victor Posse, patron of the arts in the sugar producing province until the 1940s.
Paul Abels
Abels was born on August 4, 1937, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, to Carrie Mae (Atkins) and James Albert Abels. He attended public schools in Yellow Springs and Cedarville, Ohio. As a teenager, he was editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper and wrote a column in the local newspaper, the "Cedarville Herald". After graduating from high school, Abels moved to Madison, New Jersey, to study at the College of Liberal Arts at Drew University, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1959. He was commissioned as a deacon in 1961 by the Newark Conference of the Methodist Church. Abels went on to attend Drew Theological School, from which he received a Master of Divinity degree in 1963. He was ordained as an elder the same year. He received a Master of Sacred Music degree from United Theological Seminary in 1965 following approval of his thesis entitled "An Ecumenical Manual of Song for Young Churchmen". He served as music minister for churches in Towaco and Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, and as pastor in West New York, New Jersey.