Mailbag: “More Organs Please…”

September 7, 2007

Dear Michael,

Greetings from Wichita Falls, Texas, again. I wanted to know if I can submit some photos of historic organs in our area for your web site photo collection. For one thing, your galleries don’t seem to have a single Estey pipe organ photo, except for the ones with George Steinmeyer. If yes, have someone send me the procedure.

I am doing historical update research for the EsteyOrgan.com web site and for my own illumination, particularly for the Boston area, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Texas. First, I would like permission to forward your photographs with George Steinmeyer to the web site as he was the Head of their pipe organ department and there is no picture with his name in the employee list. Secondly, do you remember where those photos were taken?

Please research your records for any information about Estey organs you may have run across, working or not. We are particularly interested in instruments that still exist in their original locations, but also seek information about instruments that may have been moved, demolished, restored or rebuilt. We would treasure digital copies of any photographs of Estey organs you may have since there are none in your Pipedreams collection, and any information you can provide.

This information will be displayed on the web site and might possibly serve as complimentary publicity for Pipedreams, even if just a credit for photographs.

The instrument opus number is most important, but we would greatly appreciate any other information you can provide. Estey pipe organs were shipped and installed all across the USA and about 8 went overseas from England to China. I have no idea of how to track those overseas installations.

Thank you very much for your assistance in this research project.

Dr. Alan D. Martin

 

Dr. Alan,

Thanks for your interest. Because of the enormity of the task which would confront us if we included every possible pipe organ in our website photo collection, the instruments that appear there are limited to organs which have appeared on (or soon will appear on) actual PIPEDREAMS broadcasts.

However, we are upgrading our other resources, and will include a link to the EsteyOrgan website, so that anything posted there will be available to the interested PIPEDREAMS site-browser.

Similarly, perhaps instead of forwarding our pictures of/with George, better to include a hot-link on the EsteyOrgan website to the appropriate page(s) on the PIPEDREAMS site. That way, Estey folk can link to the interview with George (and the Biggs program in which he appears). That provides better ‘publicity’ (in both instances) than a simple photo credit.

You might submit a ‘request for information’ to the various AGO chapter newsletters. You can find information at http://www.agohq.org/links/index.html

Good luck with your researches. The history of the organ is written by avid volunteers such as yourself!

Cheers,

JMB

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