Simonton "Wurtilizer" Pipe Organ
There has been so much in recent issues of MMD about Dick Simonton that
it may be of interest to know that his Wurtilizer theatre organ is now
in the East, owned by Jack Hardman in Falls Church, Virginia.
Jack is a fine musician and theatre organist, and he has worked hard
for several years to make a first-class installation of the instrument.
The job is close to completion and it should be fully operational by
midsummer. Jack has little or no information about where the organ was
originally installed, etc., and would appreciate hearing details from
anyone having such information. His e-mail is <jackhardman@att.net>.
As an aside, when we visited Dick he had a beautiful model of The
Delta Queen in a coffee-table-size case in his living room. This ship
was built for freight operations on the Sacramento River Delta, and was
never a splashy 'cruise ship' until after it was towed through the
Panama Canal and 'refitted' as such for Mississippi and Ohio River
operations.
It now has a dandy steam calliope and I was privileged to have about 20
minutes of keyboard time on this a few years ago. This was great fun!
No, those are not misspellings. The famed coin-piano collectors Roy
Haning and Niel White always called it 'Wurtilizer' because it rhymed
with 'Fertilizer.'
Harvey Roehl
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