Johnny Verbeeck died today; there are some postings on Facebook.
I was told by Tim Trager in a phone message that he was born October
14, 1951, and died of esophageal cancer that spread to, I think, his
liver and elsewhere. He was operated on a year ago for the cancer
and underwent chemotherapy. The doctors thought it was under control
but in the past few weeks the Verbeeck family and company turned away
visitors because of his deteriorating condition.
I was at Seabreeze Park all day today, going over the [Verbeeck] band
organ in preparation for tuning it this week. There was one valve
problem that I couldn't solve without knowing the location of the
valve, which is buried in the bottom of the organ chest. I was going
to email Johnny tomorrow, but now it's too late.
Matthew Caulfield
Irondequoit, New York
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