Susan Writes

Papa sat in his easy chair beside me while I played “In the Garden” on his pump organ. My maternal grandfather, Paul Bertram, was a man of few words. When I finished the last note I knew he approved because he nodded, ever so slightly, and smiled. A closed mouth smile, his lips barely curved at the corners.

Papa’s approval was enough to encourage me to continue pumping the foot pedals to play “Rock of Ages.” After I played these two hymns, I opened the church hymnal and chose another. Papa sat as long as I played and I played as long as my twelve-year-old legs could pump the pedals.

I liked to pull out all the stop knobs to make the volume louder and it was fun to experiment by pushing some in. I didn’t know what Dulciana or Dolce or most of the other words printed on the nine other stops meant. I recognized the words Treble and Bass, but didn’t know what they meant when combined with Coupler and neither did Papa. He didn’t play any keyboard instrument, but he liked music and the organ was important to him.

Papa never talked about the days when he played musical instruments and I never saw him hold a fiddle, except in pictures, but I knew he had played one. Papa, his brother, and two sisters, Ervin, Mary and Martha, bought the organ about 1915 when they were all young adults, but not married so the organ sat in their parents’ parlor.   In the 1930s after their mother’s death, their father broke up housekeeping and lived with his daughter Mary and her husband. And the organ was moved to Papa and Grandma’s home.

During World War II, Papa and Grandma moved to Oak Ridge where he worked as a carpenter on war-related buildings. Upon their return home to Pickett County, Papa paid his siblings for their part of the organ and he took great pride in owning it. I wish I’d questioned him and taken notes. Who played it? Where did they buy it? Certainly not in the Bertram siblings’ hometown, Byrdstown, Tennessee. How much did it cost?

I continued to play for Papa every time I visited until his death in 1974 and about ten years later when it was time for Grandma to move from their home this dark stained, huge reed organ was moved to my house. Through the years I’ve played the organ occasionally and encouraged Daughter and our older Grands to play. Many notes stuck. The sounds were muffled. The pedals were stiff. But it played, until a few months ago when a pedal flopped because the binding connecting it to the bellows broke.

In his will, Papa excluded the organ from other property and left it to his three daughters with instructions, “One old organ shall be kept in the family if possible.” I believe family pieces are treasured only if they are used. So now what do I do with this family heirloom?

To be continued….

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Filed under: Memories, Music | Tagged: organ, pump organ, reed organ |