Great division (1995)
Casavant Frères opus 301 (1907) of four manuals was built for Grace Church, Winnipeg, Manitoba, "Mother Church of Methodism in the West". Following a fire which damaged the Great division, Casavant altered the design and rebuilt it as opus 696 (1917).
Cut to the year 1955. Enter one Stuart A. Kolbinson, a farmer from western Saskatchewan. In 1942, he had graduated from St. Thomas Moore College, University of Saskatchewan, with a BA in history and music, then had spent a winter working as an organ builder in Toronto. In 1948, he had bought a farm of his own, and in 1951 had met and married his wife Mary.
Fateful day 1: in 1952, Stuart and Mary were attending a hockey game in Saskatoon, when a pipe band came onto the ice between periods. Stuart was thrilled by the sound, and immediately took up the highland pipes, soon becoming proficient in both military piping and in Piobaireachd. Asked to form a pipe band for D Company, S.L.I., he started rounding up and training friends and relatives, and was soon Pipe Major of the 2nd North Saskatchewan Regiment Pipe Band.
Fateful day 2: during the summer of 1955, Stuart and his band were attending the Army Band School in Winnipeg, and one evening Stuart wandered into Grace Church and asked if he might try the organ. In reply, the custodian asked if he would like to buy it! A developer had acquired this prime downtown site, and the building was shortly to be razed. Opportunity was unignorably knocking, so Stuart bought the organ, dismantled it, packed it into boxcars and shipped it home to Kindersley. (At last report, the church site had not been developed into anything more than a parking lot.)
The crated organ had to wait in the hayloft of his barn until he had constructed a suitable music room on the farm. Such an addition to the farmhouse was completed in 1960, of about 2000 square feet with a 20 foot ceiling and several floor to ceiling windows. Stuart re-erected the organ, and people came from far and wide to see and to play this wonder, a four-manual pipe organ out in the middle of the prairies. During this decade, Stuart also acquired and restored a 1910 Case steam engine and thresher such as he had used with his father and his uncles, and obtained his 3rd Class Steam Engineer's ticket so that he could take the engine on parade. He also assembled a collection of bells from schools and churches which were to be demolished. (One is reminded of the displaced 4-manual E.M. Skinner opus 265 (1916) in the Opera House of Alpenrose Dairy, Portland Oregon, and the collection of mechanical musical instruments and antique cars there.)
In 1971, Stuart had had enough of Saskatchewan winters, so he packed up his family and moved to Victoria on Vancouver Island. A music room was soon added to their new home, and the organ was again packed into box cars, shipped, and re-installed. A major modification at this point was that the Solo was to become a Positiv division, so the Solo pipes were left in storage on the farm. (These ranks subsequently "went missing".) People continued to visit the organ from far and wide, now situated in a fashionable neighbourhood of British Columbia's capital city.
Stuart made a number of tonal alterations to the organ over the years, many in consultation with the folks at Casavant Frères. Indeed, they supplied several new ranks, including the only 32' reed in town. In the mid 1990's, Stuart commissioned a new console for the 'old girl' and ordered up the latest in microprocessor-based multiplexed control gear to go in it (photo at right). This was chiefly to replace the by then very primitive and troublesome Devtronix combination action which he had had installed in the old console in the early 1980's.
Stuart hosted many a party and late night soirée in his music room, the organ bringing joy and amazement to countless friends and visitors, organists and non-organists alike. He always marvelled at the skill of the long-dead hands which had built it, and how it has continued to function so well after so long. Sadly, Stuart too has laid down his tools for the last time, and his family does not wish to retain the instrument.
See also Valla Eiriksson's site about Stuart
Many thanks to Valla Eiriksson for much information and commiseration.