Mortuary pipe organs...

[KB7DQH]

OK, some would say that this topic hardly belongs in a section devoted to "entertainment" instruments... Have I "gone round the twist" ???

Not when one considers the "technology" of purpose-built examples...  and the fact that a number of cinema instruments were rehoused in funeral homes during the great depression.
And like cinema organs, the "funeral facility" pipe organ can be argued is a subset of pipe instrument "unique to America"...

http://bibliolore.org/2011/08/01/mortuary-pipe-organs/

The heyday of the mortuary pipe organ was the 1920s and 1930s; only a few have been built since World War II. A uniquely American product, the instrument's characteristics departed significantly from those of the conventional church organ, despite its quasi-liturgical setting and function.

U.S. organ builders, long known for their innovations, met the stringent tonal, space, and cost requirements of funeral homes, cemetery chapels, and mausoleums so successfully that their instruments displaced the reed organ and piano. Over 600 mortuary organs were sold during this period, contributing significantly to the industry's survival during the Great Depression.

The following article published in the Diapason will explain... more...

http://www.thediapason.com/The-Mortuary-Pipe-Organ-article5317

The new generation of small instruments closely paralleled the mechanical design of the theatre organ in that both required an individual magnet and valve per pipe, based upon what organbuilders refer to as the unit principle. This is a radical departure from the much acclaimed Austin Universal Air Chest and the conventional slider, pitman and ventil windchests found in church organs. In the unit principle, each pipe can be accessed by any manual or pedal key as required, making unification possible. Conversely, in the straight chest system, the electrical impulse from the key contact must work through a matrix of stop and key actions before pipe speech. In addition to its close mechanical similarity, the mortuary instrument also paralleled tonally the emerging theatre organ of the early twentieth century. Each used as its first rank the stopped flute, and the Vox Humana was found early in the stoplists of both of these instruments.

In the 1920s and 1930s a significant trade emerged in used instruments, from private residences and theaters, the latter often repossessed from failed movie houses. The two-manual, three-rank, 16-stop Estey installed in Resurrection Chapel at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, in 1930, had been built for the Estey Studio in Los Angeles and later installed in a local radio station.14 The Style D-Special Wurlitzer built for the American Theater in Walla Walla, Washington, in 1922 was installed in Elderding's Mortuary in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1935.15 Funeral homes became a promising place to unload a repossessed instrument and for the buyer no doubt a bargain. A survey of builder lists reveals that almost anything called a pipe organ could find new life (pun intended) in a mortuary. When Balcom & Vaughan of Seattle installed a three-rank instrument in 1941 in the Stoller Funeral Home in Camas, Washington, it comprised a Wurlitzer console, Morton windchest, Hinners swell shades, a Smith flute and a Kilgen Dulciana and Diapason.

Do read the whole article... Fascinating.

Eric
KB7DQH

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

Most UK Crematorium & Morturay/Burial Ground chapels would have had an organ of some sort - these days normally an electronic, in the past perhaps a reed organ.  there were (are?) a few pipe organs, but from what I've seen, they were less popular in this application.  I've not heard of an ex-theatre organ going into this application in the UK.

Every Blessing

Tony