John Wessel
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To walk into John Wessel’s workshop is to step back into history. Like a museum, it gives testimony not only to a man’s career, but also to an illustrious former Brattleboro industry and a centuries old trade. At 61, Wessel said he is the only former employee of Brattleboro’s Estey Organ Co. still employed in the art of making pipe organs - a craft he learned as a 13-year-old in Holland. Although Estey Organ went out of business in 1960, Wessel continued with his own company, located in a small barn behind his home on Chestnut Street. Among the
tools of his trade are relics of time past. In one corner, left over
from a restoration job, But even more fascinating is the history tucked away in one of the workbench drawers. Wessel reached in and pulled out dozens of pictures and postcards of pipe organs he built or restored in the course of his 48-year career. Some are of modern organs built in one state or another in the United States. Others are of organs in Holland that survived generations upon generations of organists and organ makers.
The contents
of the drawer also chronicle the Estey Organ Co. There are old
promotional publications There is even a picture of a young John Weasel, perhaps not more than 30, standing with fellow employees of the G. van Leeuwen Co., a small organ-making shop in Holland. “Good looking chap,” Wessel quipped, a Dutch accent noticeable in his voice. According to Weasel, when he first began working, there wasn’t a special apprenticeship training service. “You did what the boss told you even if it was cleaning his bicycle or his rowboat,” he said. But few apprentices now will ever have the experiences that Weasel did. “There’s not too many coming along who want to make organs. They don’t get the training like I did,” said Wessell. In Wessel’s day, people started working in their mid-teens. But now, he said, teenagers go to high school and perhaps college, so they are in their 20s before beginning a profession. When he left the van Leeuwen shop, he was, at 32, one of the oldest employees. But, at Estey, he was the one of the youngest among employees aged 60 or older. Skilled in All Aspects Learning the trade at such a young age and in a small shop proved to be beneficial for Wessel. “In a
company like Estey, you get specialized right from the beginning.
They were called organ builders In 1953,
Wessel decided it was time to leave Holland. He said it was the
style then to emigrate, While most people had to wait three years before they could emigrate to the United States, t took Weasel only six months. “If a company like Estey showed they were in need of a person of my capability, I could get first preference,” said Wessel. “When Estey saw I had 17 years experience, they invited me to come and sponsored my immigration.” This excerpt from a recommendation dated Feb. 9, 1953, written by Weasel’s former employer, G. van Leeuwen, reveals Weasel’s skill. “As an
apprentice, he (Weasel) passed through all branches of our firm
during the first five years. |
Starts Own Business When Estey closed in 1960, Wessel, among others, was on his own. He works alone most of the time, but has different people he can call on when he needs help. “I could have enough work to hire four or five men, but I don’t want to do that,” he said. “Then I’d end up in an office and I want to do the work myself.” The work that Weasel does is building and installing new organs, repairing, cleaning, tuning and, most of all, voicing.
“Voicing is
very specialized,” he explained. “You get the pipes from, the pipe
maker and you have to put Organs have some pipes that are) made of wood and some of metal. Weasel demonstrated that the wood pipes give a more flute-like sound and can be open or closed. The closed -pipes have a wooden stopper in the top, giving a more mellow sound. Organs can have two pipes of the same pitch, one open and one closed, get two different sounds from the same tone.
He also had
on hand a few old metal Estey pipes fitted with resonators. An idea
patented by an, Master of Voicing Because of Weasel’s specialty at voicing, other organ makers sometimes hire him to do the task for them. Although he tries to keep his business in the Vermont and New Hampshire area, Weasel currently is working on a 1910 Estey organ in a private home in Bristol, Conn. He said the home’s former owner had the organ, which he described as greater than the one in St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Brattleboro, installed in a huge room of the house. But the man’s grandchildren had played golf in the room and ruined the beautiful gold leaf pipes. Weasel has been working on the organ for three years now, each year working on a different part. It is now two-thirds playable,” said Wessel. “That’s really restoring an old Estey to what it was. Some people will come in and say an organ can’t be fixed, but it always can be fixed. The last one I worked on in Holland was built in 1480. You can always restore an organ.” He then explained that a organ
encompasses a number of parts. There is the console, or body
of the organ, which consists of the keyboard, foot pedals and stops;
the windchest, a chamber of pressurized air maintained by bellows;
and the ranks of pipes which stand on the windchest. Modern organs
operate with a
Although older organs use mechanical rather than electronic devices, Wessel said, “It all ends up the same – the wind in the pipes. That’s why I think the man voicing the pipes is the most important. And the most important thing in voicing the
pipes is the acoustics of the building they are installed in, he
said. “But it won’t sound the same,” he said. “It’s a different building. The acoustics are different. You never know how an organ will sound until it’s set up.” Aside from repairs and renovations,
Weasel said in the last four or five years he has made one new organ
Does he ever think of retiring? “You can’t retire in this business,” he
responded. “You can always keep going. Maybe heavy jobs youcan give
up, but you can always repair and voice pipes. I’ll take it easy a
little bit, but not yet.” Brattleboro Reformer, May 4, 1984 |
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