Well, for the record,
 
Judd Walton erred on the one he listed as opus #1023.
 
Opus #1024 was a style "D" installed in the Wabash Theatre in Los Angeles CA.
 
I noticed a penciled note inside the main chest signed by Frank Churchman (SP?)
with a 1956 date on it.
I think this is the same organ builder who was on Natoma St, San Francisco, CA.
 
Anyway, the instrument found its way into a church where it lost most of its
percussions.  Also the Wurlitzer trumpet was removed then and replaced with
something I not sure about yet.
 
In 1960 or 61 it was sold to Roy Bortle of Saratoga CA who installed it in his
home there.  They had 48 hours to remove the organ from the church so they
assembled a huge crew and worked round the clock to move it to Saratoga in any
vehicles they could find; trucks, stationwagons etc.
 
Side note:  Dave, were you involved in that caper?
 
In 1990, Roy suffered a terrible stroke and the organ was put up for sale.
Doris Taylor, mother of the Taylor brothers, who own the organ now installed
in San Francisco Castro, put my parents Art & Evelyn Woodworth in touch with
Roy & his wife.  The organ was bought in Oct 1990 and after a going away party
removal began.  Final removal was completed in Feb 1991.
 
With the excpetion
of the console, relay & blower, everything moved in the family station wagon.
We crated nearly EVERYTHING !  Since the car can carry a full sheet of plywood,
everything moved in 2' x 8' crates.  A few of the big bourdons were wrapped
instead of crated.  The bottom boards of the main chest & their cables and
unsoldered spreader strips went into one of the crates, thus cutting the weight
 of the main chest in half!  Pipe organs are pretty portable, huh ?
 
Another side note:  Dave Schutt was playing and my father & I were in the
                    chamber during the farewell party.  Dad peeked through the
                    shades and said  "I should have known it was Dave.
                    Look at how he makes this thing come alive!"
                    (Some of the other guests played rather poorly)
 
The new home for opus #1024 will be in Kensington, CA.  Kensington is in the
hills near Berkeley, CA.  We pour chamber concrete in summer 1993.
 
Walton's book incorrectly lists our instrument as opus #1023.  Those of you
with the book, please correct the entry to #1024.
 
Some of my data is sketchy as I derived much of it from hand gestures from Roy.
One of the casualties of his stroke has been his speach.
 
Roy also supplied us with some additional parts.  The new installation may take
 the form of a 2/10, but we're not sure yet.
 
The missing percussions will be filled in from an earlier purchase (1985) of
some spare parts from Bob Maes, of Kansas City.
 
Sometime in the 1960's the xylophone from the original SF Castro was added to
Roy's installation.  The original Castro organ, a Morton, lost most of its
percussions.  It is now installed in a studio out in the central Calif
valley.  They have replaced their percussion division with a Wurlitzer one.
We talked to them about getting their original xylophone back but they are
quite happy with wurlitzer percussions.
 
Well that should update several databases!
 
Take care all, lower pit, fade to black slowly....
 
 
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-texx
 
Robert "Texx" Woodworth
 
Wurlitzer Opus #1024
 
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                        WURLITZER FOREVER !!!
 
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