Pipe Organ Database

From the OHS PC Database Builders Listing Editor, updated March 3, 2016 with information from sources listed below -

Charles Alva Lane (1879-1962) was born in Ohio.¹ He was partner with Alfred Hillgreen in the firm Hillgreen, Lane, & Co. Better known as a poet and writer than organ builder, perhaps his part was simply to finance the enterprise. His large home on Union Street in Alliance, Ohio indicated considerable personal means, it later served as the residence of the president of Mount Union College as well as the Conservatory of Music.² Further supporting this, he offered a prize of $100.00 for poetry in 1930,³ [equivalent to $1,375 in 2016 dollars.] He moved to Berkley, California sometime after 1930, and died there in 1962 at age 83. ⁴

Sources:

1. California Death Record, accessed through Ancestry.com [membership required]
2. Craig Bara, and Lyle Crist, Alliance (Arcadia Publishing, Oct 8, 1998) pages unnumbered. The photograph of the home shows an imposing two-and-a-half-storey Italinate residence topped with a large cuppola, and at least five chimneys.
3. Journal News Hamilton, Ohio, June 6, 1930, p. 8.
4. Social Security Death Index.

From the OHS PC Database, derived from A Guide to North American Organbuilders, by David H. Fox (Richmond, Va.: Organ Historical Society, 1991). —

Partner with Alfred Hillgreen* in Hillgreen, Lane & Co. of Alliance, Ohio, 1898; poet; died 26 July, 1933 in Alliance, Ohio.

Fox has "Robert L. Hillgreen" which is technically correct as Robert Hillgreen Sr did succeed his father as senior partner in the firm circa 1923, but the firm was founded in 1898 by Alfred Hillgreen, Charles Lane, and Silas Williams. —Ed.

Sources:

• The Diapason May 1932, 10.
• The Diapason August 1933, 1.