Unknown Builder
1955ca.

Updated through online information from Michael Brady.

This entry describes the installation of a new pipe organ, identified through e-mail from Mike Brady:

[The organ] was installed in the 1950s after initial
construction of the church. I grew up in that parish (1950s-1960s) and
was in a couple of choirs where we were accompanied by various organists.

The original organ, from memory, had a Schoenstein builders plate. It
had a fixed-location 3-manual console with stop tabs on side panels, not
knobs, facing the organ with mirrors resembling the outside mirrors on a
truck for keeping track of what was happening up front. From visual
memory only, there was a decent supply of stops, typical of church
organs of the time, with at least 3 sections plus pedal. A large
box-section wood-enclosed channel (step height; the walkway connecting
the two parts of the loft crossed it) connected the console and the box
on which the exposed pipes were mounted. The organ had an exposed
section on a high (to a kid - probably 6-10') box in the center of the
choir loft, with choir benches up each side theater fashion rising about
1/2 way up the box. The rose window in the center of that wall of the
church was partly blocked by the pipes; a picture I have seen (can't
find it any more) of the Wicks shows that it is arranged so as to not
obstruct that window). Additional pipes were in a chamber on the east
side of the loft. Not sure whether a similar chamber on the west side
had pipes in it.

Based on an email conversation with Jack Bethards some years ago,
Schoenstein may not have built the organ from scratch - incomplete
information suggested that they may have built the console and case but
otherwise used pipes from other organs being dismantled at the time. He
had no information regarding its disposition when replaced with the Wicks.

At any rate, when operated by a good organist, it was a nice-sounding
instrument (again, from distant memory). Ordinary Sundays were, of
course, ordinary.

The parish web site (http://epiphanysf.com/) has a brief history page
(http://epiphanysf.com/history.htm) that indicates the current church
building was completed in 1950. The organ would most likely have been
installed before 1955. There is no mention of the organ. Given the age
of the original instrument and uncertain provenance of many of its
parts, it's likely that by the 1980s it was in poor condition; it was
most likely scrapped when the new organ was installed.