A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men (Pr. 18:16)

It seems as if God had planned for Bob to be an organ builder and musician from the beginning.  

He started playing piano at age 9 and by the time he was a teenager was studying organ with Theodore Keller at the Village Chapel in Pinehurst, NC.  Mr. Keller taught him to play the pedals of a pipe organ by putting a 1940 hymnal between his knees and saying "don't let that drop." He didn't.

I knew he loved the sound of the pipe organ so one summer when our family visited Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, NC, I saw two books -- The Art of Organ Building -- at the Mother Earth News bookstore.  I asked our mom to get them so I could give them to Bob for Christmas.  In typical fashion, he devoured them.

By the time he was 16, it was evident that this was a path Bob would walk his whole life.  He was playing Masses and Christmas services at the local Catholic Church, and had begun his first organ repair -- in a house in Pinehurst.  We found out about it when a tennis player at the local club -- where I hung out -- heard me talking about my brother playing the pipe organ and said "oh there's one in my house; do you think he would like to take a look at it?" It turned out to be an Aeolian player pipe organ that had fallen into disrepair.  By the time Bob was finished with it, it was once again a grand instrument. 

He also rebuilt the pipe organ -- and played a Bach trio sonata on it -- for a local Presbyterian church near our high school.  Then he went to Duke to study with Fenner Douglas. 

Our musical tastes were very different.  In high school, he would make the windows of our home vibrate with E. Power Biggs playing Toccata and Fugue in Dm while I was in my room listening to Foreigner, KISS, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I still hear his voice when I practice guitar: "play it RIGHT! Don't be in such a rush that you screw it up."

I also remember his stories of "exploding fruit" launched from his window at Duke towards the frats on the other side of the quadrangle.  I think the name is self-explanatory. 

When we left North Carolina, the pastor of a local church was concerned that the Wurlitzer organ and Leslie speaker we had donated to them would not be ready in time.  Bob - in his typical fashion - had taken everything apart, laid it out in the floor, and was putting it back together in his mind.  Then, once he had the machine assembled in his brain, his hands quickly put it back together and had it ready for the 11:00 am service.  It never sounded better. 

There were also long nights tuning with Bob, making what he called "the centipede" a long multi-legged coil of wire to fire the valves in an organ, and sitting at the console while he was in the bowels of my church organ in Morgantown, WV, shouting "up" or "down" so he could tune the pipes.  And man could he make it speak.

At my first wedding - at Bruton Parish in Colonial Williamsburg -- we wanted Bob to play the service.  The organist was reluctant until I said "well, he studied organ at Duke with Fenner Douglas."  The man looked as if I had hit him with lighting - "OHHHHHH he's one of FENNER'S boys! Well that makes all the difference!"  

Needless to say Bob played the organ. 

I remember the first time I saw one of the "box" organs that Bob had built for James Christie.  It was at a First Night service at a church in Boston.  I was amazed at the quality of the instrument.  It's one thing to think "oh yeah, he's good at what he does." But the half had not been told me. 

We had fallen out of touch in recent years - life being what it is - but last year we started having long phone conversations -- about his health, about life, about spiritual things, about the Showtime series The Tudors, about St. Thomas More, about our family life. And I was looking forward to his health being better after his heart operation.  

I will miss him.  But I know our Father had a room specially prepared for him, and he is probably hearing music in a way that we never can this side of eternity.  

Who knows, maybe he and J.S. Bach and Mozart have had a few conversations.  I'd like to think so.  

We thank you all for all that you have done to honor him.  He was one of a kind. 

David & Cornelia Byrd, Manassas, VA