Old Organs Get New Life in Retired Pastor's Barn

Nov. 17, 2017, 6:45 a.m. ·

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Retired pastor Norm Porath in his Denton, Nebraska workshop. (Photo by Jack Williams, NET News)

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In a red metal barn on a hill in Denton, Nebraska, population 205, a retired Lutheran pastor is giving old organs new life. It’s a hobby that’s helping preserve musical instruments that are long past their prime, but still have a few songs left in them. The antique pump organs that fill Norm Porath’s workshop have a few stories of their own.


It was almost by accident that Norm Porath found out about antique pump organs. His wife’s niece stumbled onto an old, broken down one in a vacant farm house just before Thanksgiving of last year.

“She wanted to know if we wanted it. Of course,” Porath said. “I got nothing to do. I’m 81-years-old. What else does a guy do besides occasional substitute preaching?”

Norm Porath working on an antique pump organ. (Photo by Jack Williams, NET News)

That’s all it took. Porath was hooked. Now his comfortably cluttered workshop is littered with pump organs and pump organ parts. He knows all about bellows, stop knobs, stock boards, where the sub-base is and the all-important metal reeds that help the organ make sound. They each have to be carefully cleaned.

“I think the main thing that we have that causes trouble is little things that get sucked in and are laying on the reed,” Porath said. “The reed won’t speak when it’s got stuff laying on it. That’s what we need to clean up. The bellows and the reeds.”

These organs don’t plug into a wall socket for power. They make music using the pumping action of a pedal, the bellows and stops that activate the reeds. It’s a complicated process.

Porath didn’t know much about pump organs or how they worked before he started his first project. If he had questions, he went to the internet for answers. What he couldn’t find, he learned on his own.

Old pump organ keyboard in Norm Porath's workshop. (Photo by Jack Williams, NET News)

“Somebody who wants to work on a project like this, you have to remember how it came apart,” he said. “All of these things were assembled and they were assembled from parts. You just have to remember the order. It’s sort of like disassembling an auto engine. If you disassemble it, it’s a piece of cake to put it back together as long as you do it right.”

He can clean and restore a pump organ to working order in a couple of weeks. He’s on his sixth organ project, and there are more lined-up after that.

“They come out of the woodwork. Oh, I’ve got one, you want it? Otherwise, a lot of these instruments are simply headed for the landfill. I don’t want that ever to happen,” Porath said. “I’ll keep on taking them until I’m done and of course, at 81, that might not be too many years away.”

Kathy Porath plays an organ in the couple's Denton, Nebraska home. (Photo by Jack Williams, NET News)

When he was a preacher, Porath crafted sermons. Now he’s crafting homemade parts and restoring instruments that are more than 100-years old. He’s got 13 grandchildren and hopes some of them are interested in taking a few of the pump organs into their own homes eventually. If not, well, he’s still having fun.

“When I get done with these, I’m going to look for more or maybe I’ll find a different project. Maybe I’ll fix lawnmowers,” he said. “But for now, this is the thing that I really, really get a kick out of.”

Just up the hill from his workshop, one of the old pump organs has found a spot in the corner of his living room. His wife Kathy fills their home with music, a fitting tribute to a hobby that has extended the lives of instruments that still have a lot to give.