Two years ago, on April 15, 2019, the world watched in horror at the tragic fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, France. At that time, organists all over the world breathed a sigh of relief when the fire did not reach the historic Cathedral organ. Last August, work began to dismantle and clean the grand organ, the biggest instrument in France, that was untouched by the gallons of water needed to extinguish the fire.

But now the organ world is mourning a devastating fire at Dobson Organ Builders, one of the prominent American organbuilders today, located in Lake City, Iowa. Apparently the fire was caused by a malfunctioning fan which ignited some sawdust.

A local newspaper, the Siouxland, wrote: “It was just a real sinking feeling to see it burning like that, and I knew then that it would be a total loss,” said Lynn Dobson, the founder of the business.

The company has built 95 new instruments—I have visited two of the most prominent installations located at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles and at the Kimmel Center, the performing arts center for the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Reactions to the fire were swift … a fire to an organ is terrible, but is even worse for an organbuilder. Here are some comments from the perspective of other organbuilders on Facebook:

John Bishop wrote:The workshop of Dobson Pipe Organ Builders in Lake City, IA was destroyed by fire yesterday, the place where organs for the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and St. Thomas Church in New York were built along with a hundred others (I don’t know the exact number of organs built in that facility). All that equipment, all those handmade tools and patterns, several organs, the personal collections of tools, archives, ….

Dave Brown wrote: I found myself thinking of the personal tools of those craftsmen late last night. It’s a small thing to some, but a part of us who use and love them. Often they’re hand tools which have either been passed down or been rediscovered and restored by present day craftsmen. Another of those precious items in life that we don’t so much own as keep and use for a part of its journey. (Coincidentally, he is the organbuilder husband of organist Katelyn Emerson who will be performing in Hawaii in October)

John Hanson Boody It is the small things that are the greatest loss. My cut-up knife.

John-Paul Buzard I laid awake last night thinking of the horror of what the fire was for them, and what such a catastrophe would be for us. Just as you and John Boody point out, we’ve got years’ worth of templates, scale sticks, “story sticks, pipe scale templates, hand-made tools which could not be replaced. Then I thought of the personal items in my office which would be lost forever: all the transparencies and prints of our instruments, drawings of each organ, correspondence with Henry Willis, antique clocks, my mom’s 1938 Underwood, and on and on. I know Lynn, John and their team will rebuild, and we hold them all in our prayers. We all need to take a little time to grieve for the loss of things irreplaceable, the history and the memories gone, but then the shoulder goes to the wheel and the big job of rebuilding starts. We and our colleagues in APOBA offer Lynn and John any help they might need going forward.

What a tragedy!