James Tyler is a retired water/wastewater chemist and a reed organ restorer. As a youth, he rode around the neighborhood on his Red Flyer wagon and brought home old clocks, radios and other items that needed fixing. When he found a folding reed organ, he repaired the bellows with the fabric of a raincoat and it played! This started Jim’s interest in the repair of reed organs. When Jim retired in 2018, he hung out a shingle as “The Reed Organ Man” to keep himself busy.
Jim first learned about Lemare’s Mustel Harmonium from a You Tube video on the San Francisco Exposition Organ by Vic Ferrer.
Jim stated: “Over the years, there was discussion with Nelson Barden and the Lemare family about what might become of the harmonium. Nelson and I agreed that this was one Mustel that ought to remain in the United States. It occurred to me that I still had some time left and the wherewithal to refurbish the Lemare Mustel. I wrote to Lemare’s granddaughter, Jeannine Lemare Calaba and offered to do this as a “grand finale” to my career. Once she brought the organ to me, I was pleased to find that despite it having been taken apart, it had been put back together correctly, and there was not a single piece of it missing!” (Personal communication, July, 2020)
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