by David Berry, 2000
In late November, Victoria lost its greatest lover of the organ as a musical instrument, one of Canada's foremost exponents of organ-building lore and history, and the owner and custodian for nearly half a century of one of western Canada's largest pipe organs.
Stuart Kolbinson was born in Merid, Saskatchewan in 1919. His family were pioneers who broke the sod in one of Canada's last agricultural frontiers near the Saskatchewan/Alberta border. Stuart inherited the strong cultural interest of his parents: his father Stephen was an enthusiastic music lover who, after years of struggle through the Great Depression, became a prominent collector of stringed instruemnts and owner of the famous Amati quartet now in the possession of the University of Saskatchewan.
Stuart's lifelong interest in the organ began in his teens and continued with the construction of a home organ, frequent correspondence with organ lovers and builders on two continents, an apprenticeship during winter months with a Toronto organ-builder, and frequent visits to the Casavant factory in Ste. Hyacinthe, where he was known to several generations of staff spanning most of the past century.
His interest continued into adulthood, during which time he also successfully ran his own grain farm, chaired his local school board and managed a difficult transition from one-room to modern schools. He organized and trained a local pipe band ("because we needed one") and raised a family of four beautiful daughters with his wife, Mary.
In 1955, he purchased the organ of Grace Church in Winnipeg, which was slated for demolition, and installed it in a specially-built addition to his farm home. At the time of its construction in 1907, it had been the largest organ west of Ontario.
Stuart moved to Victoria in 1971 after a brief stint in business in Vancouver. Some years later, the organ followed him to his Rockland home, which also gained a music-room addition complete with functioning bell tower - another musical passion. During the following decades Stuart and the organ installation received visitors and players from around the world. He was an avid and personable host whose hospitality and bottomless-punchbowl parties were legendary.
In the early nineties, the instrument was significantly expanded with the addition of a new solid-state console, a positif division, and new reeds manufactured by Casavant to the specifications of the great pre-revolutionary organ builder Francois Clicquot.
For many years, Stuart's music room resembled a workshop, strewn with organ technician's equipment, stray pipes, the results of pipe-metal casting experiements, and seventy years' worth of organ journals. Yet it was also part of a home, and bore strong traces of visits from grandchildren was well as those who, like the writer, visited often to share a convivial glass and play music - from Buxtehude to long-forgotten gospel hymns - far into the night.
All of this represents only a glmpse at the passionate interests this truly eclectic and gentlemanly man was capable of embracing. He was an avid reader with a degree in History, and familiar with both the Cree language and his ancestral Icelandic from his earliest childhood (and subsequently several others), a sly wit, a master raconteur with an encyclopaedic knowledge of western Canadian history (much of it from personal experience), a successful amateur winemaker, an enthusiastic cook and recipe collector, a loving and conscientous father.
To this writer he was a second father, an older brother, and above all a fast friend. He will be missed by lovers of the organ across Canada and by all those who have delighted in his company for eighty-one years.
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pages 435 -437 On Stephen Kolbinson, Stuart's father
Stephen Kolbinson, son of Icelandic immigrants Thordur and Gudridur Kolbeinsson, homesteaded in the Kindersley district of Saskatchewan in 1908, at the age of nineteen years. He is passionately fond of music, and while still in his teens he traded his bicycle for a violin. For years he traded in violins, his ambition in course of time being to acquire a Stradivarius, and also a complete set of four Amati stringed instruments: two violins, a violincello and a viola. He bought his first Amati violin in London, England; the second he bought from Daisy Kennedy, a world-famous violinist. The 'cello he found in the dust of the Earl of Plymouth's castle. To obtain the viola was more difficult. He managed to get one, but it was stolen from him on the farm. He, however, refused to surrender, and finally persuaded an owner of an Amati quartet in France to break it, and promptly bought the viola. A few years ago, Mr. Kolbinson sold the Amati set to the University of Saskatchewan for $20,000. In 1965 an announcement was made in Saskatoon that Stephen Kolbinson had acquired a Stradivarius, 1721 vintage. Professor Murray Adaskin, Head of the Music Dept in the University of Saskatchewan, has said that this particular violin ranks among the six best Stradivarius violins, of which only about 500 are known to exist. Stephen Kolbinson owns a 2-1/2 section grain farm, has retired and lives in Saskatoon, devoting his time to his collection of musical instruments, some of which has has made himself. How rare to find a homesteader in Western Canada trading in musical instruments instead of in horses! This happened in the life of Stephen Kolbinson.
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Stuart documented his early years with his parents and grandparents, and included memories and recollections of siblings, relatives and neighbours. He was born on a homestead near Merid, Saskatchewan, west of Kindersley. Stuart's childhood as a member of the Icelandic "settlement" impressed upon him the value and importance of community. Growing up on the Prairies during the 20's and 30's, one's family and nighbours were precious resources. There were many hardships, and the family moved several times during those years, from the pioneer settlement at Merid, to Kuroki, then Hanley, and finally to Kindersley.
Stuart graduated in 1942 from St.Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan, with a Bachelor of Arts major in History, and a minor in Music. He spent a winter in Toronto, employed in organ maintenance, and returned to the farm in 1943. Then he was drafted for the war effort, but "fortunately for me, I had weak ankles and flat feet from jumping off barns and granaries. I was also a farmer, so they didn't need me." Farmers were protected from conscription.
In 1948 Stuart bought the T.J. Fox farm seven miles south of Kindersely, and set up shop for his organ building and maintenance business: "The Kindersley Organ Company". In 1951 on a trip to Edmonton to buy a used organ, he met Mary Kunze from Herbert,Saskatchewan. They were married in November of that year. A year later, he and Mary were in Saskatoon for a Quaker-Edmonton hockey game, and a pipe band came out onto the ice during intermission. The ice amplified the sound. Stuart was thrilled, and decided he had to learn to play the bagpipes. Mary noticed an ad in the paper, someone selling an old set of pipes for $50. He bought them, and found a teacher, Pipe Major Peden. By 1954, Stuart had new pipes, and had been recruited to start a Pipe Band for the "D" company, S.L.I. He had friends who were willing to join the band, and he shared with them what he was learning. Their regalia was the beautiful Highland Full Dress. When all had passed the required examinations, Stuart became Pipe Major of the 2nd North Saskatchewan Regiment Pipe Band. They debuted in Kindersley on November 11, 1955, Remembrance Day. The pipe band with Stuart as Pipe Major existed until 1970. After that time, the band played without a Pipe Major. They opened many community events, welcomed political leaders, played for weddings and funerals, and always led the procession to the Cenotaph. One of his former band members, now a Pipe Major and Commanding Officer in his own right, says that Stuart was one of the best pipers in Canada.
1955 was a momentous year. That summer, the band was in Winipeg during the summer months for the Army Band School. One evening, Stuart wandered into Grace Church, where as an apprentice with Franklin Legge many years earlier, he had first seen the organ. He asked the caretaker if he could play the instrument. The caretaker replied in the affirmative, and asked Stuart if he wanted to buy it! The great church was soon to be demolished, and the organ with it. Stuart always credited his wife, Mary, for the fortuitous turn of events that helped him realize his fondest dreams.
He dismantled the pipe organ, and it was shipped by boxcar to the farm at Kindersley. The great windchests, thousands of pipes and console rested in the hayloft of the barn until 1960, when the addition to the farmhouse was complete. The room was designed to have the best acoustics. For years, people from all over North America journeyed to see a cathedral-sized organ on a Prairie farm.
During this time, Stuart was elected to chair the Kindersley and District School Unit Board; he chaired the Board for ten years, until 1969. During his tenure, several new schools were built, including the largest high school in that part of the province. He changed the way the Board operated, making the committees autonomous and with the power to make decisions. Chairing the School Unit Board also meant travelling. along with Board information, Stuart collected even more stories of the land and the people. From the Indians and the settleres to their descendants, to Stuart, each human being held a precious part of history. Stuart was a gatherer and a keeper of memories.
Stuart loved the sound of bells; if an old church or schoolhouse was to be torn down, he negotiated to buy the bell. We can put names to several of the school bells in his collection: Alsask, Loverna, Empress, Rosana. And the bell from the old Roman Catholic Church in Kindersley. There are others, whose provenance is now lost.
During the 1960's, Stuart bought and restored a 1907 Case steam engine, and then a thresher to accompany it. He had gone harvesting with his father and his uncles in the old days, and these gigantic iron monsters fascinated him. Like his father, Stuart carried a deep respect for tradition, and he strived to keep old craftsmanship and handiwork alive. He wrote and received his 3rd Class Steam Engineer's ticket, so that he could take her "on parade!" Many Kindersley and District neighbours, relatives and friends shared in the labour and excitement, the day the 1907 Case was brought back to life!
There always comes a point when one feels ready for a change. In 1971 Stuart moved his family to Victoria, leaving the farm and the bitter Saskatchewan winters behind.
The Music Room was built as an addition to the Victoria house. Once again, the great organ was dismantled and shipped, to be restored, rebuilt, and renovated. In a 1993 CBC interview, Stuart remarked "the hands that built this instrument are gone, but the organ will still play long after you and I are dead."
Since 1970, Stuart had commuted weekly to Vancouver, where he was a property manager for a Robson Street hotel. He retired in 1975, to devote himself to his family and his beloved pipe organ. Here, too, the visitors came from all over the continent to see and hear his life work. He began to write in earnest, and produced plays, short stories, and finally, his memoirs. He made two trips to Iceland, to further his knowledge of his ancestry. He traveled through Europe and Russia, England, and then a trip to France to see the great cathedrals and the pipe organs they contained. He played the Sortie at a High Mass in the cathedral of St. Sulpice.
Stuart was a kind man, with a ready smile and twinkling blue eyes. He made friends everywhere. He could converse easily with anyone; that was how he learned and collected his stories. He was in turns, a bard and a renaissance man. he had a phenomenal memory, a gentle wisdom, an easy laugh, and he cared genuinely for all people. True as he was to Icelandic tradition, his work and his memory will live forever.
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Here is a list of questions that he wrote down for his physician:
1. If my eye problem is due to age-related degeneration, how is it that it manifests itself so suddenly? I was checking the electro-pneumatic motors in one of the pedal-offset chests in my pipe organ when a motor came loose and struck me a light blow on my forehead above my eye. Immediately afterwards I noticed I could not focus my vision and had to abandon the project.
2. Especially after waking, I feel as if a piece of chaff was under my eyelid and seems to move from side to side.
3. Although happy that my problem is not of the "wet" variety and I don't need laser treatment, is there any advice which might reduce the likelihood of further damage, especially to the other eye?
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