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February 1937. "An organ deposited by the flood on a farm near Mount Vernon, Indiana." View full size. 5x7 safety negative by Russell Lee for the FSA.
It looks remarkably like the Hamilton organ I've got here in my flat in London. Age unknown. It seems that the Hamilton Organ company packed up in 1920, though the parent Baldwin piano company has staggered through various ups and downs.
Mine still works, after repairs to the bellows, cleaning the reeds and emptying years of cigarette ash out of it.
The one in the photo looks a slightly cheaper model. It has two fewer stops (probably the bass and treble couplers) and there's no sign of the knee bars to operate the swell dampers.
There's a restored 1895 Hamilton illustrated here.
There is a marker downtown in Mount Vernon that shows were the water came to. The Flood never made it above 3rd Street except in the basements. Mount Vernon is more Mount than Vernon, because unlike Evansville, there was not a major displacement of people and it was treated as something for the kids to see, going down to the river. Most of the flood photos are from the flood plain west and south of the town, where there was no Mount.
Wow! That took me back. I was born in Mount Vernon, Indiana, in 1939, and my brother in 1937. We always heard about the flood of 1937, and I have a bunch of the family photo albums showing many flood pictures. Thanks!
[You're welcome. I guess Mount Vernon was more Vernon than Mount. - Dave]
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