Holy
Family
Catholic Church
Columbus, OH
2/25 Schantz
1981
Sometimes
great things come in small
packages, and, well, sometimes great things come in big packages. In
the case of the two manual, 25 rank Schantz pipe organ at Holy Family
Catholic Church in Columbus, OH, great things come in medium sized
packages. The pipe organ's moderate size makes it a great fit for the
room in which it speaks into. And unlike many pipe organs built in the
late 1970s/early 1980s, its resources allow it to support musical
repertoires
other than thinner baroque sounding music. As we shall see, there's
more to see than meets the eye.
Parish and Church
History
Holy Family
Catholic Church is one of the gems of the west Columbus
neighborhood called Franklinton.
Located just west of downtown Columbus on
U.S. Route 40 (also
known as "The National Road"), Holy Family parish
was established in 1877 with the current church dedicated in 1889. It
is the only parish in the Diocese of Columbus to have
a regular Latin Mass using the pre-Vatican
II Roman missal. Holy Family parish also supports a large soup kitchen
feeding over 700 people each day, and the Jubilee Museum
which contains many sacred relics, primarily from the Catholic
faith.
Pipe
Organs at Holy Family
The current Schantz pipe organ pictured above was installed in 1981.
This is at
least the second pipe organ to take residence in the loft of the
current church building. This organ replaced a small Page theater pipe
organ which now resides at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Columbus, OH.
The Page pipe organ, which was built in 1928, was installed
in Holy Family in 1947, complete with its original brilliant white
theater style
horseshoe
console. While it is likely a pipe organ preceded the Page, there is
little substantial information to confirm such a claim. The Schantz is
maintained
by local pipe organ builder Peebles-Herzog Pipe Organs.