Estey Organ Museum Receives Important Collection
Lee Chaney had a life-long love of musical instruments, especially those with keyboards. Over the years he built a sizeable personal collection of instruments of a wide variety, even setting up a small museum in his home so that others could view his collection. Formerly a Professor of Educational Psychology at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama for over 40 years, Chaney retired to Clinton, NC. He died there on March 4, 2012.
Recently, his son, John Chaney, decided that the Estey Organ Museum in Brattleboro was an appropriate home for a number of these instruments. In addition to several Estey reed organs, the collection included instruments by other builders who had a historical relationship with Estey, notably Riley Burdett of Putney, as well as instruments illustrating the development of the American reed organ. Further, the collection consisted of framed posters about organ building and other important archival memorabilia.