Murray A Burfeind

Murray Albert Burfeind, 89, died Wednesday, Dec. 16, at Deer Crest Memory Center, Red Wing, with his wife and family nearby.

He was born May 8, 1931, in Belvidere Township, rural Lake City, the fourth of four children of Margaret (Prigge) and Henry Burfeind. He grew up on the farm, learning about farming, but also as the helper to his mother, learning to cook, responsible for bringing in wood for the cookstove and canning catsup, fruit, meat and vegetables. He listened to the stories of the “old-timers” and they became a part of his past and present. He loved to spin stories of the old days.

As a young boy he learned to play the piano that became a part of his whole life. By age 12 he also learned to play and love the pipe organ. He began playing in church for services, both at his own and other churches. He was a church organist his whole life. But playing was not enough. He learned how a pipe organ worked and became a pipe organ builder that was his lifelong focus.

Murray graduated from Lake City High School in 1949, living with his aunts, Minnie and Lizzie Prigge, for the four years. He went on to school at Bethany College in Mankato and Concordia College in St. Paul. He graduated as a parochial school teacher and taught elementary school in Fond du Lac and Appleton, Wisconsin. At Fond du Lac the congregation was buying a new organ and as the church organist he was on the selection committee. While at the organ company, and after playing and recommending purchase of the pipe organ, he found his lifelong interest in organ construction. After one last year of teaching, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to apprentice for United Organ Company. He always referred to that day at the organ factory as the single day that changed his life.

In Milwaukee, he met and married his wife of 60 plus years, Flora (Olm), a teacher, and later a newspaper reporter and librarian. Together they followed the lure of building and designing new pipe organs, completing installations, and providing service and tuning to hundreds of organs in churches throughout the country. From Milwaukee they moved first to Louisville, Kentucky, where their two oldest sons, Philip and Andrew, were born. They relocated in the Chicago area, living in Arlington Heights, Illinois, to better serve churches in Illinois and Indiana. Their third son, Steven, and daughter, Ann, were born while in Illinois.

After 15 years of travel and nights away from home, the family relocated in Minnesota near his family, living in the country near Goodhue, where Murray had his shop and continued his organ work, completing installations from Pierce, Nebraska, to California and Maine, in Minneapolis, St. Paul and nearby areas. Flora continued her work as a teacher, a newspaper reporter at the Republican Eagle in Red Wing for 12 years, and as children's librarian, assistant director, at Zumbrota Public Library for 23 years, and until retirement.

In Minnesota, Murray achieved his most satisfying goal of designing and completing the reinstallation of the Kilgen Pipe Organ at the Sheldon Theatre in Red Wing. That was a labor of love that continued for the rest of his life. He enjoyed playing the organ himself, but often he would sit in the balcony outside of the organ chambers to hear the variety of sounds. He installed bird calls, truck horns and bass drums in the upper reaches of the theatre above the proscenium arch. He loved hearing it played and analyzed every nuance of the variety of sounds.

His last installation was the Burfeind designed and built organ at St. Norbert College in DePere, Wisconsin. That Burfeind organ was an original with Subczyk and Meyer pipes built to order in Milwaukee. Originally it was installed in the La Crosse home of Betty Mittlestadt, and later purchased and moved to St. Norbert College in 2012 and 2013.

Murray's practice organ in his shop in rural Goodhue was well played and well loved, but he also built furniture, with a special interest in Stickley mission, enjoyed now by friends and family.

Flora continues to live in rural Goodhue. Children are Philip (Kimberly) of New Brighton, MN, Andrew (Jacqueline) of St. Paul, Steven (Brenda) of Sioux Falls, SD, and the Rev. Ann Burfeind (Florian) of Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. Grandchildren are April (Chuck) Knower and Elizabeth AKA Betsy Burfeind, Adriana, Harli (Craig) Mulder, Carl (Miranda) and Austyn, and great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents, one sister, Helen Amundson, two brothers, Donald and Gerald, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles.

A celebration of his life and burial will be at Belvidere Union Cemetery, rural Lake City, at a later date. Memorials are requested to Deer Crest Assisted Living or to donor's choice. Arrangements with the Mahn Family Funeral Home, Bodelson-Mahn Chapel, Red Wing. Online condolences may be left for the family at www.mahnfamilyfuneralhome.com