The Post-Depression Years

After a steady and successful run of almost seventy years, the firm was almost completely wiped out by the financial ravages of the Great Depression. The company had invested heavily in the building of the new Mount Vernon factory, which it was forced to sell.

The company survived the years leading into the Second World War with some restoration and occasional new organ work. Operating out of a two floor shop on Morningside Avenue in Yonkers, the firm concentrated largely on maintenance, with nearly 300 service agreements in the New York metropolitan area.

From the postwar era to the 1970s, while the various neoclassical tonal movements threw the domestic organ building world into upheaval, the Odells labored in relative obscurity. In 1979 firm Director William H. Odell (son of Caleb H.) died, the result of major coronary failure. As manager and sole remaining voicer of the firm, William's death seriously diminished the abilities of the firm. In order to meet commitments to existing clients, the workload was distributed to third party contractors, some of whom tragically used the opportunity to further their own businesses, as well as help themselves to company resources, occasionally without compensation to the firm.

In an attempt to restructure, during the early 1980s the company was reorganized from a family proprietorship into a Corporation with elected officers selected from among family stockholders. It was in this fashion that William's youngest brother Harry Odell, acting as Director, made an effort to continue the firm. Regrettably, the inability of the firm leadership to reposition itself in accordance with market shifts, combined with the downward momentum from William's death proved too much to overcome. The Corporation was officially dissolved in 1983 and the major assets of the firm were sold.

Contrary to some anecdotal history of this period, the title of the firm always remained property of the family. In point of fact, the company never truly shut down; it instead continued to operate with a small roster or service clients, much as it did during the prewar years. Title of the firm officially passed from Harry Odell to his eldest son Edward in 1993.

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