the welte firm and its founders suffered heavily in world war ii. after the war, simonton wrote to edwin welte in an attempt to locate music rolls for his pipe organ. welte answered that he had only managed to save about sixteen organ rolls, which he would exchange for food. he added that he and bockisch had lost nearly everything in the war, but had managed to hide some of the piano rolls in a barn in the black forest. in 1948 simonton travelled to germany and went with welte to the remains of the factory, which had been completely destroyed by bombing in 1944. nothing remained standing; only the hidden master rolls in the black forest had survived. simonton worked with welte and bockisch to rescue the legacy of the rolls. they played the rolls on bockisch's steinway-welte piano and simonton recorded the sound onto a tape recorder, an invention which was also extremely rare at the time. these tapes were released as lps by columbia records in 1950. welte and bockisch selected and sold the best of the rolls to simonton in 1948; some of the boxes arrived with straw from the barn still in them. he bought more from bockisch's widow in 1952. simonton remained in correspondence with welte and bockisch for many years, sending food parcels and other supplies, and welte's daughter lived with the simonton family for a time. after the initial purchase, welte and bockisch also found a steinway-welte piano for simonton. many of the rolls have since been re-recorded from that piano and issued on cd. simonton ultimately donated the rolls to the music library at the university of southern california.