My father's boyhood sounds like some kind of American Heritage antique story: a straight-A student who rose every day at four in the morning to milk the cows and get all his other farming chores done before running off to school – about a five mile jog. The region's two-blackboard high school incorporated students from every age and grade, excepting kindergarten. Still, with a graduating class smaller than most school football teams today, the 7-boy basketball squad beat almost every big city team in Indiana, narrowly missing out on the state championship. Six-feet tall with legs like steel beams, dad played center.
My mother and father didn't find their way into antiques and auctions to invest money; they were looking for a way to save money. Our house
was a queer one compared to the neighbors. All the other kids in the new suburbs on Palmer Drive in South Windsor had brand new store bought furniture. The Smiths had a curved upholstered sofa so valuable they kept it sealed up in clear plastic so no one would spill anything on it or even sit on it. Not us. We had all this old stuff. Mom made it look pretty though.
Baby sitters were expensive in 60's just as they are today. When Ford introduced a new type of work vehicle called a van, dad bought one and went to work installing padded benches that turned into beds and cabinets and lights and even a TV! When mom and dad spent Thursday evenings at LeClaire's auction, Amy, Keith and I bundled up in blankets and watched our wonderful battery-powered black-and-white television. We took turns holding the antennae so that one channel came in – fuzzy. When conditions allowed a program to actually be seen and heard, we turned into astronauts circling the earth in a space capsule. What a wonderful new age we lived in!
Before long, I began attending the sales. Dad and I played a game where we would try to guess what something would bring just as it was brought up on the block. Then, the auctioneer would hammer it out. Closest one to the realized price -- wins. All total, I remember, somehow, beating dad at many of our afternoon and evening auction competitions. He didn't mind though. Gave me one of his proud looks that just kind of glowed on him anywhere he went. Some people just carry a kind of pride with them that completely eliminates the need to brag or knock others or complain when things don't go the way you want them to. It's a kind of grace, a gentle dignity. Dad had it.
My father was a brilliant engineer who designed electron-beam welding equipment and robots. I remember a time when many of the men who lived on Main Street in Woodbury worked at Unimation Robotics. American workmen who made machines to help other workers make things. I wish that part of the story didn't sound so antique these days.
When dad retired, he assisted mom her antique business – Daria of Woodbury, and later in my business. He was never an antique "nut" though. Dad's passion was for things like old tube driven wooden radios, sextants, Kentucky rifles and other things engineers are often geared toward. He loved weathervanes and pre-1830 "period" furniture. He taught me how to appreciate the smell of seasoned wood and recognize its various grains from New England white pine to tiger maple to plumb pudding mahogany. Construction aspects were of a particular interest. Dovetailing and mortise and tendon joinery holds a special fascination to engineers – and for that matter – most of us.
Dad never quite enjoyed antiques in his retirement days, at least from dealing and collecting standpoint, quite to the extent as he would have liked. Cancer got him. And then diabetes, and finally Parkinson's. The most reliant and independent man I have ever met was forced to rely quite heavily upon my mother and I over the last decade or so. Despite all his ills, I never saw him complain. Not even once. Made things all the easier on mom and myself.
Was dad the most passionate and dedicated antique dealer and collector I ever met? No. Not even close. He was just kind of a regular guy when it came to antiques. He loved history and things fashioned by hand by men and women who care deeply about their work. Dad didn't have to own a valuable antique to enjoy it. Often, he was happy just to look, the same way we enjoy snow-capped mountains and the red and amber glow when the sun meets horizon. 77 years strong and embracing life every day, the sun came to set for my dad a little over a few weeks ago. Not a legend in the world of antiques, just a regular guy. And you know; that's the most important type of man there is.
A Man Whose Character Transcends Time
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