Carol Scott interview with Carl Andrus

The John Burrison Georgia Folklore Archive recordings contains unedited versions of all interviews. Some material may contain descriptions of violence, offensive language, or negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. There are instances of racist language and description, particularly in regards to African Americans. These items are presented as part of the historical record. This project is a repository for the stories, accounts, and memories of those who chose to share their experiences for educational purposes. The viewpoints expressed in this project do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the Atlanta History Center or any of its officers, agents, employees, or volunteers. The Atlanta History Center makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in the interviews and expressly disclaims any liability therefore. If you believe you are the copyright holder of any of the content published in this collection and do not want it publicly available, please contact the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center at 404-814-4040 or reference@atlantahistorycenter.com. This recording starts with Carl Andrus discussing his family background and his fathers work as copper miner. At 8:01 he remembers when he became interested in metalwork after watching local blacksmiths as a child in Calumet, Michigan. Andrus then defines blacksmithing and lists some historic blacksmithing jobs such as pulling teeth. At 19:25 he shares his educational background which included an apprenticeship in Jackson, Michigan, and at 34:42 he recalls working as a technical advisor for Bell Aircraft during World War II. Next, Andrus remembers moving to Atlanta, Georgia, and opening his own blacksmith shop. At 43:33, he explains that the man he apprenticed to in Jackson, Michigan, came from a line of blacksmiths. Then at 57:35, he discusses a recent revival of interest in blacksmithing and problems in the industry. At 1:08:03, he talks about blacksmithing projects he would like to complete such as making a spinning dancer. Next, at 1:13:11 Andrus explains why he does not like recent trends in modern art and explains blacksmithing techniques for materials like copper and bronze. To conclude the interview, at 1:22:56 he lists projects he has completed, including a plague for the National Chrysanthemum Society. Carl Andrew Andrus (1910-1987) was born to Andrew Andrus (1882-1952) and Katherine Novack (1883-1945) in Calumet, Michigan. In 1930, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, and in 1942, he moved to Buffalo, New York. He married Ethel Brince (1915-2010) in 1944, and together they had three children: Brice (1945- ), Carol (1952- ), and Joyce (1958- ). He owned a blacksmith shop where he focused on decorative metal work. He died in Atlanta, Georgia. 'rI-lE MODJ<;RN BLACK,3MI'rH BY CP,ROL ANDnUS :icorr IN'l'RODUCT ION MAP TABLE OF CON'l'ENTS P.l P,3 INTEnVIlcW NOV. 5 P. 4 IN'rbRVIEl/1 NOV. 17 P. 16 PICTUR!cS REL1'Af5E P. 25 P. 28 Interviewing my own father presented many problems. He is very sensltive about not having a Hie;h School de{ioree, althoue; h he has taken many adult courses such as rapid reading and speech, and real e,3tate. He is a "believer" of Dale Carnegie, ( perhaps because they are look-alikes, they' re not related) He was very uneasy about the interview; he kept putting it off, Both times that I started the interview, he wanted to "rehears[ what we were goine; to say, he even suggested that I write out a scrlptl When we talked, he was trying to put his Dale Carnegie coursec to work: he 1ias very consciou,, of the recl!J'rder, for exawple, look at the interview of Nov. 15, page1.0 where he even addresses the tape recorder! ("We' re looking up on the mantel") rhe firr3t recording was made at his wroue;ht iron shop at 2075 Pledrnont Rd, NE Atlanta, Ga. 30324, F'ulton County. rhat I s why you hear all that noise from the heavy traffic, The interruptionB are where customers came ln, or the phone rang. He is trying to rent the shop and the house thst we used to live in behind the shop; actually, he would love to sell it, but he hasn't had any luck wlth it on the market, He wants to set up a small shop in his home, just for hifl own work. He wants to e;et his real estate license, too. There~ no such thine; as retirement for my father, althout,:h he is now 64. He is very husky, end J.oolrn much youne;er thun he iB. HiB hair has been wh"t te since he was 18. The fa111ily moved lbut of the house in 1971, and moved to 4085 \'IJ.euca Rel, NE Atlanta, Ga. 303,12, Fulton. This is where the second intr:rvlew took place. 'rhere are three children in the family, rr1eir tw:ln boys boys died at blrth in the early 191+O 1s, Brice was born in 1945, I waR born ln 1952, and my siBter, Joyce, was born in 1958, My father is very proud that we are all musicians; he wanted me to make a point of it, My brother plays French Horn w:lth the Atlanta Symphony, I am a plano major hece at Ga. state, and my slstGr studies flute, :lMy father took some music courses at Eastman. His family also was musical; they each played an instrument. My father is very anxious to assert himself as an artist, I'm still not sure if he attributes any of his knowledge and techniques to his apprenticeship, or whether he thinks of this as his own inn ova ti on, It I s hard to tell: he can I t tell me, because it's a way of life wlth him. I couldn't observe him actually workine; because the shop is practlcally defunct, All I can do is scrounge up some me1nories of the way it used to be, and I have to admit, I wasn't very observant, HowevEr, Id.id notice a few thlngs that hinted of the psst. He keeps his tools and eguipment hanging fro1n beams across the ceiling, not on nails on a wall, or hooks. Thls re111:lnds me of the blacksrni th shops he mentioned in Kalurnet, when they had conveyor belts suspended from the celling curryine heavy equipment. Maybe I'm just grabbing at straws? Well, even if you doubt tl}e traditional qualities of his occupation, you at least have to Bdmit that it is a folk art, !Us educati.on 111rn based mostly on demomitration and casual Instruction, as well BB a lot of trial Bnd error. He made some changes Bnd did thinc;s to hi.s own taste. 'rhe thin0s he makes are both creative Bnd utll:l.tar:Lan, And he has pBssed on the "trBditlon". 'ft>"?'$' ,,,) \J0 \ Ct . \; ( (~;, 'l)e, , ,,,W ' \ fl . " .j' ,,......,, , I I CS. I guess we ought to start chronologically and just go back to your famJ.J.y. 'l'ell me about y<.rnr father and your mother. They came :from ... I know your :father came from the ()a,rpathian Mts. Where did your mother come from? CJA. She was born tn Berlin, Germany ... of Polish descent. CS. OK. did they . . OIL She was horn there. Did she . . they both come over separately with their families? CJA. Yes, they were, they were separate. CJS. And they both happened to w:Lnd up in, um, Kalumet? CA. Kalumet, Mich. CJS. And they met there? OK. CA. That's up there, right up there (unintelligible) around Lake Superior. CJS. Can you thinlc of any general date when they did come over - like when your father ... was he a boy here? ... or ... were they ... CA. That I don't have information on, in fact I never thought about it! Uh, course the eh, we were all born and raised up in Kalumet and course that would ... I was born in 1910 and the oJ~er sister, CJaroline, was born ... she's 2 years ahead of mB, so that would be about 1908. CS. How many brothers and sj_sters? CJA. I had uh 2 brothers - one died when he was 5 years old. And uh, gosh I have to stop and think about it - (laughter) - number of sisters . . . GS. 5, 6 ? CA. Well, there's Caroline, there's Bertha, and Barbara, and Dorothy, and ,Joan. How ma.ny? GS. 5 OK. CJA, 5 OK. 1 course we had 8 altogether. That I s 3 boys, why that made it 8. - break - CS. Back to the interview. Ok,, um, you had just told me the number of sisters - we decided you had 5 - OK. Can you describe your family and their economic position, and the community? Your father was a copper miner, right? CA. Well. '.l'hat 1 s right, he was one of the 2 best miners j_n that area, and uh ... he ... did very well finaiilo!Lailily,y We always had ... we were the f:Lrst ones to have an automobile, we were the :first in the neighborhood, the first ones to have electrical, electricity. He was quite advanced. He had the inside toilets and things like that (laughter) we were the first ones, believe it or not. So he comes :from a kind of self-sufficient, he was quite a , . craftsman. And uh, course he picked up his cra:ftsmanshj.p from his grandfather, I don't remember him talking about his :father, but his grandfather. CS. Craftsman? CA. Was a craftsman and also taught, taught crafts and things in hiG uh, home village. CS. Like, like what? CA. Uh, carpentry, anything in that, in that nature. 1 eourse my dad was pretty well, he could do just about anyi;hj_ng. lfo could repair Bhoes, could cut hair, he could take and, he was a good :farmer, waB very, very good at raising vegetables, and uh ... CS. Well, considering the community he probably grew up in, they had to be self-sufficient. CA. Uh yes, but I would say he was above average. He was quite active in, in various things. He could pick up lenguageB, he had a knack o:f picking up languages and up there, o:f course, we had a lot of Finnish people, and people couldn't talk English, and o:f course he'd, he'd wind up in a pigeon English type of conversation with them, and he could strike up a conversation with juBt about anybody. Didn't inake any difference what nationality, he spoke, at least, on an understanding level, about 7 or 8 languages. CS. Gosh - coming into contact with people,8id he speak English fluently? CA. J\fo, no he spoke u.h .. , He had a thtng about English. He c,ould :read a paper, kept up w:L th news. And uh, courBe Russian was h.is main, he was well, well - uh- read in the R.uBG i.an( languaze, he tried to get us inter.e_Gted in_ i t 1 l.Jut, we uh, laughs; li.e eouldn't sel.1 us. We had an oppori;1mity to really learn RusGian, course i.t wouldn't have made any difference all these years anyway. CS. I thought he tried to emphasi11e urn, being American, and, not doing things the old way, like in the old country, but doing it tbe way Americans (unintelligible), .. CA. Not exactly, he used, cause he, uh, limited his a small farmer, he always had ... arranged with the uh rn:ining company - he had property - always had - find some place where he had 2 or 3 acres where he could take and ... to put jn. We had cows o:f courBe, always had 1 or 2 cows, so \'le, cairne with a large family it made ends meet and also made theBe other things poBsible. He ah, courBe back in those days, why things like bread and things - my mother had to do that, The uh, it wasn't going to the flfi?re for every little thing, so :Lf at all possible, would, CS. I know you had chickerw, that's why you hate chicken, GA, Yeab, tried to get r:Ld of the roosters, (laughter) 2 chickens every Sunday - we had a lot of company, that was a big meal. The uh, then of course he also did a lot o:f things 7 :i ke . . . He's make swings, he I d take and negotiate w:i.Lh our lumber yard foreman, the man in ehart;e of it, and uh, he I d get the material and uh, be I d get enough to make 2 and he'd make like these big garden swings, and uh so, he'd get the material and he'd make 2 of em - and he did his own designs. He designed all his own things, why, no eh, he didn't go from drawings at all, he knew just from his knack of worldng it out - he never made any drawings in advance - went along as he ma.de things. I-le ma.de, made a wagon o:f, out of hardwood which, it was real heavy, and uh I developed good strong legs 1eause trying to matcb up these kids with these 1:i. ttle coaster wagons they'd buy. GS. Oh. CA. It was, you'd get down on the side - walk you know, and push that thing with your knees ... and pump with your right leg and that thing was lickety-Bplii; it had iron, iron, it was real heavy like one o:f these ... CS. ~'anks ! i ,;-i \ -. ! CA. .. big funnel wagons only on a small scale, a model thing,. CS, I just hope you didn't run into any kids! CA. Only thing :Ls, \'le didn I t have a pony to pul1 it (laughs), so I developed stront legs. CS. Did your :father ever do any iron work'? CA, No. No, that was one thing, uh, he never did get into, in fact I didn't either at that particular time, except at, at school. I was interested in vocational course, and arts, and uh ... CS. This was late high school? CA. Uh, no. I was a freshman. You start out as a freshman . you start out this group, you start off, what it was you had 3, 3 I think they were 13 week sessions, and you spent certain 1st - ;you had a choice - you had a woodshop, (a carpenter shop) a woodshop, and they had the machine shop, and then they had a blacksmith shop. 'l'hose were the 3 courses that were involved and of course they'd take and they'd rotate the students into the different classes. So they had to take . . . but you had to take all 3 of em. And uh, so, the blacksmithing of course, why that's where I first learned uh, how to blacksmith, However, blacksmithing, experience and uh, interest preceded that by quite a bit. Here my :father goes into a lengthy but interesting description of the community and the mines and the machine shops. 'l'o summarize: He would go through the machine shops as a shortcut; this is where he first was interested in blacksmithing. The shops wero huge beeause of the large parts needed in the mines. Si ride they were so far from everything, the mines had to be self-sufficient .. CA. Inside the door, it seems to be typical of blacksmiths, they' rn alwayn neac a door, partly because of the heal, and the closest place ho getl;ing some,,some cool.ing air. Just like in this pietnre over hero, CA. Sec, the forge ... J c;ot another story on one like tha.t, too. 'rhe uh, so these 2 l,lacksmi ths, a.s we'd stop, we' a watch them. And, of course, I :found it interesting to observe every time. They had a helper 1,nd they'd take the hot iron and strike the hot molten metal, why, they'd take and ... sparks were spattering in all directions and of course the uh, the way the sparks uh, would go - and i.t was a.,lso interesU.. ng to observe what the other kids were ddling, they'd say "oohooh, .look at the sparlrn, 11 a.nd things like that. They'd get down, and ... but they weren't watching what was going on - all they saw, saw the effects like a, l.ike uh ... CS. Fireworks. CA. J<'ireworks. And, but I was watcfuin,o; what was happening; and why they were dol.ng those things and of course how they a_p pro ached and how the man was, swung the sl. Hdc;e hammer 11nd how they'd work, o:f course, they'd tap on the .iromi. But the, it was real interesting. So of course when I went to high Bchool I'd al:ready had uJJ that observation experience bchi.nd ,na, and uh, so uh ... I did well with it. Then I went to ,rnodi~hop, and I Bpeot moce time with woodwork than I did w.ith anything else. We didn't do no~')\e,.,e.weldi.ng :in those dayB, schools wcren I t teaehinc; Llw.i.. was, that came later, automobiles ... CS. What kind of welding? CA. f'<c..e--\ ~> \<:.t, e._., welding, like this welding w.i th the torches, and electric welding wasn't, they weren'+ using that, well they might have back in the, back in some areas, but see it wasn't on our path. I uh, but that went on for years, Go by through there - very, very i.nteresting. Later on as I grew older and of course had other occassion to visit they had blacksmith shops, the blacksmith shop alone had about 200 blackamiths working, then and o:f course they had the big :foundry and uh, it was ... it was just that large an operation. It was an experience that a lot of people uh, missed - because they don't even have knowledge what goes on in these remote areas like that, so the uh . GS. I take it that by your definition of blacksmith you mean anyone that works with metal? Or ... CA. Well, blacksmithing .is all uh, not necessarily working with metal. Metal fabrication is different than blacksm.i th.ing uh, and not necessarily pa.rt of one part of the other. :B'abr.ication is a case of using uh, wouldn't necessarily have to do, be a blacksmith at all, just a quest.ion of cutting the mater: i.als length and welding it to some structure or riveting it, dr:L11.ing holes and riveting .i t 1 uh. 1.'hose are all, that I s uh, what they call mechanical fabrica.tion, not metal fabrication. But lllacksm:i thing is a question of heating metal and forming it into a desired shape. CS. Oh. GA. You have to ta.ke and, if you want a certain thing in a certain shape, you have to get it in a molten sta.te where it will take and, and work into a. uh, the desired shape. It I s required and of course, the only welding they do i.s called forge welding. But it's .interesting, and of course now there's a current trend of uh, young people, uh, picking up the i.nformation. There's a new uh, group being formed here, uh, in Atlanta, and uh, hooks are being written on it, things that no other(?) in the uh, in the past, unless you go way back into the past. There ar,~ books th.is group ill collecting uh, copies of books that go back to early days and uh, they w:i.11 be available, but right now, you have to search out these books, and generally they're done in some other foreign language, German, and uh, things that other people have specialized in. England of course had a uh, they had apprentices for it because they used an awful lot of iron 4 work. So ell., all through Europe you find a lot of places where iron was usually in uh, was very much in demand: gates - uh, any any kind of closures. So its uh, (laughs) a pretty big field. CS. So many people think of blacksmithing as just shoeing horses, like, you know, the picture. CA. That's, that's true. That's a typical thing, and they uh, come in for repairs, and they had aome broken part, the blacksm:Lth shop was the place to go. And I understand they even, that was 1Jack in the early days, why, they also dou,bled as dentists. Yeah, I saw that. They had, they had the tools and they had the muscles so (laughs) extract teeth. Yeah. J1don't.k-nowhwhat thEev d:Ld.fQr 'l'"tc81J.rse oue thin12: about a u acKsmi~n sop is, one ~fling a _u. i peopie do, even now, they go to a blacksmi_th shop and they, the uh, water they use to quench the steel, uh, through the process of quenching steel, the heating and uh, whatever action there-is, has medicinal quali ti.es. They get a burn or a cut, they just take their hand and they just dump it in the water and it will - it sterilizes it, how it does, I don't know - I never could trust it. But it's being done. I u.rid~rstand talking with these old timers, that uh, they've had cases where people would take and come in and get a bottle, get a bottle of the uh ... take it home and just use it for an antiseptic. And of course (laughs) it makes it rather interesting - lots of things go on like that. CS. That's something I've never heard of. I mean, uh. CA. Well, you're hearing it now. (laughs) It must burn off the oxygen. So uh, anyway, the only way I got into ornamental iron of course the uh - I was travelling, I was selling welding equipment. CS, Wait. What happened between freshiuan year in high school and, what happened after that"? You know, you were talking about your .tntroduction into blacksmithing in workshop in your freshman year in high school. ( Summ.a. ry:) .My :fr,ther cl roppe~ out. of. hi.f;;ll nchool in 1927 ( to lu.n regret,), not completing his JUnJ_or year. I.at er he went back ~nd :finjshed his junior year, but again grew restless and left, He went to an el.ectronics school in Chi.cago, but he didn't stay wi.th that long, He attended the U, S. Airplane school, where he worked a 11 ttle with metal, He went to Detroit and worked with the automobi.le induntry for a while. CA, ... and then I went back selJ.ing, selling this welding equipment, and that took me all through Minnesota, Wi.sconsin, Mi.chigan, lower Mi.chi.gan, no I did quite a bit of travelling with that, then I uh, well . On one of these traveln I stopped at uh, this shop called Uniq1rn Iron Works in ,Jacknon, Mich. So we visited, and he said, "How about you selling my line?'' Well, I tried it, his Jine, ... He wan, he had a 1.t.ne of flowerpots, brackets and things like that for the florist trade, and plant brackets, so I uh, I did well, I went out and I sold a lot of h:is stuff. And nex,t trip I went to eall back on I got most c1:f it back, 'cause the paint wouldn I t hold up, and they, they couldn't sell :it. So I got the things back and uh, to the shop and I said, ''Well, look what are you going to do about this?" And uh, he says, "look, you've had experience in this thing,, how 'bout you runn1ng the shop?" So I kept up for about; 6 months. Ji'inally I got bored with trave11ing, cold weather and all, dJ.f:ferent places every night, why uh, so I uh, he made it attractive. I could stay .in h:is home. His wJ.:fe was a Swede and she made the best food for the, she dJd a lot of cooking. She' a been the cook :for a very, very weal thy family and she I a travel with them, They had a place down J.n Palm Beach and she I d be wi .. th the family down in Palm Beach. They had a pla.ee up in New York, and she I d uh go up there with them and prepare the meals. So she had the know-how, and I couldn't resist that (laughs). So I was there about a year and a half and I, the more I did of course, the shop, I took over. I had to go through the entire cycle: Ironwork goes in cycles, summertime certain things are i.n demand li.ke gates anc1 railings and things of exted.or work, Later on i.\; gets around fireplace equipment around cold ,re at her, and again, it c;oes through va.rious things like that, a repeated cycle each year, and it's even true now. So, uh, I was the foreman, I was also the chief designer, I was also the salesman, and uh - so I was learning, but I had to learn aB I go, as I went along. We uh, we had :fun, I made a screen there, I remember a ;Job we did, a :fireplace screen for a wealthy oilman, It ws.s H, one they had taken out of a book, the screen ws.s a 3/f:' -~; \ :.\,\ sereen, and it had a uh design uh, k:i.nd of s., actualty kind of like the, kind of' a w:i.ld .. , CS. (unintelligible) GA, Uh, the wild, out in the uh, .. Let's put it th:ts way - it's a moonlight night, the lake :ls the background with the s:i.lhouettes back through there, there's 2 ballet dancers :in a uh .... CS. On a fireplace screen? GA. Oh yes. They had the fireplace screen - I've got a picture of' it here, different ones ths.t similar ideas, they have the design into it and of course, the, the silhouette shows up black as against the f'i.re, see. CS. Oh. CA. It drs.ws it out, and of courBe this ts one of thoBe Bcenes, I modernized lt, the one that was :i.n the book was H, the dancers were kind of wi.ld, more 1:i .. ke a, darn, the words escape me here, like these goats, what do they eall them, .. ? CS. Goats!? CA. No, no, now wait a minute. '.Phis goat-head eel man, what do they oall him? GS, Oh, oh, like P;\l,.ck? CA. Like Plb,ok - that was the ehars.cter of it Bee ... CS. Centaurs 1 , , , CA. 'rhe feeling of' it, abandoned, with s.nd uh, so I modernized lt, brought it up to date with the modern ballet dancers s.nd uh, in other wordB, holding their hands together, that waB the pose they were in, and uh, of course for my bs.llet dancer I needed a model to get the position of the arms. We had a young :fellow, not a young fellow, he was older than I was, but he was Bmall, a fell.ow we cs.lled Popeye, GS. Popeye! (laughs) CA. Popeye, He was ... GS. Did he eat spi.nBch? CA. He was, he 1nrn a tough eharaol,cr, I don't kno11 about spinach, but that's what we ealled him. He was ready wi.th hiB fists just like Popeye, He was there with a leather jacket, it waB oold in the w:i.ntert.ime, no heat .in the building, so we had a, I had him pofrnd so I could gel, the arm position, you'd be surprised how dainty he got to looking (laughs) b11t it was verir .interesting. So word got around to different artists, there was one fellow was a very, very prominent artist, I can't even th:i.nk of his name. 'I'h:i.B fellow Claude JacobB, the fellow I worked for, took and uh, had, had talked about :Lt, and of course theBe people, these artists would come down and watch what r was doing - they'd just come in and stand and look over my Bhoulder, and not Bay a darn thing. J1rnt stay there about 5 or 10 minutes, and then 2 or 3 days they'd come back and see how it was going. So apparently it waB quite successful. It's one of those things you do once, one of a kind, you put your all into it, and uh you wouldn't want to do another cine once you get that done, why you go on to something dLfferent. I get bored with repetition. So the uh, but, :i.t was very, very successfu], comments came on back through high circ.leB about the quality of it, the endironB the whole thing, they were fine. ;Jut those, those th.i.ngs made it qu.ite intereBting. Anyway, eventually I uh I wasn't mek.ing any money, I wouldn't, (unintelligible~ I - th1s apprenticeship and Claude of course, was able to teach me certain things, once from the start, because h1s father, he grew up, his father was a blacksmith and a.lso a vet, worked, uh, and of course, J ... we called him ,Jake, ,Jake would take and help UB, until he reached the point where he went off on his own - he waB a charnoter in hi.ms elf, but tho uh, anyway, the uh, J finally q11it that and uh, I went back to Detroit, and uh, friends of mine were, inv1ted me to, that time of year, wanted me to go on and join them in selling th1s welding equipment, I was, previously been working on and uh, so we went on down to Florida. I met him ct6wn, rendezvous, went down 9pend Florida, came on back, and uh, then I went to Skaneateles, New York to, still sold, and of course wherever T'd be selling I alwayB stop at shops, wrought iron shops and blacksm1th shopB, even boatB, T'd climb aboard - and get on, and usually get thei.r problemB, and Bee what they're do1ng. There wasn't a town, R.ochester, New York, Buffalo, uh, shops down 1n l<'lorida we worked, we could work wherever we wanted, could go in any direction. So we'd work our way back from Florida, we'd conrn on back through - I worked Atlanta, this partner fellow I mm working w.i th, he'd work Macon, no I worked Macon, and he eame up to Atlanta, that 1B right, just the reverse, but we'd :finally rendezvo,rn here. Uh, then we parted wa,ys, he went back to Skaneate1es tho eastern route and I went back up to DetroJ.t which iB",m,y stomping grounds, my family iB there, and uh then from there T went back to, I p.i.cked up again 1n Skaneateles and got assoc.i.ated w1th a pJ.ace call.eel Strip-it, 'Pool&: Dye. And uh, worked with that for a while, then of course, :from there I went to J3ell AJ.rcraft, and uh. CS, Did you start - CA. Pardon. CS. Did you ever work with flell A:Lrcraft up North? CA. Up North, oh yeah, that's where I started. as. Where? What city? CA. Up in Buffalo. CS. What were you doing there? \3 CA. Oh, I was in charge of tool control - that's tooling and, which is a process of gcttini, that was just getting the time we were geared up fol' W.W. II uh, we were building B-49's and I of course had a lot of experience in tooling and uh. The fellow I worked with at Strip-it '11001 & Dye was in charge of employees over there, transferred and went over to I em, called me up and says, "Carl, I got a darn good job for you," and uh, so I went and talked to hi.m and said OK. I Liked it for a change 'cause there was more aetion there, uh wide - I had freedom of the plant, so I could roam, and uh, there was so much more going on so the uh ... CS. Was this before or after you were married? Mom was living ... CA. Before and what, after, yeah, I was there before, before we got married. She was teaehing 11chool, high school down in Andover, N. Y. , which iB 90 m:i. len fJOuth of Buffalo, and I uh tran8ferrcd from Strip-it to Hell AJ.rcraSt whJ.le she waB teachLng, and uh ... CS, How Jong was it before they transferred you to Atlanta? CA, Uh, they opened up th1B plant, the bomber H-29 plant down here in 1942 and uh, they needed 8omeone to take and, technical advisor for the purchasing department, uh, they were alJ buyers and so :forth, but they needed more exper:i.ence, Bomeone wJ.th more experience, and ub ... So uh, friends were over and we were talk.ing about the thing, and uh, "chance you go to Florlda, down uh to Atlanta, oh grab .it!'' So I talked to Ethel, my wi:fe, and said well, Bhe'd, and uh, I Baid "how abo11t it, want to go down, Lt'd be a change, 80 lets go. So uh, we did. I got a trarw:fer and came on down. 'l'hat was an tnterest:Lne experience too becau8e there was some question about the actual Bituation, and uh, it hadn't come through yet, so I aa:i.d, look, nhe wa8 half-paeked ready to go, ao I 1Hmt on down anyway. I Baid, "I' 11 e;o down :first and then l'll come back and pick you up. So I went on down there cn1d of courfrn week went by after week went by and they hadn I t actually got eBtablished down there: yet, 80 we had a uh ... ( telephone break). CS. Yeah, you had come down to get it set up - there~was no money, Mom was still up north. CA. cs . CA. Oh yeah. So we uh, anyway eame down here and get estalJ] ished. I :f:lnall,y went up and got uh, Mom, drove the car down, and uh, but the thing is, I'd talk to her, I'd be down here in Atlanta, and I'd sit Jn the hotel after an evening walk in the haJ.my breezes, and of eourse talking about the wind breezing Yeah. ... curtaj.ns wafting baek and forth in the breeze and you should have heard the eonversation at the other end. She S q'1d ''!lot, what 1. The1e's a raging blizzard 18 below zero . ' C,,., ' CA. Oh! CA .... looking at packing boxes, she was, she'd had it' CA. So that put an end to that. So I got her down, Anyway, after things went along ... CS. And yet she cried wh<ln she saw the red clay! CA. Oh yes, T' d already found a hou.se for us to move to, and uh, so i'in:fortunately we came on down past all theRe fa.rm houses and they were pretty de sol ate haek then, And of course the refri .. gerators Hnd tlle washing machines were generally out, ri.ght out on th.H front porch, they had no place in the back to put them and of course the proud possessions, they displayed them for everybody to see. CS. Yeah CA, So the uh, it was kind of a down heartening or disheartening type of Hpproach, and of course when we got to Atlanta it was, dark, and we were in a beautiful section, Longwood Ave. over here just off of Bol,by Jones golf course, during the da.,y it was hea.ut:L:ful, but we came on by and course on an impulse I ii aid, "look, tho house j s right down here, you want to go take a look'?" And it was all black, no street lights or anything. So the, that that was, that:was terrible for her becau.se Bhe, the house was real bi.c;, but the blackness of it and of course, no sidewalks, no you don't :find sidewalks :i.n Atlanta, not .Jn Lhe Buhurbs. However, the next day when she saw l;hingB by the daylight, why, it was a differ< nt picture. CS .. Yeah GA. Rventually, of courBe, after, they uh they wanted me to transrer t<> Seattle, Washington to take over the D-?9 cormnt ttee wh:i.ch tu a group that, that coordinated all act:i---vit Leu between the three plants tl1at were bu:i.l.ding the 8-?9 bombers and 11h, we were very tempted to do, hut tt was getting cloue to the end of the war, and 11h, however, T liked Atlanta, and we had plans to t:et mald.ng this wrought iron shop because I had enough experience in the thing. Big, big difference was, of course the, we were tempted because it meant more money 1,nd also :it meant a two weeks vacation and uh, two weeks travel t:ime to get out there which was kind of hard to, it took a l.:ittle mulling over to do, but we decided against :i.t. So ti" rd,arted studying Atlanta for the location for this business, nothing was available, no rent, no stores for rent, or anything, so we finally had to buy the property, however to start with we were renting a place out near, in Smyrna, beauttful little place, aores of land, running stream, we had a tremendous place for picnic gro11nds, and uh, it was just a picturesque place, And they uh, when the war came to an end, why we uh, the owner, :fellow by the name of Jaok Durkee, suggcBted we ,rne this lj.ti,le uh, they had a tenant house back in the distance up there, it had power to Lt, BO he :i.nv:i.ted us to use it, so we did. And uh, that was tho start o:[' our ornamental :i.ron liusiness. We set up a forge, and anvil, and other equipment outdoors, and uh we went to work mak:ing theBe things, things looked so easy that your mother, Ethel, dec:ided she wanted to take and do it, and she d:id an incredible job of blacksmithing, OSe I didn't know she did anyo CA. Oh sure, she made those, we were mak:ing, I made a sample up and uh, took it out, we got orders from H:Lch 1G and Davi.sons, sold first and uh, some uh, pl.ant lirackets, not uh plant brackets, but a uh magazine rack, plants in a maga~ine rack, So we went 1Jh to work and started making them up, and see how it was going. Hut we Hhould have had a salesman out making calls, cause we, we had no volume. However, the, when you do work like that your, you have to work on such a small. margin -- we decided we'd do mmtom work. However, we did have a job where we made about a thousand forms, just 1ike these right here (unintelligible) and they were - bridge lamp - a l.i.ttle - lamp. I designed and made :for 'em, they, they :furntshed thei.r own shaden. But that wan our :fi.rnt, second production job nnd that was aJl done over there, but that was qui.te, qu:i.te an operat:i.on. Course I was experienced with tooling so it wasn't a problem at all. We could take and gear the th:i.ng up, and mnke guide tooling that dJ.d the job fast and did it e:ffeciently. Hut then, that, that petered out. So we had a uh, then o:f course we::had to get a new location becru1se they had a tenant in the house, vacated that, we used h.Ls, his parking garage and parking area :for the nhop, then they sold the house, he had n.rthritiB in a bad way, and he so] d h:ls house and moved to Jcl orida, and of course the new owners wanted the ent.i.re plaee. So we had to get located. Anyway, we wound up the uh, bu.y:lng thh1 p.roperty on I':iedrnont Rd. and we've been here si.nce 1947, We hu:i.lt the house, had to move .i.n hofore it WM, eompleted 'cause there wasn't any ol,her p1aee, no apartments nva:Llable any where. So we uh, here we are. Nov. 17 cs OK. First I want to talk about your blaclrnrni th background and then I'll get to your famlly,\J;,l)h, rwho, was the man, was it Jack, what was h:ls name, the.t you leerned, you said you I.earned from him, you were apprenticed to him, more or less, CA Oh, that was in Jackson, Mich. and uh .. , CS Yeah, it was in Jackson, CA His name was Jake, Claude Jacobs, CS rhat I s what I couldn't understand, You said .someth:lng about hls father 11as a blackslllith, C& His father was a blacksmith and also a vet, and uh .. , CS You called him, but the guy that you knew, you called him Jake. CA Right, I think it's safe to surr~arize my father's memories of working in Jackson, Jake I s father was .strictly a horse shoeing blacksml. th. Jake h:i.mself seemed to have some problems wJ. th his occupr,tl.ons, but he finally settled down to running this shop. C:S Um, I know unt:ll lately you didn't really appreciate if anyone called you a blacksmith, the connotations of the title made you uh, feel (sigh) well, J.nferior? CA Oh no, not a bJ.t, not at all, CS Wel'l, I tl1ought, OK, for an example, when Roger Kluge said that, "Your father's just a blaclrnmi th" or something like that, you, well, I understood ,hat ... CA' Oh, you're right, In other words, in other words, the uh, they werei'i't givins me credit for the top eschelon(?) of accomplishment that I have, and being a blacksmith I was reverting to uh, back to ,-my back. As far as blacks,ni thing was concerned, why we I re established, all I did 1Jas tm train, I knew, it wasn I t u11 :, unt:ll recently now to do the worl~v1h,en I started my business until recently, since I haven 1t been able to find any hel~to do it that I've done any blacksmith work at all, But durine; my, since we first started, I trained, we were under the uh, veteran's training program, we h;rn a four year program which was approved, and uh, I trained fellows for their work and of course all my., all the people that I I ve trained found a job very readi.ly elsewhere. 08 Yeah, and set up their own. CA Some did, yes, set up their 01-m and uh, v1ent on from there. 1 cause they, the only two people we ever had., that really knew, understood the uh. the uh. art, the type of work we \'/Bro doing from the artistic standpoint, uh well, we just had two, One of them was a machinist, he was a fellow came in from Texas, but qrir;inally came from .Syracuse, around f3yracuse, another little re kl !u':! 11 fellow, a.nd he had a uh, but he was more a. machinist than a.n a.rtistic blacksmith, a.nd my big job with him was taking and turnin2: him loose, he was ver-y, ver-y accomplished as far a.s setting up toolwork and making jigs and things, he did well at making jigs and, he had a uh, but I turned him loose on an artistic job, I d uh haveto spend about half an hour- a.n hour just take, takeKand excess things, he 1d just load it up, For example, we were maldng nome kind of plant, plant bracket or sornethine; whicl, ls a decor-ative thine;, he just lacked the artlstic touch wher-e a few ,qtr-oke:: accomplishes more than loa.ding up the uh, project, whatever- you'r worldne; on with density, he made up'i.,,. Wh1?-t he lacked in artistic ubili ty he uh, uh, went overboard on loadine; up with excess. ao my job was to take and take out the excess and uh bring it back to an ar-tistic standpoint. That, that's the big .. CS (unintelligible) CA Rl.ght, not perfect unison (?) planning, Scroll worlt, he I tl take the scrolls, the leaves you Xd ,et a job putting leaves on the thing and wher-e, 11her-e someone would take and use say, half' a do dozen leaves, he'd probably put in about 25 or 30, CS (laue;hs) CA And, it uh,you lose the essence of , of the artistic culture of it, and that that is, that, the difference between an artistic bla cksllli th and a, and a uh, run of the mi 11 bla cksrni th. , a run of the mill blacksmith as are generally recognized end ar-e still being trained, however, they do the very, very plain elementary wor-k of ptittin(';, joining two pieces of meti:n together ond shaping it to a form, mostly for a, oh like a plow, work, for farmers end thl.ngs of that nature, B.nd that is what a true blacksrni th does. Now an artlstic blaclrnrni th .ls a different, uh, fvom uh, ther's no comparison between them, cauBe a blaclrnrnlth their still a blacksmith and yet their a craftsman, and even a craftsman will take and r8produce drvlctings faithfully, but he may not be an nrtistic blacksmith, In other words, he just can't start from ncratch and start and uh, and not ever knowing wh8re he I s going except for a general pattern develops a,i he goes along, and uh, that's an artint. So there 1h a big, a wide difference there between a pure blacksmith and an artist. I, I personally, I like the artistic standpoint and that's the reason why we never went in for volume production of rallin3s and columns, and thine;B of that nature, why, thBt, anybody could do. '.!)hat was just plain, course they put metals toiether, there's no, wasn't any artistic ability juBt a matter of developing a sklll in weldlng and things of that nature, But the true artlst, now that's the por-ion of that, ,1ith my artistic, all throUt>;h life, ,r had p,tudied art and uh, lt uh, it juBt flghts the artistic 2ense. CS ~/ell actually, since the timeo have changed, ho11 many horses do you run acro,1s now? Urn, (laughs) ther junt hod to be uh another outlet tor so many blaclrnmi ths I cauue their, their function just- they started shoeinG horBes- that's you know, I'm sure there' still are some bla,clrnrni ths that shoe h!!Yrnes.,, CA Oh, yes, CS ... but in order to make a living they had to branch out into other things. But I was surprised- we were lookin;,; at some books on folklore in Europe, and I just never thought of back then, like I think: I was loo\clne: at a Russian book where they had gated and everything, very ornate, the wrou5ht iron was very similar to yol!fr patterns, uh, .. CA Well, it was, .. CS rt~ nothing new. CII};: Well, tha.t I s true. The, the uh, it a.11 dependH on who designed. the ga.tes, and a lot of times the gates were designed. by the architects, They dewlgned them rlght on down to the detail. However, I ha.cl occasion to run into one of these old-timers, architect. He was out of town, ond we 11cre doi.ng the job, and., and uh, he gave me a design to worli: withtf and that's what He were supposed to have done, I couldn't find the material, and I c couldn I t find. him and I couldn I t fi.nd anyone in his organization to take and give me an OK, and why I just rna,1.e the decision myself, and uh, so when he returned and he waw what I had done, I said, "Well, look, this is what I had to do," and. he says," Well, look, we are the architects, and we are supposed to tell you what to do," CS (laughs) CA "And you come to us." And I said, "Yeah, 11here were you?" CS Uh-huh, CA I had men working, I said, I hod to make a decl.sion, He sayo, "Well, you did the rie;ht thing, but . ," CS ~1au3hs) "I hate to adrni t it, but ... " CA "'You did. the right thing, but th~, uh, he said," In the future, anytime you work for us you i.get i'at~110K from us, an approval, I said, "Yeah, sure." (lau~;rrn) I knew more about it than he did, I thl.nk. Otherwise he would hnve made the chan3e in the fi.rst place, CS Experience ls thE. best teacher, Um, tell me a litLle more about the carrent revival of blncksmlthlng, how you feel about it, you think ifs a good thing, ,au think they're overdoing it, or CA Well, it's, I'm a firm believer, and you've heard me talk about tl.me and time again, oll kinds of applications- I believe in the pendulum, CA Thnt old pendulum, -~ swl.n3 in one course, to one extreme then it reaches a peak ond then it swings back and. drops J.t, and. it goes bnck til it reaches it, in t~,t direction and comes back the other r0Y And. t~nt~ just the wny thfngs ,;ol you cnn't p~nrt it. I'n!j uh, revival now, people worln.ng, nnu J.t's uh croppinr; up in various places und it 1 h a problem in industry, 11here people, even blue- collar pe(1Jpile; the workers uh, so many of them are very unhappy working at a desk, pfushing a pencil, they need physical activlty. I think that claseifies myself like that, because I never could sit et a desk for long enough not even (?) during the war at Lockheed, I mean Bel Aircraft in thone days, and uh, I 1d 30 stir craz,y sitting back of a deslc and F11d. go back out to the shop and I spent most of my time at the factory. But I .knew the g'actory inside and out and of. course when the c executives ,:wanted some informatlon they knew where to go, and I had it almost at my fingertips. But the uh, trend is, and. it's a growing trend, ln fact, you just looked at that little cleaver ... CS Yeah. CA l\nd expressed an ppinion on it, I had to buy that thing because that was a souvenler of thlfl, down in LUlnpkin, Ga. They had a meeting of the uh, Well, convention you might call it, of the Blacksmiths of America. It 1 !, a new trend, :i.t 1 s been started off here, it's a book written by Alex Beeler which started things long. He uh, found it interest'ine, and uh, he is learning the trad.e,just as a hobby. He has a (unintelli3ible) to a lot of people, it 1 s a way of worlclng off steam. 'fhey 1ve got to work with their hands, or;'.,, L, ,. CS (laugh,1) I lrnoe;ine you could do 8. e;ood job of' it. WeL 6ht (f)f the iron ... CA Sure can. You get down, 8nd people are picking mt up as a hobby. And still it s hard tm find. someone as a consistentluh, to pay the prlce, to flnd, to pay the price, and take and rl.ave srnne handicraft work acco~plished, or done. With them uh, they pick up the antiques in vor1ous places, whl.ch uh are available on the market, uh but the17'er,.are some they've picked up over in Europe, .$pain, Italy, ma.inly England. Lots of t'unes they'd ta.ke these wrought iron gates that they 1:ere takinc; off estates in Jingland, Bnd, and they sold them for ballast in flh:l.ps, They'd just teke end, shipping w~s cheap because they'd just take end, just, t\llere 1-iasn 't eny crattne; or e.nythinr;. 'fhey just toolc the thing and piled 'em up down in the bottorw,of the ship encl brought them over here and uh, ot uh, made a big difference, So we saw so much of it, that's the reason we saw so much of it in savannah and see a lot of it in New Orleans, and I understand that s the wey that the uh, it was so cheap getting it over here. CS Hmm! CA It was, the foundry's ln Europe would take end cast these things ancloof course since they 1-1ere using them for ballast, wh~l t was cheap so, they I a use them very, ver-y inexpensively. CS Walt a mlnute. Those ere cosl:J? C~ That 1b cest iron now, But you see, yo,1 still have )o put it together into\"i, columns and grill,10rks, and then of course it 1 s wrought, The difference lots of people ( unintellie;ible) call cast ls wrought iron, and uh, wrought iron is somethine; that has been 11roue,ht by hand, or by machlne, but cac;tine; ls a molding process, But the uh, wuought iron that they use in, like I say, ln Charleston, New Orleans, the cast were wrought 1.nto form by jolnlng thern together and al.one; with steel to take and support the(uh, so you'd have some Btructural support. It makes a uh, that's the reason they use so much of it, they have the railings, All you have to do is look at a picture of New Orleans, and you see the uh, all the pictures portrylng all the ca.st iron in vn rious def,igns and so forth, and it I s very, very heavy. CS Oh. CA But it'~ uh, people still love it1, there~ still a place for it. C5 I think New Orl.ea.ns haf, the most interesting patterns, but I was rea.lly overv1helmecl with the amount of wroue;ht iron grillwork, whatever, th, Savannah,,, CA Not (7) for the same reason. C5 A little overdone, CA Course for the same reason, and they take and use 1 t very profusely and I uh, have an idea thnt a lot of people put l.t up ca.use that waB a status symbol. CS Yeah, that's what it looks lilce, and recently too, some of' lt, CA Persomally, I don't, it has it's place but uh, I like the, I llke to have something wrought. They make, course the, it's the cheapest way, cause after all once they havre a pattern, they jurJt take and cast it, and they can reproduce thou,wnds and thourJands of 'em from the one pattern, ahd,l tpeyLhave all these interesting designs. But theuh, when they wrought it by hand each piece has to be bent and twir;ted to e;et t)je effect. For example, that little candlelabra up there, we're lookine; up on the mantel, see the, see the way, that 1s,made, that's a piece that was made in Spain, one ive picked up, l'lee the way the designs are worked out, the base, f~rged around each one of those little iron marks are that, it means e. man had to strike with a hammer, and all that desigh up above, see all those scrolls e;oing in there, the way the candlelabra is set back in place there, three candlelabras, Take that for example, that was, the.t was, that one ia a little bit heav)er, casting the material can't take a very, very uh, it has to have a certain a111ount of depth and thickness to it to mold, uh, it'd be awful fragile to get it that thick cause that's very lie;ht material (7) But.uh, they could reproduce that by takine; it and, and they could make thousands of' those from the one pattE-rn, they don't require, but ritill hold it for casting. But to do that, to make a thousand of those little piecedpieces :ts (unintelligible) and put I em toe;ether, uh, the only tl1ing you can gain is to take and 11,nke those scroll beses, ea.ch piece har; to be formed i.ndividually, no right away, So blastine; pots where somebody tod.ay no.-1 thnt would take somewhere,,, make, what you 're looldn3 at there woulcl probably take a man, olf, an experienced man, take him a full day, a.nd that's 8 hours. CS 1;/ell, it 1s so symmetrical 1. t has to be perfect. CA Pardon? Zl CS It's so symmetrical it ha,, to be perfei&t, CA Well, that I s right. 'rhe queLJ tion, you have leeway there, in other words, they don't have to be exactly, since all it ls is decorative. It d.oesn't have to be uh, there's no need to f:lt a,,, precise d:lmension ... CS True, CA ... and yet they 1re terribly close. 'hose, those apparently are not even jigged,notice the scrolls vary, look from one to the other, similar, but they~e not exactly the same. I developed a jig, a. little tool when we first sta.rted, tha.t makes those (scnbllR) so tha.t, so each one coljles out very precise, a.nd you take it from there, but the scroll would be almost identical, in ea.ch case, a.nd also be very, very rapidly done. But the uh, that, something like that, each one is done custom wise, a.nd genera.lly the old blacksmith in the old, they had a leisurely pace, they weren't, production wes not the test, it was the appearance. Beyond tha.t, I don \t have the iniJ:ormation on that, I wouldn 1t venture, even hazard a guess, CS Um, my folklore teacher showed us an inheritance pattern tlwt actually he applied to architecture, but I think it is applica. ble to any phyRll!cal trade. Uh, it inlliolves three catet;ories: Form, which uh, under that there 1 !3 shapeand design, structure, and patterns. The Construation, wh:lcl1 includes material, technology and tools, and the use. Now, what can you sey about the forms that you, that you use now, that you make now that you ,-,ere influenced, worked under, learned, like shapes of things,um ... CA Well. .. CS" I know you design things, OK, that 1 's purely your artistic/,. Ci\ Well, line of forni is just a question of confinine; a variety, in other words, if someone comes to us and wants a particular job we have to take and, find e- the applications, what are they e;oine; to use it for, what nre the surroung.ine;s, uh, what is the house we're e;oing to put it in, those are all factors that enter ,;':i:n and we start off and we just have to dig. That's, one way of workine; on forms, :l.f you 1re doi.nc; 2 parttcular job, Here my father refers to a book on Mi.che.elan6elo. He sayB that he wishes he c uld e;et a sponsor and just create to his h heart I s content. He men t:l.onn some of the thinc;s be has in mind to do. He menti.ons modern sculpture, some of it he thi.nks is plain''stupid", He also thinkB the Picasso Hculpture in Chicae;o is inuts", too, CS OK, back to the pattern, How about in constrliJction, what type of rnateriels, materials do you use that .. I know you UBe iron, you've done things in copper end bronze, did you ever work wi .. th copper and bronze back then? CA Oh, yeah. 'Pha t I s, I work with that a lot, copper, bronze, stainless steel. CS Back when you learned, though, in Jackson? CA No. These you pick up in different, stainless steel is hardly, was vc ry, very new when I wa.s tn Jackson. Now of course, they with the modern trend, ther' s so ma.ny thine;D being done with aluminum, combine aluminum with wood, combine alQrninurn with the coppers and b1t1onzees - contrast, and uh, the industrial desie;ners. Summary of modern trends: \/hat we now consider modern is actue.llly :3weclish traditional. We also owe modern development to computers. CS OK. can you form copper and bronze like you do iron? Can you make scrolls and stuff? CA Oh, yes. CS I don't, I don't think I've ever seen any. I've seen the dented, like the copper urn or somethi.ng with the ornamental dents, you know what I mean. CA Well, copper, copper is done, copper is rrnfte~h, it 1 il handled. differently. You clon 't heat it and forge it like you do uh, actually it's worked mostly cold. The uh, then of course as against riteel, steel of course is, and like iron, (7) steel (unintellic;ible) Atlanta Steel, because it doesn't have to be uh, oh the uh, the hammer marks don't matter, for example, look at that bronze plate up there. That, that's a Swedish desic;n. See how smooth it is, 1,ell there are no hammer marks,ther,e.a.re,no blemishes, no blurs, so it takes a particular skill to do that, encl in iron, you clo the same thing but it's not that important. It's a, you start workine; with brass and try to 3et a fi.nished effect like that, it takes an entirely different setup, encl you have to be prepared for it, encl you have to avoid uh, the thing and the blemiahes, a single little spot on that would ruin that plate. CJ!l Um-hum. Well, how much can you heat up iron and boat it up before it, does it over break, or .. CA Uh, breaking is not a problem so much as the, as certain, certain temperatures that lends itself to fo~5ing, and you have to get it so hot to uh, in order to take encl get it to bend where you want. All you need in :iron is to just get it red hot a.nd it'll bend.. But if you ,11:in:b to flatten it out and forge it to wrwtever you want then of course, it has to get hotter, to shape it, then it'll start to burn. There's a certoi.n te1nperature, there'a a limit. 1 Cam,e it'll actually start burning and stnrt, sparks flying in llll cli.rectiono, just like fi.revmrlrn. It getB to reach the molten stage and the object of furgin5 is to keep It from getting that far, and of course it takes experience to take encl know when your 1netal ia too hot. The big thing ic to get the propre temperature. It's not hot enough, ther1 you have, you a,,n't have that molten, plostlc uh, coddition of the metal end uh, you just hev, to 11odc lwrder and a.lso you' re liml tea, course if you get thnt right temperature i.t 111 turn out beautl.ful. CS Let's r,ay you do make o. mistel,e ancl you don't notice lt unti.l you know, lt 1s already cooled off again. Gen you heat it up and re do-it? 2.-3 CA Generally you have to cut off the portion that uh, that has been burned, cause it 3eta awful pitted, JOU can still work ih ... CS It sets pitted? CA \/hen it reaches that molten stau;e where it burns, that's evident senerally by a very, very brilliant sparkins, sparking in all directions, like a uh, fireworks, and uh, while i.t 1 s till in the forGe, the spahks are much higher and they're little bitty sparks actually, but they, as the n1olten juices start pouring they just, you can tell,flJ in all directlons, splatterinc; the forge, you can flnd out when it I D burn i.ne;, the metal will r;tart t to burn, courDe that's what happens to it. !3ut the object there of course, but you defeat the purposes, it loses it's flexibility. But uh, it happens, too many irons in the fire, CS You know that flame you did, was it for the fitlunta Arts A1"2oci.atiun? CA Yes they J-wd a, for these j'liedrnont Arts Festi.vals, they 1mnted a fountain unit, so I thought it uh, it was an opportunity to hake and have our activity in front of the people, since their loc;o, \1as it loc;o? Tho~uh, they have a bis A and of course then they have the flame. 1.10 I just duplicated ,,;hat they had in the flame~ and mode this bronze, heavy bronz~ (?} which was weat.hered/ and I made the flame and oh, it probebly stands about 4 1 high, anauh This \/Bes supposed to be Atlanta risint: out of the flames'? CA No, that could, that, originally it eould be thut but where they have the flame, a lot of people think it is a leaf, can't tell the difference between a leaf and a uh, cause, actually it was a flame, just like off e candle. .And uh, so we uh, this, this flame was a uh, it was bronze, 1 t was just 2 pi.eces of ,netal, and to mrke it finct on we put a, inserted a copper tube to give us a, so it became a fountain, or it could be used, could pipe tas in it, so thetas could be lighted. CS Look, bobby-socks! (lau:,hs) this ie directed et my 1nother who just couldn't resist lnterfey,i.ng- she wns sir,;nallins to my father and whisperingI \JB.D teaf_Lln' her because she \/8.B \'l"Bi:1r1nc sockH v.ri th her lonfers ( her feet ,,ere cold). t1JrB. it\ rt ,-;as for a memoriHl. CA That wBs not for a memoy,ial, the other thi.ng wo.s for a mc,norial. Mrs. A Yeah, that, oh the, r ... CS OK. Mentlon some things that you've done, I know you've done those little medals ... CA Oh, Ga. stote han a , work w:i.th the .. I-Ial, Hal, what's hiD last name? cs Bobby 80CkB ifl coroinc: back to tell ,YOU. (leught:l) To summarize the th\ne;,e he has done that he mentions on the tape: He mrsde 20 shepherd's crooks for Ga. ;3tate University. I-le made a rnedallion-pla.que for the Nat:i.onal Chrye1an thernem ;Joctety. He has made railinss, mailboxef1, statues, birdcages, etc. all over Atlanta. He 1nade the planters on Marietta St. He made the hardware for the,restoration of .Andrew Jackson I s houue, IL'he Hermita3e, in Nashville, rhis includes locks, doorknobs, shutter latches, door~lates, etc. !- i I i . ,/ .Ji I 'Ao/!, '- '1! ;,,;, > ~. ~'(\.~ ("\1-e; " loe>l~~oS"" \\OJ"'~ \I'('.~ ~"~~ - r c. ~" V'-l. w,..~~ - ~00/i\ I ~o. , ', - I _, ' I I 6-\':)f\ (j\.j "-c~"oe.... o....~ ~iQ.~vv,. l:l\l'-4"" - ~ d...lj ~~ ~ u t ~ 'I:, J ~ k--\ .\-~r5 /o~ 1 ~,,w,}(11.r bG\f JUL 55 i -RELEASEIly letting us collect your tro.ditions--stories, sonr,s, music, rememberences, or beliefs of earlier days--you have made a valuable contribution to preserving and understandinr, Southern history, and especially the 1my of life of your coDmmnity. Because you have r,iven unselfishly of your time to rlo this, the Georgia Folklore Archives, whose representatives are dedicated to preservinr, these traditions, wants to protect your ri::;hts to this material by p,uaranteeing that it uill not be used for unscrupulous con1mercial profits. By signing this sheet, you are giving us permission to use this material for educational purposes so that people who are interested can understand how life was in the old days. If you don't want your name to be used, say so--we respect your right to privacy. Thank you for the time you have r,iven to help us record a heritar,e that is an important part of American life, "In consideration of my intent in helpinr, to preserve my folk heritar,e, I hereby grant permission to the Georgia Folk Archives and its Director, John Burrison, to publish, ot otherwise make use of, the material recorded from me by the agent of the Georgia Folklore Archives whose nar,,e appears on this sheet, Signed Address Agent of Georeia Folklore Archives __ C.=_CM.trR.~='---=--~'----S=_,,~='--~'---- Additional Hitness U/'<J .dM-'!.. < Geor13ia Folklore Archives c/o Professor John Burrison Georgia State University 33 Gilmer Street Southeast Atlanta, Georeia 30303 A PDF transcript exists for this recording. Please contact an archivist for access. Professor John Burrison founded the Atlanta Folklore Archive Project in 1967 at Georgia State University. He trained undergraduates and graduate students enrolled in his folklore curriculum to conduct oral history interviews. Students interviewed men, women, and children of various demographics in Georgia and across the southeast on crafts, storytelling, music, religion, rural life, and traditions. As archivists, we acknowledge our role as stewards of information, which places us inaposition to choose how individuals and organizations are represented and described in our archives. We are not neutral, andbias isreflected in our descriptions, whichmay not convey the racist or offensive aspects of collection materialsaccurately.Archivists make mistakes and might use poor judgment.We often re-use language used by the former owners and creators, which provides context but also includes bias and prejudices of the time it was created.Additionally,our work to use reparative languagewhereLibrary of Congress subject termsareinaccurate and obsolete isongoing. Kenan Research Center welcomes feedback and questions regarding our archival descriptions. If you encounter harmful, offensive, or insensitive terminology or description please let us know by emailingreference@atlantahistorycenter.com. Your comments are essential to our work to create inclusive and thoughtful description.