By Jean Steel Venrick

Originally I wrote about my father as a builder, but he had other abilities besides building houses and outdoor shelters. As Paul Harvey would say, here’s “the rest of the story” with some further explanations by Bill hidden within the text—he saw things about my dad that was unknown to me.

After graduating from high school my father took a two-year course at a local business college so he could work in the office at the lumberyard where he worked but that did not interest him. Instead, he enjoyed working hands-on with wood. He worked at the carpenter trade and became a “finish carpenter” or one who could make built-in cabinetry for kitchens and baths as well as fancy trim for windows and doorframes.

After retirement he spent his time in his basement workshop making grandfather clocks and some small wall clocks. His abilities were well known and regularly he got requests for corner cupboards with glass doors. He was very particular and when he designed the windows in the door he would also have designed the positioning of the shelves so they lined up with the frames of the glass—a small detail but one that is a sign the craftsmen knew what he was doing. One contract a local businessman made with him was to make cabinets to display trophies he caught deep-sea fishing, e.g., a long marlin was not in a cabinet but on a mount that could be fastened on the wall. One special contract was to make a Culligan [water-conditioning] script logo that my husband had contracted to make for a client. My dad glued up the required lumber and sawed out the script logo to spell “Culligan” all in one piece. I think it was twelve feet long! Nothing seemed impossible for him to figure out.

In his early days on the farm he even built a couple tractors from scrap material found at the local junkyard. One tractor needed angled metal cleats on the drive wheels, 34 on each wheel. With only a hacksaw he cut the required number of cleats — 68! Then he drilled the necessary holes in the wheels to fasten the cleats to the wheels. Mother was his helper on these projects whenever he needed a hand. My brother watched our dad as he sawed all those cleats and drilled all those holes and looking back to that job, he said, “…and those drills had to be sharp!”

My dad was raised in the city so I often wondered where he got all his knowledge for working on the farm. He still worked at the lumberyard in town while farming. He grew corn, rye and hay for the animals. The family, just four of us counting mother, did the harvesting.

He rebuilt a 1934 Chevrolet automobile and also a pickup truck. When he finished the pickup truck, someone wanted to buy it, so he sold it. We never had a truck around the farm and most of the time only one car which my dad drove 4 miles to town. We did not have a telephone either. He could fix most anything from the kitchen toaster to the car. Of course, during the depression you fixed what you needed or you did without. He was a frugal man but when television came along years later we were among the first to get one.

In 1971 he helped in some ways when a new church building project came along, he was there to make the built-in kitchen cabinets as well as a bench for the foyer. One of the ladies made a ceramic arrangement of the Last Supper and my dad made a fancy display case about five feet long, with built-in lighting, for that ceramic work. He also made a large circular wall clock, which was mounted on the rear wall of the auditorium.

The minister and he became good friends. One Sunday morning the minister challenged the congregation to write a poem. My father acted upon impulse and accepted that challenge and it turned out that he was the only person who wrote a poem. Here is his first poem:

MY LORD

Does your Lord mean to you
What my Lord means to me?
A kind and loving Savior
Who died on Calvary?

With outstretched arms,
and compassion sweet,
Your burdens He will share;
And lift your load and make it light,
And vanish every care.

He’ll help the strong — he’ll help the weak,
In sorrow He’s ever near;
He’ll send a helping hand with love
Each day of every year.

So bring your burdens to the Lord,
And trust in Him each day;
He’ll make life worth living
As you go along your way.

Ray Steel – April 1971

This poem was so appreciated by the minister it was printed in that week’s church bulletin in April 1971. His writing career continued for fifteen years; as he wrote, we published his poems into several booklets, which he shared with friends and acquaintances. It was like the Lord gave this carpenter and farmer a special gift for a little while. He wrote about fifty poems on all subjects – some humorous, most serious, religious poems, some about his wife and grandmother. It was interesting in those years he wrote, we would be visiting and he would say, “I wrote another poem, see what you think of it.” After that 15 year period the poems just seemed to stop coming to his mind. At least we have several of those booklets left and I am glad we printed them. This was a legacy he left us. He died at 85 in May 1991. His mate and partner for 62 years, my mother, joined him in September of the same year.

THE WORDWRIGHT