Woodworking

Many of you may recognize the name Ralph Walls because his family has been a steadfast part of Harford County for over 90 years. His parents came to live and work in the county as dairy farmers in 1919. Ralph, 83, graduated from Bel Air High School in 1945 and he ran a successful business for over 50 years. After high school, Ralph worked briefly for Harford Mutual Insurance Company, but soon found his true calling at the Central Motor Company in Bel Air, which is today's Plaza Ford, Inc. “I started out as a bookkeeper and became office manager, then general manager and finally in 1962, my wife and I bought in. Those were good years, I enjoyed the business, and it was rewarding,” says Ralph.

It was to be expected, on National Grammar Day, despite the cautions from Kory Stamper and others, that the peeververein would make their voices heard. A reader signed on as "diteora" at the post "Good grammar doesn't entitle you to be smug" asks for a reliable prescriptivist blog, because this one and all others corrupted by the rubbish of descriptivism are unreliable. Then the Aha! Gotcha! sentence: "If all these grammatical rules are bogus Mr. McIntyre, then why do you and all your descriptive allies stringently adhere to them?"

Veronica Simms has known her brother Kenneth is a talented woodworker since he showed an interest in the craft 12 years ago.In October, Ms. Simms, 44, was even more awed by her brother's work when he made her a wood-and-gold jewelry box for her birthday. It was not the first handmade item Mr. Simms, 35, made for his sister, nor the biggest. There were closets, cupboards, clocks, frames and wall hangings. But the jewelry box was different."It wasn't something a regular lay person would do," said Ms. Simms.

Sean O'Harra's furniture might be newly constructed, but there's nothing "new" about it. Walking through his workshop, a cavernous warehouse space on Reisterstown Road, O'Harra points to an enormous piece of wood, a cross-section of a maple tree trunk. "That is a tabletop," he explains. "It came out of a yard in Mount Washington and migrated to me. " The wood is rich brown, with prominent grain and an intricate, almost lacy, edge. It made its way to O'Harra via friends and friends of friends who knew he would appreciate it. He'll pair the wood with a metal base, balancing the maple's organic beauty with the cool modernity of metal.

Each evening, after dinner was cleared and his five children were put to bed, Willie Brice retired to the basement of his East Baltimore home, turned on the lathe and relaxed in his special way.Until the early morning hours, he would shape, carve and sand chunks of wood into desks, kitchen cabinets and rocking chairs -- ornate and functional items that he would sell or give away."

Edward V. Coolahan, a retired mechanical engineer and woodworking enthusiast, died of congestive heart failure Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 88. Born and raised in Baltimore, Mr. Coolahan attended Mount St. Joseph High School and studied aeronautical design at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Mr. Coolahan founded Center Mechanical Contractors in Baltimore in 1963, and worked on jobs at what is now 1st Mariner Arena, Bancroft Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy, St. Agnes Hospital and Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. in Cumberland.

Mike Meyerhoff's woodworking students learn much more than how to in his "Working With Wood" class at the Columbia Art Center in Long Reach Village Shopping Center.He teaches students to know and identify types of wood and to appreciate them. They study the grain, learn characteristics and uses of all varieties of wood."My students are always impressed when I tell them that a granite slab can be broken by the sheer force of saturated wood that has expanded after being placed in holes drilled in the slab," he said.

Ask James S. Woodward why he became a cabinetmaker and he'll say jokingly, "I had to eat."But when one sees the furniture showroom in his Uniontown home, it's evident that he meant to say, "I had to build.""My father could sort of build anything and everything," said Mr. Woodward, as he relaxed in an armchair in his Carroll County living room. "And when I was a kid, I'd watch."When he grew up and started to build, his own sons watched -- and continued the legacy of woodworking that remains the foundation of the Woodward family's furniture restoration and reproduction business.

The word they all use is "relaxing," though the wood-shop setting seems anything but -- huge machines everywhere designed to rip and cut and plane and trim, a complex web of air-cleaning tubes and ventilators, school bells ringing every now and then.Yes, school bells, because the men and women at work in Rich "Mac" McGainey's class are students, learning their way around the tools and techniques of working with wood."We start from the very basics," Mr. McGainey says. "I show people how to go to the lumberyard and buy lumber.

The Howard County Woodworkers Guild offers members a fully stocked workshop, opportunities to buy discounted supplies and professional advice from seasoned woodworkers. But members most appreciate an unexpected fringe benefit. "I joined this woodworking group looking for information and help on projects," said Wade Headley of Ellicott City. "I found something better -- friendship. This is a group of guys who would do anything for me." The guild, Howard County's first woodworking organization, was formed in 1990 by the late John Maitland, a Columbia resident.

Millard R. Hart Sr., a retired master woodworker and lifelong tugboat enthusiast, died May 11 of congestive heart failure at the Maples, a Towson assisted-living facility. The longtime Hamilton resident was 85. Millard Raymond Hart born at his family's Belt Street home in Locust Point. His father, James F. Hart, was captain of the tug A.G. Laun, and his mother was a homemaker. Mr. Hart demonstrated an aptitude for woodworking and he studied at the old Thomas A. Edison Vocational High School at Howard and Centre streets "I didn't have to draw anything," he told Jim Burger, a Baltimore photographer and writer in a recent interview.

Dr. George G. Hansen, a retired dentist and master woodworker, died April 11 of pneumonia at Oak Crest Village retirement community. He was 89. The son of educators, Dr. Hansen was born in Baltimore and raised in Towson. He spent his boyhood summers at a camp his parents owned and operated in Oakland, where he learned to ride horses, shoot, canoe, camp and do woodworking. After graduating in 1941 from Polytechnic Institute, where his father taught physical education, he earned his degree in an accelerated class in 1946 from the University of Maryland School of Dentistry.

If the life of furniture maker Robert Ortiz was ever made into a movie, it would be full of adventure and plenty of plot twists. The opening scene would unfold in New York City in the 1960s, with a Hispanic kid from humble roots leaving home at age 14 to enter a religious order that trains monks. The camera would pan to a young man strumming a guitar at coffeehouses, renovating houses, teaching schoolchildren and eventually landing in Baltimore. After leaving the order and trying his hand at many careers, Ortiz finally found his professional calling: designing and crafting fine wood furniture.

Many of you may recognize the name Ralph Walls because his family has been a steadfast part of Harford County for over 90 years. His parents came to live and work in the county as dairy farmers in 1919. Ralph, 83, graduated from Bel Air High School in 1945 and he ran a successful business for over 50 years. After high school, Ralph worked briefly for Harford Mutual Insurance Company, but soon found his true calling at the Central Motor Company in Bel Air, which is today's Plaza Ford, Inc. “I started out as a bookkeeper and became office manager, then general manager and finally in 1962, my wife and I bought in. Those were good years, I enjoyed the business, and it was rewarding,” says Ralph.

Donald Charles Rines, a semiretired businessman who was an accomplished woodworker, died Sept. 5 of pancreatic cancer at his Punta Gorda, Fla., home. He was 63. Mr. Rines was born in Binghamton, N.Y., and moved with his family in 1952 to Rockville. He was a 1965 graduate of Richard Montgomery High School. After high school and while attending the University of Maryland, Mr. Rines worked for his father's Washington company, Environmental Management Consultants. In 1980, Mr. Rines established his own company, Mid-Atlantic Laboratory Furniture, a design and installation firm, with his partner, Mark Guerra, in Hanover.

Robert Davis Beckey, a popular Towson University mathematics professor who was also an accomplished woodworker, died Sunday of heart failure at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Lutherville resident was 84. Mr. Beckey was born and raised in Milton, Pa., and moved with his family to Buffalo, N.Y., where he graduated from high school in 1943. He served in the Navy as an instructor at its Oceanside, Calif., radio school from 1944 until being discharged in 1946, with the rank of radioman third class.

It's Wednesday morning and the smells of coffee and sawdust drift through the basement of John Maitland's Columbia home. About 20 men have gathered there for their weekly meeting to discuss, among other things, woodworking.While some observe a piece of lumber being sawed in a workshop, others sit around a large table in another room, where they talk about things like studs that are too short and a reliable method for attaching paneling with glue.Mr. Maitland, a 65-year-old educator who retired from the state Department of Education in 1980, formed the group a year ago as an offshoot of the Howard County Woodworkers Guild, which he co-founded in May 1990.

Warren V. Strader, a retired office manager and former Woodbine resident, died of lung disease Sunday at Fairhaven Retirement Community in Sykesville. He was 85. Mr. Strader was born and raised in Gregory, W.Va. He graduated from Doddridge County High School in 1941. From 1942 to 1945, he served in the Army as a private in an infantry unit. After World War II, he attended West Virginia University and earned a bachelor's degree in 1949. Mr. Strader was an industrial arts teacher in Howard County public schools from 1950 to 1953 and then worked for five years as a salesman in Washington for International Harvester.

Gregory William Schummers, a former high school industrial arts teacher who later became a noted Baltimore cabinetmaker and architectural woodworker, died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at his Homeland residence. He was 62. Mr. Schummers, the son of a career Army officer and a homemaker, was born in San Mateo, Calif. He was a 1965 graduate of Fort Hunt High School in Alexandria, Va. He earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1969 from Dickinson College, where he met his future wife, the former Linda Harman, who was also a student at the Carlisle, Pa., college.