How it all began

I think the creative side of me was inherited from my mother and perhaps her father (Gramp). As the youngest of four boys I was sort of in the back ground as my brothers worked their way through public schools, college, and in one case, a career in the USAF. As a boy I watched my brothers rebuild car engines, bake wedding cakes, and write poetry while I tinkered with wood. Mother was very passionate about embroidery and knitting. She liked to collect novelties like sewing gadgets, thimbles, and special knitting needles. Her father, Gramp, made her a box for her sewing needles. It was crafted by hand much like the Pilgrims of Plymouth had done using an exposed end grain design. Gramp inserted a handmade aluminum panel in the top with holes that would suspend her needles inside the lid. I still have the box. It was a replica of a larger hope chest that Gramp made for her when she was a young mother. One of my brothers still has that hope chest. My contribution was to take an old hub cap from my oldest brother’s car and the base of a round wash tub to use as a template to make a half moon “nick nack” shelf with half moon shaped mini stairs to hold mother’s thimbles.

For many years, including a career managing movie theatres, I collected tools, and made things out of wood when I had spare time.  My career brought us to Plymouth, Massachusetts where we purchased and remodeled our home.

We lived in Plymouth for about 20 years, settled in and made lots of friends. One day Fred, a longtime friend from Plymouth, called to tell me the sad news that his wife Marlene was dying from terminal cancer in a hospital in downtown Boston. I made it into the city as quickly as I could and caught up with Fred but it was too late. Marlene had died.  Knowing that I had tools and liked working with wood, Fred asked if I would help him make a cremation box for Marlene’s ashes.

While Fred grieved, I made Marlene’s cremation box in the simple exposed end grain pattern that Gramp (and the Pilgrims) had once used. It was simple yet elegant.  After the service, the funeral director came to ask me if I was the person who had made Marlene’s cremation box. I said yes. He then asked if I did it for a living.  I replied, “No”.  The funeral director then said “You Should”. That happened three or four times in the years to follow as I made cremation boxes for other friends and family members.

So we purchased a home with a workshop in the “Old Colonial” section of Massachusetts and started Old Colony Woodworks where we began making custom designed keepsake boxes for customers in the US, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, my wife’s business was taking us to interesting destinations across the US and abroad.  Always looking for a place where we would eventually enjoy retirement, we put Florida on our list.  Many of our customers from the early years of Old Colony Woodworks were from Florida.

For years we owned vacation property in Maine, where we played golf and shared many memorable family events.  It became increasingly difficult to get there from Old Colonial Massachusetts.  A friend and real estate agent who had a time share in Vilano Beach encouraged us to checkout St. Augustine before we made a decision on a retirement home.  We spent a week at the St George Street Inn during the Festival of Lights in December. The rest is history.

We have listened to many stories and have helped many customers design and custom make their keepsake boxes.  There was the lady from Maine who wanted a box for an urn made with 19 pounds of Maine granite for her husband’s ashes, with room for her wedding dress.

There was “A Box For Alex” from Texas who was diagnosed with stage five cancer and wanted a box for his sons’ birthdays.  Alex wrote five letters to his sons with special messages to be opened on their birthdays, one for each of the first five years after he died.

A keepsake box for a Seattle business man with the hand etched likeness of a Thistle on the lid, and the Chicago man who ordered a cremation box with the likeness of an owl etched into the lid for his fiancée who was killed in a fiery car crash on her way to work.

And, the box for a retired Air Force soldier from California who’s wife had passed away. He wanted a box large enough to hold her hashes with room for his when he passed away. I asked if he wanted a partition in the middle. He replied that there “have never been any walls between my wife and I, and if she wants to yell at me I don’t want any walls between us then either!”. Thus, “The Mojave II”.

Every step along the way and every item I have made has a story behind it.  That is especially true of the cremation and keepsake boxes we have designed for caring people dealing with the loss of a loved one, a pet, or celebrating a graduation, wedding or a memorable moment.  Each and every hand crafted item gives me more satisfaction, enjoyment and peace than anything I accomplished during thirty years in the corporate world.