|
An
Afternoon With
Peter Engler
by
Ed Crabtree
It
was indeed an honor for the staff of THE MESSAGE
TREE to be granted the rare opportunity this past
month to sit down and visit with another of the
area's living legends, Peter Engler. A nationally
renowned woodcarver and long time businessman in
the Branson area, Mr. Engler's story is typical of
the history of Branson if not the entire Ozarks.
We
arrived at the Grand Village and caught up with
Pete at the gallery operated by Pete and his
business partner Mary Bowman, where his work as
well as that of numerous other artists and
craftspeople can be admired and of course
purchased.
Peter Engler
Designs
Located in the Grand Village, 2800 West
Highway 76,
in Branson Missouri
|
This shop is one of those places that you simply
must visit when in Branson, because it is one of
the few in the area that still feature work
handcrafted by area artists, fine collectibles to
be admired and cherished, a place where you will
not find an array of imported disposable decorative
accessories.
During
warmer weather Pete can sometimes be found in the
courtyard, just outside of his store carving what
has become a specialty item for him, Santa Clauses.
It is amazing that each one of Pete's trademark
Santas, has its own unique expression. It is beyond
me how he can carve so many and yet make each one
an individual. Only someone with his many years of
skill and experience can produce as delightful and
personable Santas as Pete does. On the day of this
interview, although the weather was beautiful, it
was still cool in the shade of the courtyard and
Pete wanted to carve while we talked, so we drove
over to his workshop where we could visit and he
could carve without being distracted. There at the
workshop, Pete introduced us to his partner Mary
and while he was carving Santa` Christmas Tree
ornaments, Pete told us his story which would read
much like a page out of a history book on Branson.
Below is a partial transcript of the
interview.
TMT:: Mr. Engler, how long have
you been carving?
Well,
I think around sixty-years, I was about ten years
old when I started and there wasn't anybody around
to really learn from, so it was just a thing with a
pocket knife and found wood. I started carving more
during high school and from that period I still
have some figures that I carved, so, that's how I
got going. I just like to carve and always have. I
was in high school in the 1940s and there wasn't
anybody to speak of carving then, there wasn't much
carving in the whole country at that point, because
all the standard stuff, standard stuff being
carousel horses, wooden Indians, that was all a
thing of the past by that time, that was all out of
fashion, there just wasn't much wood carving going
on.
During
the Second World War we lived in Hutchinson Kansas,
then in, 1950 my Dad came down to the Ozarks, at
that time I went into the service. I carved a few
little things and sent home, and he (Dad) found out
he could sell them. When I got out of the service I
came down to Ozarks to help my Mom, in the gift
shop. Dad was not feeling well and we just kept
selling carvings. Then I actually got a sales tax
number and started a little business on the side in
1958. We also helped start some of carvers, helped
them market their work, people from Arkansas, down
near the Mountain Home area that had shown an
interest in carving. Garvin McCutchen out of
Harrison and Junior Cobb and a few others.
Then
I got to know Mary Herschend and sold her a few
carvings that lead to coming up in 1962 and putting
in a carving shop in Silver Dollar City and it just
grew from that point. At the same time we were
interested in developing carving, so we worked with
people to learn to carve and to market their work,
and that has steadily grown, our present shop
markets the work of more than fifty wood carvers. A
lot of those people from the early days are still
around, still friends, and still carving so it's
been interesting. We also are interested in crafts
overall in the Ozarks so in '62 I visited with Mary
Herschend and brought together a fall festival for
Silver Dollar City. So we decided to do that and it
went over pretty good, which gave Silver Dollar
City its craft image.
As
the years went by we started shops in other areas
like Gatlinburg and Indianapolis and such, and that
culminated in the opening of Engler Block in 1988.
At that point, after I got Engler Block opened and
found that I had colon cancer which meant a number
of months in a VA hospital so I sold everything.
Then after that (colon cancer) when we got back and
we just started a small carving business because we
had sold Engler Block and everything connected. It
was at that point I started to specialize in Santa
Clauses. I asked Mary Bowman to come in and help me
as a business partner and it's grown real well,
real nice, and I have time to carve and enjoy life,
and it's moving right along. Right now we have a
shop at Grand Village, we are thinking of a bigger
shop one day, it could be at Grand Village or it
could be someplace else.
Over
the years we kept some information on the different
carvers because we wanted to have some kind of a
history of the carving movement and as we did so we
would put back a carving or two from all these
different people, that resulted in a carving
collection. We didn't start a carving collection in
order to have a lot of something, a lot of wood
carving or something, its just grown to become a a
pretty reasonable collection and we would like the
public to see it, so that would require a fairly
good size building. We will probably put that
carving collection into some sort of foundation so
that it will remain and won't be part of somebody's
estate that gets all split up.
We
have second-generation carvers, Ivan Denton who has
been a good friend for fifty years, his daughter is
a carver and has been carving for a long time. I
have a son that carves, some grandsons that are
getting interested, so we might be getting to a
third generation pretty quick.
But
as the years went by the quality has improved a
great deal. We found out about everything! We found
out about more sources to buy tools, more sources
to get better wood, did a lot more studying. So it
has just gradually improved until we have some
pretty good carvers coming out of the Ozarks right
now.
TMT:: We were told that you were
even carving when you were a Marine serving in
Korea during the war.
I
carved Hill Billies, and sent them home to Dad. I
worked outposts, artillery observer, I called fire
(artillery strikes) on Chinese and (North) Korean
positions, but that also meant that we were just
kind of stuck out there, we lived out there on the
line, so I carved Hill Billies in my spare time. I
have a letter to Dad saying I am sending you an
Okie, an Arkie and see if you can get them sold
type of thing. The first Ozark woodcarvings were
made in Korea! {Everyone in the room laughs} But
they did sell and the few that we have left, look
pretty crude, you know, but they sold!
When
I went down to help Mother, because Dad was sick,
it was important because it was some additional
income for the family so it was always helpful.
When we came up here to put a store at Silver
Dollar city, it was really the first working craft
shop, there was very little there, I mean there was
five or six buildings out there, that's all there
was. You drove right up to the buildings it didn't
have a big parking lot, what is now the main square
was a parking lot. But Shad Heller was there, the
mayor, and there was a candy shop, a post office,
Dale Fechner had a clothing store, Ruth Green had a
little café, a general store, and that was
about it, I think. It was a very good location
because it was a believable little village.
For
quite a few years we were in the mill building, it
was called Sullivan's mill because there had been a
town there called Marmaros, and there had been a
mill and one day this little Robin's egg blue
Plymouth and this feller, Mr. Sullivan got out, he
must have been 85 years old, and he came up and
looked at the mill because there had been a
Sullivan's mill and he showed me how to dress those
French burrs with a piece of steel so we knew how
to keep our burrs sharp so the corn meal would be
efficiently ground, after that it just took on a
life of it's own and kept going.
TMT::
Some one once said that Silver Dollar City kind of
started out as something for people to do while
visiting the cave and it took on a life of it's own
and people soon forgot there was a cave
there.
Well
yes, first there was Marvel Cave, of course the
Lynch sisters were running it before the Herschends
were there, that was it, that was why you went
there (to visit the cave.) The cave wasn't too well
set up, you know, there wasn't a railroad (tram) to
take you out of the cave there were ladders you
climbed down. But when Mary Herschend and her boys
started promoting it and started fixing the cave up
so most people could walk through it, you then had
the problem of a car load of people, half of them
wanted to go through the cave and the other half of
them didn't. The first half had to cool their heels
for a hour or so. The Herschends wanted to build
something for those people to do so they got Russ
Pierson from Oklahoma City and what he designed was
a main street of a little western town and Don
Richardson named it Silver Dollar City. It was just
a main street, a kind of deal, where you would have
a shoot out at high noon with somebody playing the
Sheriff and somebody playing the bad guy and all of
that. But once the craft festival was a success it
took on a craft image. Then we really took a real
interest in it being fairly authentic instead of
Silver Dollar City being a little western town.
They brought in some buildings like the little
Wilderness Church, and a cabin from over around
Forsyth that Mr. Casey made. So they brought in
these original area buildings and started doing a
little more research and started adding the crafts
that were traditional to the area. Which was
everything from wagon making, to basket making,
pottery, and whatever. And people liked that sort
of thing and I think they still
do.
The
city has changed over the years, it has gotten so
much larger, that it has, just a different feeling,
there is no way to keep that original feeling. One
thing though, the city just didn't bulldoze
everything, you still have to walk up and down
hills and they kept the trees, Mary Herschend was
one who kept trees, and they planted additional
trees and even the ones they planted are pretty big
now, it's a very nice setting, beautiful, just a
beautiful spot.
MT:: Is it true what they say
that Mrs. Herschend wouldn't let them cut down
trees?
It
is more than true, you would be in big trouble, you
could get fired, twice in one day (for cutting down
a tree) so sometimes Mary would fire somebody and
Jack would hire them back. Yeah, Mary loved the
trees and she loved the culture here, she had
vision and she was just a remarkable woman. She was
very gracious, very thorough and very smart. But
she was doing something she loved to do and she did
it. It was kind of amazing to watch Mary Herschend
work. She wasn't very big, but very determined.
Sometimes her eyes would just flash and when that
happened, you knew then that she was serious. But
she had a great sense of humor, just a remarkable
person, I consider myself fortunate to have known
her.
But
she got it going and her boys obviously kept it
going, but Mary was the one that got it started,
out in the middle of nowhere. The original people
that were there were people from the area. They
were natives and they knew the history of the area
and they knew that style of life and such as that.
Most of those people are gone now and you can never
replace them. We have replaced them with nice
people but it's not quite the same. Some of the
nice people have retired here from someplace else.
One illustration of the knowledge of local heritage
that the original people had, is that at Silver
Dollar City we used to have contests to split
railroad ties out of white oak logs. A lot of the
guys knew how to do that just from past practical
experience, (but) it is hard to find somebody
anymore that knows how to take a broad ax and make
a railroad tie. People loved to see that. But we
also had gals that could hew out a tie, so
sometimes we would have a contest with the men, and
sometimes with the women, and sometimes men and
women together to see who the best hewer was. One
of the gals that could do that was Fannabelle
Nichols, another was Granny Huffman and one was
Violet Hensley out of Yellville Arkansas.
Violet
Hensley had learned to make violins, fiddles from
her father, with very few tools that were handmade
One of the tools that they used to scrape with was
a broken piece of glass. Violet could make a
fiddle, play a fiddle and she was amazing. She is
still around and you can see her at various early
Ozarks life events and she too is an amazing
person. She was raised near Yellville Arkansas, but
those kind of people you just don't see
anymore.
Let
me tell you a little about crafts. Crafts started
as crafts of necessity, people made baskets, you
know, really to put their eggs in. They had to know
how to do things like cut down logs and square them
to make parts for their building, they might use a
shingle saw or just split them with a froe to make
shingles for their roof, they might have to know a
little about stone work to build a chimney. They
might make some of their own furniture, in other
words they were just doing what they had to do,
including working with cloth and wool and making
everything from hand knit socks to quilts.
You
had a very robust people here that were making do
and were making crafts of necessity. Then after the
Second World War, when the roads came in, and the
motels came in, and the fishing started because of
the dams and all of that, then the road side stands
sprung up where people sold their crafts, you had
people that were able to adapt. You could stay busy
making baskets all the time selling them to the
tourists, and that just grew from the Second World
War on.
Before
tourism took hold there would have been a limited
practical use for wood carvings. You could have
made your daughter a doll at Christmas time, or you
could have whittled an apple butter spoon or
something like that, but all the sudden there was a
market for wood carvings and the same with pottery
and other crafts. We had potters in the Ozarks and
they made jugs and practical stuff, but now you
could make a whole range of pottery. So it went
from crafts of necessity to what I call market
crafts, crafts produced for sale to the public.
There were people here that it was in just in them,
their nature to do better and better, and what was
mostly for simple usage to begin with, some of that
work went to a level that actually rose to museum
quality and some of it became
art.
So
what we need now is a place to show some of this
again and I think we will have that one of these
days. I think people want to see this work, it
gives them a better understanding of the area and
it gives their kids a lot better understanding of
our crafts heritage.
It
would be a good thing for our kids to know where we
came from. We don't worship the past and we don't
think that you have to repeat the past. But you are
standing on the shoulders of those people that were
here before you, and you do owe them a little
something. It does give you a better perspective
and it does give you a kind of grounding. You have
got your feet on the ground if you know all of the
heritage which gives you sense of belonging. At one
level just belonging to family is great but
belonging to your culture and area is also of great
importance. I don't believe that people that have
that sense of belonging are quite as nervous or
quite as tense, and they just have a better feeling
about what is going on in their lives. I do think
that there is quite an educational aspect and it is
not only the children that need to be educated as
we have adults that also need to learn their
heritage and culture.
MT:: We have seen of the old
reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies when they filmed
4 episodes out at Silver Dollar city in 1969, did
that help get more interest in the area in your
opinion?
I think it did obviously, because it was a national
television show you know.
That's
one thing that Silver Dollar City did because it
reached out further than other companies or
communities, when they did the fall festivals they
would charter an airplane and we would fly all over
the country doing television shows generally within
a four to five hundred mile radius. We would go as
far as Chicago, of course St Louis, Kansas City,
Dallas, and Little Rock. We also did the Captain
Kangaroo show so they were getting some national
publicity and it did make a difference, and we got
very good attendance at the festivals. It turned
the fall, (area business) used to pretty much slow
way down after Labor Day, but I think the festival
helped turned the fall into a busy season.
MT:: What advice do you have for
someone wishing to enter into the crafts
business?
There
is so many factors (in the craft business,) just
take wood carving, (for example) if are you stuck
on being an artist which means you won't even
consider doing a bread and butter item, which is
what I am doing as we speak, if so that is limiting
your market. It is going to take some time for
people to become aware of you and if you don't have
a way to stay alive while that happens, well it can
be kind of tough.
It
depends on what you want to do and it depends on
how disciplined you are, it still takes the same
amount of work. In other words you have got to pay
your dues, it doesn't matter if you are in the
music industry, art or whatever else. We always
have people that want to start at the top, but that
is really hard to do. But if you just want to make
a living in a area like pottery or metal working
that's possible but it would require the same kind
of thinking and the same kind of discipline as if
you were starting any other business venture
whether it is a restaurant, shoe store or whatever.
You have to get in there and work with it. Anytime
you get into business in anyway it is a pain in the
neck. You got to hang in there, you have got to
find out what works. You have to realize that if
you are going to be a potter (for example) and hope
to sell enough to make a living, well, maybe you
shouldn't set your shop up where your house is,
because your house is where you like to live and
that doesn't mean that is where the people who want
to buy pottery are going to be hanging around. If
you are going to make a living making pottery or
any other craft you had better pay attention to
what the customers in that area want and be able to
satisfy their demand.
My
wife Ann is a second generation crafter and has
known many of the people that were in the business
over years here in Ozark Mountain Country, so it
was indeed a phenomenal experience, just listening
to Mr. Engler speak on crafts, local culture and
history, all of these being subjects so dear to
Ann's heart as well as that of my own. Like Pete
pointed out, what was once a craft of necessity, a
means of survival, has gradually over years evolved
into a multimillion-dollar cottage industry, with a
tremendous impact on the economy of the greater
Ozarks region. Even before Pete and the wonderful
folks at Silver Dollar City started the Fall Crafts
Festivals, some folks had discovered that they
could sell items that they had learned to craft out
of necessity, to the tourists that came into the
region to see attractions like Marble Cave or The
Shepard of the Hills farm.
Times
have always been rough here in the hills, and when
the publicity generated by Silver Dollar City
brought throngs of visitors into the region
annually, suddenly just plain folks could in their
spare time throughout the year, produce various
crafts and then sell them to the tourists in order
to generate desperately needed family income. For
many families this meant money for Christmas
presents or school clothes for the young-uns, a
means to pay property taxes at the end of the year,
or countless other purposes that in some cases
helped the local folks financially survive another
year.
Silver
Dollar City's National Festival Of Craftsmen began
in 1963 as the Missouri Festival of Ozark
Craftsmen.¹ In the late 1960s, the festival
was sponsored by the National Crafts Foundation, a
non-profit organization whose purpose was the
preservation of rare and historic crafts. Founding
board members were Mary Herschend, Peter Engler,
Paul Henning, Ben Parnell, and M. Graham Clark,
president of the School (now College) of the
Ozarks.
Before
Branson was known for the music industry, the
region was known as the crafts capital of America
and people came far and wide in search of
handcrafted art. Today on any given fall weekend,
there are numerous local festivals scattered
throughout the Ozarks, with names from such as the
Apple Festival at Seymour Missouri to War Eagle
near Eureka Springs Arkansas. Annual attendance at
all of these combined festivals including the
Festival Of Craftsmen at Silver Dollar City, number
in the millions. So as you can see the estimates
produced each year of the economic impact on the
region is probably very conservative as there is no
way to accurately gauge the total dollars spent,
not just on crafts, but on food, lodging,
entertainment, fuel and other retail shopping. I
think you will have to agree that the vision of Mr.
Engler, as well as the other members of the
National Crafts Foundation and what they started
forty years ago, has meant so much in making Ozark
Mountain Country what is today.
I
agree with Mr. Engler when he said in the interview
above, that we are standing on the shoulders of
those who came before us, not just the artists,
crafters, and others who have worked behind the
scenes to make the fall festivals and craft and
tourism industries throughout the Ozarks possible,
but on those staunch individualists, those robust
people as Pete puts it, those with the pioneer
sprit of their forebears who worked so hard to
create a better way of life for everyone. Let us
thank them and never forget what they have done for
those of us who love these wonderful old hills of
Ozark Mountain Country.
Acknowledgements
¹The Story Of Silver Dollar City by Crystal
Payton
|
Stone
Creek Crossing
