File #4283: "Kissane Transcription .pdf"
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Leroy Polk – Bird Haven Interview Transcription
Interviewer: Kaitlyn Kissane
Interviewee, Narrator 1: Leroy Polk
Narrator 2: V. Polk – Leroy Polk’s wife
Sound and Video Operator: Emily Schmitt
Monday March 20, 2017
This interview was conducted with Mr. Leroy Polk, a ninety-three year old man who worked at
Bird Haven gluing lumber and making wood products for fourteen years. His wife of seventyfour years, Mrs. V. Polk, was present during the interview and can be heard speaking, sometimes
at the same time, throughout the interview contributing information and helping Leroy remember
details.
Kaitlyn Kissane (KK): Would you start by telling us your name and your age?
Leroy Polk (LP): I’m Leroy Polk and I’m ninety-three years old.
KK: How long did you work at Bird Haven?
LP: Fourteen years, from 1947 to 1961.
KK: What was your job at Bird Haven?
LP: Gluing lumber, another guy and me, Harold Barb was his name, we glued all the lumber that
was glued from the fourteen years that I worked there. We glued for the things that we made and
then also for the ones that turned on a lathe.
KK: Okay.
LP: Okay *laughs*
KK: So, what would – is this okay? Okay. – What would a normal day at Bird Haven have
looked like for you?
LP: A normal day of what?
KK: At Bird Haven.
LP: That I worked at Bird Haven? It was nice, I enjoyed it, I enjoy working with wood. Still do,
but I’m not able to do it.
KK: Did you live in the community of Bird Haven?
LP: Well, not so far away, maybe, well I lived a while at Basye, between Basye and Orkney
Springs. But, then we lived maybe five or six miles from there, from Bird Haven.
KK: How did you first hear about or get your job at Bird Haven?
LP: I was at Basye at a restaurant and I met a man in there and we got to talking. He said his
name was Stuart Barb, I told him who I was, I said I was Leroy Polk. I asked him where he
worked, he asked where I worked and I said I was, at the time, I was working at an orchard. He
said he worked at Bird Haven and I said just where is Bird Haven, he told me where it was. Did I
tell you what his name was, he said it was Stuart Barb *laughs*. He said well if you come back
tomorrow I’ll give you a job. So, I went back and he hired me, I worked over there then from
that’s what I said, 1947. I enjoyed every minute of it. Yeah. I love working with wood.
KK: Had you done any work with wood before you got your job there?
LP: No. I didn’t.
KK: Why do you love working with wood?
LP: Because I enjoy doing it, *laughs*,
KK: Yeah
LP: Making pretty things, I like doing that.
KK: What was your favorite thing to make?
LP: Well, I liked to do all of it, but wall racks. We made, me and this other guy Harold Barb, he
and I worked together and we made a whole slew of wall racks at a time, and magazine rack
cradles. We made carpet benches too. And everything was made with a pattern, we glued up the
lumber, then planed it, and put it on the pattern of what we were going to make. Then, we sawed
it out on a band saw, and sanded it on a drum sander, a big drum sander. Then we sorted it all
out. At last, after we got done with that part, it went to the people that hand sanded, they had to
sand it smooth and go the way the grain run, because if they went crossways it showed up when
they stained it and put lacquer on it. That’s about all I can tell you *laughs*
KK: Did your job change at all over the fourteen years that you were there?
LP: No.
KK: You did the same thing?
LP: I did the same thing, this other guy and myself, we worked at the same thing.
KK: Did he work there as long as you did?
LP: Yeah, fourteen years.
V. Polk (VP): But he’s passed away.
KK: What was the community of Bird Haven like?
LP: It was just you went there and went down through the woods where the shops were and
that’s all that was in there. It was just the shop and the man that owned it *laughs* it wasn’t
much of a place, it was just the buildings and the shop. The man owned it lived a little ways from
there, that’s about all that was in there.
VP: Post office, they had a post office at one time.
LP: Oh yeah, it had a post office, in the building, there was a three story building there. They
didn’t use, when I was there they didn’t use the top floor because before I went there they made
puzzles and birds, wooden birds and puzzles. They painted the birds made of wood and that’s
where they got the name of Bird Haven. But, I never got in on that because they has stopped
making them when I went there to make bigger things.
KK: What were the different buildings?
LP: Hmm?
KK: What were the different buildings that were there?
LP: Different buildings? Yes, there was a big old barn when I went there to go to work there was
a big barn, this three-story building, and then on down further was some other building. It had
finishing, where they sprayed lacquer and stain on finished things and a dry kiln where they
brought lumber from Cash, West Virginia over on a trailer truck. They would put it in there, and
down there at the other end was a furnace, that fired through pipes that dried that lumber out. In
that furnace room was a man that had a lathe and he turned things on the lathe and another man,
Chris Barb, turned on a lathe, and Will Hepner, he turned out on a router trays, like them tray I
got over there. He turned that out and then Harold Barb and I would finish them then. We’d get
them together and everything then like I said they went to where they hand sanded. Then it went
from there to where the women worked in one building and they put stain on them. They would
put that stain on there and after it dried a little bit and they assessed that it was all done they
would wipe it off with a rag and then, after it dried good, they put lacquer on it to make it nice
and slick and shiny.
KK: How many people worked at Bird Haven?
LP: When I first started I’d say about thirty. But some would leave and then some would come
and when it got down to the end there wasn’t too many working there. It went pretty good until
towards 1961. Earlier we had all the lumber glued up and everything, Harold Barb and me. There
was a step-son, Bernie Clark’s step son, John Gray Paul, they call him Spiz, he kind of messed
things up. He would get orders for things to go out and he didn’t send them out, he’d call back
and cancel the orders. That’s what happened to the Bird Haven. He told Harold Barb and me that
along about June of ’61 that if we could find another job, we ought to get it, because he was
going to close the place up. So, we hunted around, then I heard that there was an opening at the
school in Mount Jackson, so I took that job. He let the rest of the people work until right before
Christmas nearly then he said were closing the shop. He took some of the things to New Market
in a building he had there and he sold out of that.
KK: Wow.
LP: Yeah, I hated to see it happen, but I think it was all through him that it closed.
KK: Do you think that other than the amount of people there did Bird Haven change at all while
you were there besides the management?
LP: Did it change? No, not more than when he came up there and messed up things.
KK: So, the processes were all the same?
VP: He’s dead now. The man.
LP: Yeah, we worked ten hours a day and half a day on Saturday, ten cents an hour. We made
big money *laughs*. When we first went to work there, you worked a month and twenty days
and they held the twenty days back on you from there to the end until you quit and then they
gave you that twenty days up onto whatever you made then *laughs*.
KK: Did you all live, all of the people who worked at Bird Haven, did you all live near each
other?
LP: No, no they lived, well not too far from one another. They lived around back there, all
around there in Basye, where they lived, most of them. One, Stuart Barb and his family, they
lived back there, right close from there.
KK: Where were you living when you worked at Bird Haven?
VP: “McHaney”.
LP: Well, when I first started I was living in Mount Herman. Then later moved to “McHaney”.
KK: How long did it take you to get to work each day?
LP: Twenty minutes, to a half hour. Sometimes if where we went then there was a double ‘S’
down the hill and in the winter time it got icy and it was hard to get around that. Course, that’s
not there anymore, they took that out and put a straight through.
VP: They’d take turns driving.
KK: Is there anything or any memory that stands out to you the most about your time at Bird
Haven?
LP: Not, really.
KK: Did you enjoy working there?
LP: Yes, I did. I would have liked to kept on, if things would have worked better, if it had
worked out alright I would have liked to have just kept on working there all the rest ‘til I retired.
But, it didn’t work out.
KK: Do you know where you guys were sending, shipping things that you were making? Were
they going all over?
LP: Oh, I don’t know, there were some women that shipped them out when they got orders. They
would wrap and pack it, because it was shipped out right there at Bird Haven, from the post
office. The mail courier, he would make two trips to Mount Jackson a day from Orkney Springs
and he would stop in at Bird Haven at the post office. Then he drove to Mount Jackson two times
a day. He would take the things that they had for sale wrapped up and everything, boxed up, he
would take it along to Mount Jackson, from there I don’t know where it went.
KK: How many different things could you make in a day? Were you guys making a lot?
LP: Well, in a day, well it just depends what we were making. We would make so much of it at a
time, but I don’t know how long it takes to do it. It just depended on what we were making.
KK: What was the easiest thing to make?
LP: What did I do?
KK: What was the easiest thing that you guys made or the things that didn’t take as long?
LP: I don’t really know *laughs* I never thought about timing. We would make how many
things at the same time. We didn’t, I don’t know how long it would take us to do it.
KK: Is there one thing that you made a lot more of?
LP: Yeah, we made more wall racks in a time, then we did things like carpet benches, we made
some of them but we didn’t make too many of them at a time. In a time I mean in a couple days
or a week, we’d take a while to get that done.
VP: It’d take time, work like that, like waiting for it to dry before they could finish it. They
would do like one thing one day and maybe something else another day.
KK: Was there one thing that you guys made that was really popular, like you made way more of
that than anything else?
LP: Yeah, I think wall racks. Carpet benches went good but we didn’t make too many of them at
a time-period. Wall racks we made sometimes fifty at a time.
KK: What was the process like to make a wall rack?
LP: We had to glue up boards, they was planed on one side and then we had a cut-off saw that
would cut them up about the length we wanted the things, usually about four feet. We put it
through a big band saw to rip them and cut the edges. Then from there it went to a tongue groove
machine, it was a big groove machine that Harold would run through on the one side and it
would cut a tongue on it. Did you ever hear of tongue grove boards for flooring? Well this
machine would do that. He would run it through on one side and I would get it at the other end
and turn it over and run it back on the other side on the edge and cut a groove. So, that way when
we glued them we would take them to that big glue wheel that had clamps on it. That had a dip in
the floor, the glue wheel was so big around that it had to have that dip out in the floor to make it
come straight out to where a person was going to work. Put the boards in and tighten up the
clamps. But it was in this paper that somebody else said that they poured the glue down in that
dip and run the boards around, but that’s not true. That dip was there because the thing was too
big around that it had to come. Then we would take the boards and we had a glue pot about the
size of a gallon bucket. It was lined on the inside with copper and it was electric and it had little
old glue things about as big around as your little finger that were electric and would melt that
glue. It had a little brush about an inch wide and Harold Barb, he’d usually hold a board up, dip
that there glue, I mean brush in the glue and put it on the one side, on one edge of the board and
we’d lay it in the clamps and then he’d get the next one and put it on and put it together there.
When we had about the width we wanted the things, he’d tighten up two clamps and I’d tighten
up two and we’d do that until we filled up that whole wheel of clamps. Then we’d leave it till the
next day, from there we’d plane it, plane the boards and whatever we were going to make, put a
pattern on and saw it out on a band saw. Then it went from whoever was supposed to work it.
KK: Wow. You’ve described some of the equipment, what was all in the space that you worked
in?
LP: Well, in this old barn that was there when I went there, but after years later, after they had
the fire, after part of the finishing place burned down.
I’ll start there and go back to the barn. The dry kiln had pipes that had water went through but it
was like baseboard heat you have in the house, water goes through there, hot water baseboard. It
goes through your furnace and circulates around and that’s the way the furnace, it was in one end
of the building. The dry kiln where the lumber come in from Cash, West Virginia, where they
put it in. There was big pipes about two inches through, the water went through there and then on
into another room that was all in this one building, a long building, it had finishing where the
women would finish making them, putting stain and lacquer on. It heated from that furnace,
heated that water through the whole building there. One winter it must have got out of fire and
the pipes froze. Some guy, he had a blow torch and he was trying to thaw out the pipes, trying to
thaw the ice out of them. He was in the lacquer room and it caught afire, that lacquer caught
afire. That’s what burnt that building down, most of the building, it burnt down the one where
the women worked in to put the lacquer and stain and stuff on the things that was made. Then
after that they built the building out of cinder blocks. But, it burned up that part, then they built
that out of cinder blocks, then they built another one there where the women would do the
finishing, then they tore that old barn down.
But, that old barn when I started, it had a cut off saw, it had a big rip saw, a planer, this tongue
groove machine, and a machine that made dowels. Dowels, them little dowels and big dowels
too. After they built that other building. In another part of the barn, that part wasn’t heated, but it
was closed in though, the other part was closed in where they did hand sanding. That part had in
it a band saw and a smaller rip saw, tables where you’d put the stuff together and a big old drum,
big drum sander that ran with an electric motor, and a drill press. I had never seen one like it and
never seen one since like it. You did it with your foot, to run the bit, you’d put it down like that
you did it with your foot. You had both hands free to hold what you were drilling into. So, I
don’t know if they still have that anymore or not, course it’s been sixty years since I’ve been
there.
KK: Have you been back to that area? You haven’t been there for sixty years?
LP: No, I haven’t but that man that called me, that owns it, he called me and invited me back.
But, I just haven’t got there yet, I plan on going if nothing happens. I don’t know what he looks
like, I never did meet him. Just like I had never met you girls before, but you’re pretty girls.
Nice.
VP: No, haven’t been back, he’s talked to the man, he wants him to come back.
KK: What time would you have gotten there in the morning?
LP: About seven-o-clock, maybe sooner than that, because we worked ten hours a day.
KK: What would have been the first thing you would have done, then what time did you have
lunch, then what did you do then when did you leave?
LP: * laughs* We ate lunch about twelve-o-clock. But, we had a half hour to eat lunch, I guess I
marked down my time, I reckon, didn’t mark time while eating. I can’t really remember to tell
you the truth *laughs* that part. We went to work right as soon as we got there, because we
worked ten hours a day, didn’t have too much time to mess around.
I’ll get back to the barn, they tore it down after they built the block buildings, they tore that part
down. But, the block buildings weren’t like the wooden buildings because the wooden buildings
had a metal roof on them. These other old block buildings they had tile roof on them and they
were more flat. They were always leaking, they had to be getting up there to put tile on all the
time. They weren’t as good a buildings as the original buildings.
KK: So, the original building was a barn and were all the different parts of the process all in that
one barn?
LP: No, where they finished them, where they put the stain and lacquer and stuff on them, that
was in a different building. It was a long building, that building had that part at the end and then
the kiln dry in part of it, it was sectioned off, then a boiler room was at the other end, but each
one was to itself. But, in another part was where we made the things, in a different building,
where we made it and planed it and got it ready, that was in a different part. That was in the old
barn but then they tore it down, after they built the others then it was two different buildings
there that they had the finishing where they put the stain on and the lacquer, that was in one part
of the block building, the other was in the other building.
KK: How many buildings were there once they built the new cinder block ones?
LP: Just two, but they were sectioned off for different things. It was a pretty long building, it had
sections just like you have a room here, like walls for the living room and the kitchen, your
bedrooms. That’s the way that was, but it was for the machines, the different machines that we
had. It was where you had walls to divide them up.
KK: Were you part of the Shenandoah Community Workers?
LP: What?
KK: Shenandoah Community Workers?
LP: Shenandoah Community Workers, what do you mean by that?
KK: The group of people that were living and working there, at Bird Haven?
LP: Was I in the community with them?
VP: They all lived around there, it was a community, Bird Haven was called Bird Haven, but it
was community workers that worked there.
KK: So, you mentioned that they made the birds and puzzles before you got there, what was
different before you got there? What were they doing besides making the birds and puzzles?
What else were they doing different before you started working there?
LP: Before I started working there they were making, I don’t know when they stopped making
the puzzles and wooden birds, things like that. I don’t know what year they stopped making that
because they were making things that I helped make they were making them when I got there,
when I went to work there.
VP: They were making birds, just like little birds, like that little red bird. They would paint them.
But, that was before he got there.
KK: Were you still making as many products towards the end?Before -
LP: Before we closed? Up till, I’d say five months before it closed we had the things made up
that we were making. They wasn’t finished all the way through, like I said, the man that I was
working with we had the things made up, when I say made up, we had them already made what
we made. From the ones where they went to finish hand sanding, putting the stain and lacquer
and stuff like that on the rest of the almost six months, five months I got to say before it closed.
VP: They didn’t know that, they just finished what was already made up.
KK: Can you tell me about the different things that you have still from Bird Haven that you
made?
LP: Yeah, I have a magazine cradle, a tray, a stool, and two wall racks that I made there, that
come from there. But I don’t have the stamp on them, it was a label, it had a yellow label there. I
never even thought about getting them to put it on there. Because the stool and they tray that I
have, I made on my own time and I made it out of different wood, I put a walnut and a maple,
together in strips. But, I made it on my own time, I made that in about 1955 and that other stuff
there too. That stool, children would come, well people would come but they had children, and
they would play with it, course they would bump it around and since 1955 *laughs* that’s a lot
of playing with, they loosened up some of the legs up there ain’t much I can do about that. Not
too bad, not too bad I don’t think.
KK: When did you make the wall racks?
LP: The wall racks? About the same time, I’d say, course them there I bought them myself,
because I made them. Harold Barb and myself made wall racks, we’re the only ones that made
them. We glued the lumber, we made the wall racks and we made the stools.
VP: When you were making them, sometimes him and the man he was working with, if they
wanted something for themselves they would work on Saturday after they had closed. That’s
how we got so much stuff, others too if they wanted some they’d buy it.
LP: But lazy susans, one man he made, I’ve got pictures here in the paper here, in the paper here
*shuffling paper* Do you want to look at them? This here shows were lazy susans, Stuart Barb,
he’d turn that on his lathe. But, we’d have to glue it and everything and saw it out on the board.
He had a lathe that had a plate on the end of the shaft, it was electric though, I meant it run by
electric motor, he would do it out with a chisel.
VP: I’ll tell you girls, that was a nosy place. When it all was going, running you’d go insane with
all that noise. I don’t know how they did it.
LP: Oh, that theres what we got over there, that’s the magazine cradle. We would drill holes, the
side is a half inch thick. We had to run them through the boards after we glued them up, we’d run
them through this big planer and cut it down to about where you want the thickness. Course, you
just have to run it through there, take just a little off at a time, because if you took too much off it
would tear holes in it and it wouldn’t be no good. *shuffling paper* There’s another page here,
*shuffling paper* if I can find it. *laughs* Oh, that’s just reading there, that’s just reading there.
We made a lot more things than this, it doesn’t have the carpet bench on it. It didn’t have the
wall racks on it that we made. The spoons, we made wooden spoons and forks, Stuart Barb, we
sawed that out of a thick, Harold and me, we’d saw them out of thick boards, about that big.
Course there was a pattern and everything they did with a pattern to cut it out. Then put a thing
on there to shape it and saw it out. Then Stuart, he put it on that lathe and he had that chisel that
he’d run back and forth like that till he cut them out, shape them out. Then after that he’d saw
them out on the band saw and sand them on that big drum sander, shape them up. I don’t have
any of them, I made two of them, a knife and a fork, I had sort of like that there, different colored
wood, I don’t know what happened to them.
KK: What is all that, what is in that paper?
LP: Do you want to read it?
VP: No, you tell them what they are.
LP: This tells about what this is *shuffling paper*
VP: Tell her what the pictures are. Tell her what the pictures are, that’s what she wants you to
tell her.
KK: You can just tell me about the whole paper.
LP: Well, this here paper, somebody made it, the Chamber of Commerce.
VP: The Chamber of Commerce in Mount Jackson
LP: They did this, the Chamber of Commerce, it says in here that they talked to different ones
who worked at Bird Haven. But, some of them that they talked to I knew, but some of them I
didn’t know. Well, I knowed them but not when they worked there - two men that’s in here they
never worked there when I worked there, if they worked there they worked there before I ever
went there. I worked from ’47 till when they closed.
They had in here about the glue wheel, about having there dip down there and pouring that glue
down there and running the boards through it, that’s not so. That there was because the wheel
was so big around that it had to have room for it to come up to where it could come right straight
out from you where you could put the boards straight in. I’ll give you this paper to let you read,
if you want to.
KK: Is there anything else in the paper that they got wrong about Bird Haven?
LP: No, not that I read. *shuffling paper* Then they got here a doll cradle, well that there was a
cradle just like the magazine cradle, more than that. We made it without the dowels inside, the
dividers. That there’s got them dowels in it, it was divided for magazines cradle, this would lift
them out. Harold and I, we glued the boards, we planed them, we sanded them, then put them
together. We drilled holes on the sides, on the ends, we drilled holes in to put screws in. It was
put together with screws in the end pieces. We sanded them, after it was all together we sanded
them on a big drum sander. I’d hold it here on my chest, felt like rubbed the hide off, I’d put
them on there and rounded them. Well, there’s one, we rounded them there and counter sunk
where we’d put the screws in, we’d put them together. When I first went there I think we used
just a screw driver like that but then later on they got some that were ratchet screw driver. We
put a screw down in there like that, it went pretty good, but sometimes it was pretty hard. But, I
enjoyed it, I liked working with wood, make pretty things. I did some of that since I’ve retired,
up until a couple years ago, I had to quit. I had a little building out here and I had a couple things
in and I made things.
VP: He made bird houses and he made churches, like the churches around here.
LP: Since I retired I made replicas of seven churches, I have one of where we go to church, St.
John’s in Edinburg. I made seven I know. I often wished that I had taken pictures of the things
that I made since I retired, but, I never thought about it. I made church bird houses, shaped like a
church. I made a lot of things shaped like a church, I made some little banks shaped like a
church. Oh, I made, what’s that called, with them covers a crossed, you got them upstairs. You
lay them covers across
VP: I can’t think of what you made that you got a cover across it.
LP: No, it’s about this tall.
VP: Honey, I don’t know what you’re thinking about.
LP: We just talked about it the other day, you forgetful as I am.
VP: No, but I can’t think of it.
LP: It’s about this wide and it had them strips of wood that goes through there and its up here.
VP: Oh, the magazine racks.
LP: No.
VP: Not magazine rack but quilt racks.
LP: Yeah, I made some of them.
KK: Did you use all the things that you have learned at Bird Haven to build stuff once you
retired?
LP: Did I do what?
KK: Use the skills that you learned at Bird Haven, or did you kind of figure it out?
LP: Yeah, I used them. But, then somethings I just figured out by myself. Just like I got a thing
out there that we saw somewhere that you can put VP: I’ll show it to you
LP: Yeah, she’ll show it you, but we saw it somewhere and my wife said she’d like to have one
and I said well you draw it and I’ll make it. So, she did and I made it and we hung it up there on
the wall out there. It holds cook books and stuff, there’s a little drawer.
VP: It holds books for. We were out one day and I said I want one like that to hold books and he
said well if you draw me a picture. I’ll show it to you, that’s where my cooks books are.
KK: Were there anything’s like the fire that made people leave Bird Haven, or changed?
LP: Yeah, when they had the fire we couldn’t work. So we worked, some of us, we worked in
the orchard picking apples until they got things built back up. I had a little ladder when I went to
the orchard, well they have ladders. There was one there that was narrow at the bottom as it was
at the top. I was up in there and I had a bag of apples hanging here and I was putting apples in
and that ladder turned like that and I come down through and I fell over a limb. The bag went on
one side and me on the other and I *laughs* I think I busted some ribs. That laid me out for a
long while from picking apples.
KK: How long was Bird Haven shut down for the fire?
LP: Oh, I don’t have no idea. Couple months anyway, I don’t know, I never did keep a count of
it really. We was out work until they got it back on with the blocks and stuff. They had to move
the machinery. They tore down that old barn then, that three story building as far as I know is
probably still there, them old block buildings too I guess, I don’t know. But, I’m sure they still
are, but I don’t know what shape they’re in.
VP: But we’re going back one day, girls, were going to see it.
LP: But then, where the dry kiln was and the boiler room, that didn’t burn, so that might still be
there because it had a metal roof on it. ‘Cept they built these block building in one place and they
built onto that part. Then they built another over on the same lot but not right against one
another.
VP: They had hole, somebody working for them back there LP: If she wants to talk she should talk up loud, shouldn’t she? *laughs*
VP: No, I should not, I don’t want that going on there.
KK: Do you know why the guy wanted to shut it down? Or wanted to stop you all making stuff?
LP: No, he didn’t work there, he just *laughs* he didn’t do anything really, but just -
VP: He was a step son LP: I don’t know. Later on they told me that he’d become a judge in Harrisonburg, but he’s not
living anymore. I seen him on 81 one time and he had a Studebaker Car. I was coming from
Woodstock where I went to go to work after I was working for the school, working on the
maintenance. I was coming south on 81 and this car passed me and he motioned for me to pull
over. I seen who it was and I pulled over and he said if you ever need a good lawyer or judge
well let me know *laughs*. I didn’t really want to, but I didn’t have to have him anyway. I’d
been afraid to have him anyway when he messed up that Bird Haven job.
KK: Did you ever have to fix any of the equipment in the shop? Did it ever break?
LP: Oh, yeah. The band saw blade tore sometimes, one time it tore and I cut my finger here on
the knuckle. See that one I can pull that up there, but that one I can’t pull it up any further. Cut
the ligaments there, had to have some clamps put on it. One time I ran my thumb in the rip saw,
that kind of hurt too *laughs*. I was pushing a board through and it flew someway, it was so
quick that I didn’t have time to think about it really.
KK: Were there ever any other accidents in Bird Haven?
LP: Never anything more than that, couple little things.
KK: Was the work physically hard?
LP: Hard? Well carrying that lumber was very hard, because you went down to the dry kiln and
we carried it up to that barn. You’d have to carry it on your shoulder and then if it had two-inch
stuff then we’d carry that he’d get one end, maybe it was twelve or fourteen-foot long. He’d
carry one end and I’d get on the other end and we’d carry them boards up. We’d use that for
carpet benches, we did the same to glue them together, the same way that we did the other stuff.
We ripped it and everything. That was the hardest really, we’d carry it up to that old barn. After
they built them block buildings onto that part that was left, the dry kiln and the furnace room,
they built on to that right there and we could just go out and go around the corner and get the
boards out of the dry kiln. Then didn’t have to carry it so far.
KK: How far was the distance that you had to carry it?
LP: Before that? When the old barn was still there? Well, about from here over to that house
over there. We carried it over our shoulder. Course I wasn’t but twenty-three years old then when
I first started *laughs* and I was only so much older fourteen years later.
KK: How long had you worked, you worked at an orchard before you started before at Bird
Haven?
LP: Couple years I worked on a farm, I grew up on a farm, until I got married. Well, after we got
married, we got married the next day after I become nineteen. I married that lovely woman over
there for seventy-four years *laughs*
VP: *laughs*
LP: But I still worked on a farm until I was about twenty-one, then I worked in an orchard after
that for couple years then, about two or three years, then I started working at Bird Haven.
KK: Did you move to be closer or did you just stay where you were living?
LP: No, I stayed where I was at. We lived in Mt. Clifton before we bought here. I drove from Mt.
Clifton to Bird Haven for a while too and that there was a little further. It was further than Basye,
I mean further than “McHaney”. It was maybe twelve no, about ten miles I reckon from Mt.
Clifton to there. I don’t know how many years before it was closed, not too many years in Mt.
Clifton though. I’d pick up some guys and take them along, well one man that worked there for
two years at the end. The last two years he did the routing because the man that was routing out
the trays in the boiler room where Barb had a lathe. His name was Will Hepner and he was
working there routing out trays when I went to work there and then he worked until he retired
two years before it closed. George Miller, his wife had worked there when I went there but she
quit about two years before it closed. Her husband got on and he routed out the trays for the last
two years. Betty Donner was one of the girls that did the, helped to do the, she is still living, she
was one of them that helped to put the finishing on the, the stain and lacquer on the things that
we made. She would work in the packing place wrap them and ship them out, ship the things
away. But, she is still living, far as I know she is about the only one that worked there that is still
living. Her name is Betty Donner.
KK: Were you close with or friends with the other people who worked at Bird Haven?
LP: Was a close with what?
KK: Were you close with or friends with the other people who worked at Bird Haven?
LP: Friendly.
KK: Friendly?
LP: Yeah I was friendly with them yeah *laughs*. I knew about all of them, well I knew them
after I got there *laughs*. I didn’t know some of them before I ever went there though I knew
them after I got there *laughs*.
KK: Did you LP: Yeah?
KK: What were you going to say?
LP: I don’t know *laughs*
VP: *laughs*
LP: I’m waiting for you.
KK: *laughs* What was your favorite part about working there?
LP: My favorite part? Going home I guess *laughs*
VP: *laughs*
LP: I don’t know, I just like to work with wood, that’s all. Make things, nice. I liked being with
my co-workers and all.
VP: Girls I think you got his whole life’s history *laughs*
LP: What do you go to ask up there young lady?
All: *laughs*
Emily Schmitt (ES): This is all Kati’s interview
KK: Well are there more stories that you have about Bird Haven? Did anything funny ever
happen there?
LP: Oh, I don’t know, not that I know of really. I can’t think of.
VP: The Clarks, when they owned it, I think they had some wild parties out there. *laughs* But
none of those boys were ever invited.
LP: Yeah the Clarks that owned it, they, I guess they did, I don’t know I didn’t get to any of
them, the parties. They had parties but they didn’t bother us at all, so Bernie Clark owned it but
he stayed, there was a little creek that went through there and he stayed on his house. He would
take his wife and they would go over to Harrisonburg about once a week and get their things that
they needed and somethings they didn’t need *laughs*. But they had good times, I understand
they had good times. Like I say I wasn’t to any of them parties.
KK: Who decided what you guys made there? Who came up with the designs for the pieces that
you guys made?
LP: My boss, Stuart Barb and his son, still lives, his son he’s is younger, he still lives back
around Basye. He’s got a house back there, but he didn’t work there though. Course I knew him
from the time he was a little bitty baby. But he after he grew up he went when he got out of
school and everything he has a sister and another brother, as far as I know, but I don’t know
where they living. Him and his brothers is truck drivers, they hauled, I don’t know – sirens going
off over here.
KK: Did you, like the people who all worked there, did you guys ever get together?
LP: No, we was together enough through the day *laughs* we never got together after that.
KK: Have you, after Bird Haven closed, did you ever see them?
LP: Yeah, I see them every now and then, but not very often.
VP: Like I said they are dead.
LP: Yeah, I see Harold Barb, I’d see him every now and then, and the others. But, we just didn’t
get together after that too much. They would do their thing and I did mine *laughs*
*phone rings*
LP: There goes the telephone.
VP: Oh, gosh. Lynchburg, I’m not going to answer it
LP: Well cut it off.
KK: That’s okay.
VP: We keep getting prank calls.
LP: We get scam calls, calls from scammers.
VP: Wait, because it will go on the answering machine and if they don’t leave anything.
KK: Anything else you want to say about Bird Haven?
LP: No, not that I know of, except that I got to go, I want to go back to Bird Haven before long
and meet the man that owns it now. See what else he got back there yet. I’d like to go. It would
have been a good time in February if I just did it because the weather was real nice all through
February. Not too bad put there now though. But somethings just happened that I didn’t get to
go, that’s all.
KK: What do you hope to see when you go back there?
LP: See what, how things look *laughs* but I understand that the trees, a lot of the trees is cut
down. Not much trees there anymore, it was woods and it was an old dirt road that went down
around turns to go in and out. I don’t know what the road is now. Like I said I don’t know what
kind of buildings is there anymore. He invited me back but I just haven’t got there, course I don’t
think he’s there all the time.
VP: He travels.
LP: He’s got a job that he travels he says. I got his telephone number though and he’s got mine.
VP: I think he must be some kind of salesman, figuring something like that.
LP: I don’t know what he looks like, he don’t know what I look like *laughs*.
KK: Do you know what happened to all of the equipment and stuff after you guys left?
LP: No, I don’t know, I think somebody else owned it before this man did. I heard that the,
bought it after it closed, that he had another shop somewhere else in the county, he was going to
take the things, the planers and saws and equipment somewhere else, but I don’t know what he
left there. I don’t know what he did or what he didn’t. But, I know they left that there glue wheel
there because it would have been hard to handle, to take. Unless they tore it all apart, they could
have tore it apart, they’d be unable to handle it I think.
Sorry I can’t help you any better.
KK: No, you helped us so much. I didn’t know a lot about that stuff, so, that was great.
LP: Well, I hope it goes alright with you.
KK: Oh, that will be great, it’s going to be a really good, really good source of information for
our class.
LP: Well it was really nice to see you girls too, talking with you, and you can come back to see
us anytime.
KK: Oh, yeah, I would love to hear about how your trip to Bird Haven goes, you will have to let
me know when you guys go.
VP: We’ll tell you what we see down there.
Interviewer: Kaitlyn Kissane
Interviewee, Narrator 1: Leroy Polk
Narrator 2: V. Polk – Leroy Polk’s wife
Sound and Video Operator: Emily Schmitt
Monday March 20, 2017
This interview was conducted with Mr. Leroy Polk, a ninety-three year old man who worked at
Bird Haven gluing lumber and making wood products for fourteen years. His wife of seventyfour years, Mrs. V. Polk, was present during the interview and can be heard speaking, sometimes
at the same time, throughout the interview contributing information and helping Leroy remember
details.
Kaitlyn Kissane (KK): Would you start by telling us your name and your age?
Leroy Polk (LP): I’m Leroy Polk and I’m ninety-three years old.
KK: How long did you work at Bird Haven?
LP: Fourteen years, from 1947 to 1961.
KK: What was your job at Bird Haven?
LP: Gluing lumber, another guy and me, Harold Barb was his name, we glued all the lumber that
was glued from the fourteen years that I worked there. We glued for the things that we made and
then also for the ones that turned on a lathe.
KK: Okay.
LP: Okay *laughs*
KK: So, what would – is this okay? Okay. – What would a normal day at Bird Haven have
looked like for you?
LP: A normal day of what?
KK: At Bird Haven.
LP: That I worked at Bird Haven? It was nice, I enjoyed it, I enjoy working with wood. Still do,
but I’m not able to do it.
KK: Did you live in the community of Bird Haven?
LP: Well, not so far away, maybe, well I lived a while at Basye, between Basye and Orkney
Springs. But, then we lived maybe five or six miles from there, from Bird Haven.
KK: How did you first hear about or get your job at Bird Haven?
LP: I was at Basye at a restaurant and I met a man in there and we got to talking. He said his
name was Stuart Barb, I told him who I was, I said I was Leroy Polk. I asked him where he
worked, he asked where I worked and I said I was, at the time, I was working at an orchard. He
said he worked at Bird Haven and I said just where is Bird Haven, he told me where it was. Did I
tell you what his name was, he said it was Stuart Barb *laughs*. He said well if you come back
tomorrow I’ll give you a job. So, I went back and he hired me, I worked over there then from
that’s what I said, 1947. I enjoyed every minute of it. Yeah. I love working with wood.
KK: Had you done any work with wood before you got your job there?
LP: No. I didn’t.
KK: Why do you love working with wood?
LP: Because I enjoy doing it, *laughs*,
KK: Yeah
LP: Making pretty things, I like doing that.
KK: What was your favorite thing to make?
LP: Well, I liked to do all of it, but wall racks. We made, me and this other guy Harold Barb, he
and I worked together and we made a whole slew of wall racks at a time, and magazine rack
cradles. We made carpet benches too. And everything was made with a pattern, we glued up the
lumber, then planed it, and put it on the pattern of what we were going to make. Then, we sawed
it out on a band saw, and sanded it on a drum sander, a big drum sander. Then we sorted it all
out. At last, after we got done with that part, it went to the people that hand sanded, they had to
sand it smooth and go the way the grain run, because if they went crossways it showed up when
they stained it and put lacquer on it. That’s about all I can tell you *laughs*
KK: Did your job change at all over the fourteen years that you were there?
LP: No.
KK: You did the same thing?
LP: I did the same thing, this other guy and myself, we worked at the same thing.
KK: Did he work there as long as you did?
LP: Yeah, fourteen years.
V. Polk (VP): But he’s passed away.
KK: What was the community of Bird Haven like?
LP: It was just you went there and went down through the woods where the shops were and
that’s all that was in there. It was just the shop and the man that owned it *laughs* it wasn’t
much of a place, it was just the buildings and the shop. The man owned it lived a little ways from
there, that’s about all that was in there.
VP: Post office, they had a post office at one time.
LP: Oh yeah, it had a post office, in the building, there was a three story building there. They
didn’t use, when I was there they didn’t use the top floor because before I went there they made
puzzles and birds, wooden birds and puzzles. They painted the birds made of wood and that’s
where they got the name of Bird Haven. But, I never got in on that because they has stopped
making them when I went there to make bigger things.
KK: What were the different buildings?
LP: Hmm?
KK: What were the different buildings that were there?
LP: Different buildings? Yes, there was a big old barn when I went there to go to work there was
a big barn, this three-story building, and then on down further was some other building. It had
finishing, where they sprayed lacquer and stain on finished things and a dry kiln where they
brought lumber from Cash, West Virginia over on a trailer truck. They would put it in there, and
down there at the other end was a furnace, that fired through pipes that dried that lumber out. In
that furnace room was a man that had a lathe and he turned things on the lathe and another man,
Chris Barb, turned on a lathe, and Will Hepner, he turned out on a router trays, like them tray I
got over there. He turned that out and then Harold Barb and I would finish them then. We’d get
them together and everything then like I said they went to where they hand sanded. Then it went
from there to where the women worked in one building and they put stain on them. They would
put that stain on there and after it dried a little bit and they assessed that it was all done they
would wipe it off with a rag and then, after it dried good, they put lacquer on it to make it nice
and slick and shiny.
KK: How many people worked at Bird Haven?
LP: When I first started I’d say about thirty. But some would leave and then some would come
and when it got down to the end there wasn’t too many working there. It went pretty good until
towards 1961. Earlier we had all the lumber glued up and everything, Harold Barb and me. There
was a step-son, Bernie Clark’s step son, John Gray Paul, they call him Spiz, he kind of messed
things up. He would get orders for things to go out and he didn’t send them out, he’d call back
and cancel the orders. That’s what happened to the Bird Haven. He told Harold Barb and me that
along about June of ’61 that if we could find another job, we ought to get it, because he was
going to close the place up. So, we hunted around, then I heard that there was an opening at the
school in Mount Jackson, so I took that job. He let the rest of the people work until right before
Christmas nearly then he said were closing the shop. He took some of the things to New Market
in a building he had there and he sold out of that.
KK: Wow.
LP: Yeah, I hated to see it happen, but I think it was all through him that it closed.
KK: Do you think that other than the amount of people there did Bird Haven change at all while
you were there besides the management?
LP: Did it change? No, not more than when he came up there and messed up things.
KK: So, the processes were all the same?
VP: He’s dead now. The man.
LP: Yeah, we worked ten hours a day and half a day on Saturday, ten cents an hour. We made
big money *laughs*. When we first went to work there, you worked a month and twenty days
and they held the twenty days back on you from there to the end until you quit and then they
gave you that twenty days up onto whatever you made then *laughs*.
KK: Did you all live, all of the people who worked at Bird Haven, did you all live near each
other?
LP: No, no they lived, well not too far from one another. They lived around back there, all
around there in Basye, where they lived, most of them. One, Stuart Barb and his family, they
lived back there, right close from there.
KK: Where were you living when you worked at Bird Haven?
VP: “McHaney”.
LP: Well, when I first started I was living in Mount Herman. Then later moved to “McHaney”.
KK: How long did it take you to get to work each day?
LP: Twenty minutes, to a half hour. Sometimes if where we went then there was a double ‘S’
down the hill and in the winter time it got icy and it was hard to get around that. Course, that’s
not there anymore, they took that out and put a straight through.
VP: They’d take turns driving.
KK: Is there anything or any memory that stands out to you the most about your time at Bird
Haven?
LP: Not, really.
KK: Did you enjoy working there?
LP: Yes, I did. I would have liked to kept on, if things would have worked better, if it had
worked out alright I would have liked to have just kept on working there all the rest ‘til I retired.
But, it didn’t work out.
KK: Do you know where you guys were sending, shipping things that you were making? Were
they going all over?
LP: Oh, I don’t know, there were some women that shipped them out when they got orders. They
would wrap and pack it, because it was shipped out right there at Bird Haven, from the post
office. The mail courier, he would make two trips to Mount Jackson a day from Orkney Springs
and he would stop in at Bird Haven at the post office. Then he drove to Mount Jackson two times
a day. He would take the things that they had for sale wrapped up and everything, boxed up, he
would take it along to Mount Jackson, from there I don’t know where it went.
KK: How many different things could you make in a day? Were you guys making a lot?
LP: Well, in a day, well it just depends what we were making. We would make so much of it at a
time, but I don’t know how long it takes to do it. It just depended on what we were making.
KK: What was the easiest thing to make?
LP: What did I do?
KK: What was the easiest thing that you guys made or the things that didn’t take as long?
LP: I don’t really know *laughs* I never thought about timing. We would make how many
things at the same time. We didn’t, I don’t know how long it would take us to do it.
KK: Is there one thing that you made a lot more of?
LP: Yeah, we made more wall racks in a time, then we did things like carpet benches, we made
some of them but we didn’t make too many of them at a time. In a time I mean in a couple days
or a week, we’d take a while to get that done.
VP: It’d take time, work like that, like waiting for it to dry before they could finish it. They
would do like one thing one day and maybe something else another day.
KK: Was there one thing that you guys made that was really popular, like you made way more of
that than anything else?
LP: Yeah, I think wall racks. Carpet benches went good but we didn’t make too many of them at
a time-period. Wall racks we made sometimes fifty at a time.
KK: What was the process like to make a wall rack?
LP: We had to glue up boards, they was planed on one side and then we had a cut-off saw that
would cut them up about the length we wanted the things, usually about four feet. We put it
through a big band saw to rip them and cut the edges. Then from there it went to a tongue groove
machine, it was a big groove machine that Harold would run through on the one side and it
would cut a tongue on it. Did you ever hear of tongue grove boards for flooring? Well this
machine would do that. He would run it through on one side and I would get it at the other end
and turn it over and run it back on the other side on the edge and cut a groove. So, that way when
we glued them we would take them to that big glue wheel that had clamps on it. That had a dip in
the floor, the glue wheel was so big around that it had to have that dip out in the floor to make it
come straight out to where a person was going to work. Put the boards in and tighten up the
clamps. But it was in this paper that somebody else said that they poured the glue down in that
dip and run the boards around, but that’s not true. That dip was there because the thing was too
big around that it had to come. Then we would take the boards and we had a glue pot about the
size of a gallon bucket. It was lined on the inside with copper and it was electric and it had little
old glue things about as big around as your little finger that were electric and would melt that
glue. It had a little brush about an inch wide and Harold Barb, he’d usually hold a board up, dip
that there glue, I mean brush in the glue and put it on the one side, on one edge of the board and
we’d lay it in the clamps and then he’d get the next one and put it on and put it together there.
When we had about the width we wanted the things, he’d tighten up two clamps and I’d tighten
up two and we’d do that until we filled up that whole wheel of clamps. Then we’d leave it till the
next day, from there we’d plane it, plane the boards and whatever we were going to make, put a
pattern on and saw it out on a band saw. Then it went from whoever was supposed to work it.
KK: Wow. You’ve described some of the equipment, what was all in the space that you worked
in?
LP: Well, in this old barn that was there when I went there, but after years later, after they had
the fire, after part of the finishing place burned down.
I’ll start there and go back to the barn. The dry kiln had pipes that had water went through but it
was like baseboard heat you have in the house, water goes through there, hot water baseboard. It
goes through your furnace and circulates around and that’s the way the furnace, it was in one end
of the building. The dry kiln where the lumber come in from Cash, West Virginia, where they
put it in. There was big pipes about two inches through, the water went through there and then on
into another room that was all in this one building, a long building, it had finishing where the
women would finish making them, putting stain and lacquer on. It heated from that furnace,
heated that water through the whole building there. One winter it must have got out of fire and
the pipes froze. Some guy, he had a blow torch and he was trying to thaw out the pipes, trying to
thaw the ice out of them. He was in the lacquer room and it caught afire, that lacquer caught
afire. That’s what burnt that building down, most of the building, it burnt down the one where
the women worked in to put the lacquer and stain and stuff on the things that was made. Then
after that they built the building out of cinder blocks. But, it burned up that part, then they built
that out of cinder blocks, then they built another one there where the women would do the
finishing, then they tore that old barn down.
But, that old barn when I started, it had a cut off saw, it had a big rip saw, a planer, this tongue
groove machine, and a machine that made dowels. Dowels, them little dowels and big dowels
too. After they built that other building. In another part of the barn, that part wasn’t heated, but it
was closed in though, the other part was closed in where they did hand sanding. That part had in
it a band saw and a smaller rip saw, tables where you’d put the stuff together and a big old drum,
big drum sander that ran with an electric motor, and a drill press. I had never seen one like it and
never seen one since like it. You did it with your foot, to run the bit, you’d put it down like that
you did it with your foot. You had both hands free to hold what you were drilling into. So, I
don’t know if they still have that anymore or not, course it’s been sixty years since I’ve been
there.
KK: Have you been back to that area? You haven’t been there for sixty years?
LP: No, I haven’t but that man that called me, that owns it, he called me and invited me back.
But, I just haven’t got there yet, I plan on going if nothing happens. I don’t know what he looks
like, I never did meet him. Just like I had never met you girls before, but you’re pretty girls.
Nice.
VP: No, haven’t been back, he’s talked to the man, he wants him to come back.
KK: What time would you have gotten there in the morning?
LP: About seven-o-clock, maybe sooner than that, because we worked ten hours a day.
KK: What would have been the first thing you would have done, then what time did you have
lunch, then what did you do then when did you leave?
LP: * laughs* We ate lunch about twelve-o-clock. But, we had a half hour to eat lunch, I guess I
marked down my time, I reckon, didn’t mark time while eating. I can’t really remember to tell
you the truth *laughs* that part. We went to work right as soon as we got there, because we
worked ten hours a day, didn’t have too much time to mess around.
I’ll get back to the barn, they tore it down after they built the block buildings, they tore that part
down. But, the block buildings weren’t like the wooden buildings because the wooden buildings
had a metal roof on them. These other old block buildings they had tile roof on them and they
were more flat. They were always leaking, they had to be getting up there to put tile on all the
time. They weren’t as good a buildings as the original buildings.
KK: So, the original building was a barn and were all the different parts of the process all in that
one barn?
LP: No, where they finished them, where they put the stain and lacquer and stuff on them, that
was in a different building. It was a long building, that building had that part at the end and then
the kiln dry in part of it, it was sectioned off, then a boiler room was at the other end, but each
one was to itself. But, in another part was where we made the things, in a different building,
where we made it and planed it and got it ready, that was in a different part. That was in the old
barn but then they tore it down, after they built the others then it was two different buildings
there that they had the finishing where they put the stain on and the lacquer, that was in one part
of the block building, the other was in the other building.
KK: How many buildings were there once they built the new cinder block ones?
LP: Just two, but they were sectioned off for different things. It was a pretty long building, it had
sections just like you have a room here, like walls for the living room and the kitchen, your
bedrooms. That’s the way that was, but it was for the machines, the different machines that we
had. It was where you had walls to divide them up.
KK: Were you part of the Shenandoah Community Workers?
LP: What?
KK: Shenandoah Community Workers?
LP: Shenandoah Community Workers, what do you mean by that?
KK: The group of people that were living and working there, at Bird Haven?
LP: Was I in the community with them?
VP: They all lived around there, it was a community, Bird Haven was called Bird Haven, but it
was community workers that worked there.
KK: So, you mentioned that they made the birds and puzzles before you got there, what was
different before you got there? What were they doing besides making the birds and puzzles?
What else were they doing different before you started working there?
LP: Before I started working there they were making, I don’t know when they stopped making
the puzzles and wooden birds, things like that. I don’t know what year they stopped making that
because they were making things that I helped make they were making them when I got there,
when I went to work there.
VP: They were making birds, just like little birds, like that little red bird. They would paint them.
But, that was before he got there.
KK: Were you still making as many products towards the end?Before -
LP: Before we closed? Up till, I’d say five months before it closed we had the things made up
that we were making. They wasn’t finished all the way through, like I said, the man that I was
working with we had the things made up, when I say made up, we had them already made what
we made. From the ones where they went to finish hand sanding, putting the stain and lacquer
and stuff like that on the rest of the almost six months, five months I got to say before it closed.
VP: They didn’t know that, they just finished what was already made up.
KK: Can you tell me about the different things that you have still from Bird Haven that you
made?
LP: Yeah, I have a magazine cradle, a tray, a stool, and two wall racks that I made there, that
come from there. But I don’t have the stamp on them, it was a label, it had a yellow label there. I
never even thought about getting them to put it on there. Because the stool and they tray that I
have, I made on my own time and I made it out of different wood, I put a walnut and a maple,
together in strips. But, I made it on my own time, I made that in about 1955 and that other stuff
there too. That stool, children would come, well people would come but they had children, and
they would play with it, course they would bump it around and since 1955 *laughs* that’s a lot
of playing with, they loosened up some of the legs up there ain’t much I can do about that. Not
too bad, not too bad I don’t think.
KK: When did you make the wall racks?
LP: The wall racks? About the same time, I’d say, course them there I bought them myself,
because I made them. Harold Barb and myself made wall racks, we’re the only ones that made
them. We glued the lumber, we made the wall racks and we made the stools.
VP: When you were making them, sometimes him and the man he was working with, if they
wanted something for themselves they would work on Saturday after they had closed. That’s
how we got so much stuff, others too if they wanted some they’d buy it.
LP: But lazy susans, one man he made, I’ve got pictures here in the paper here, in the paper here
*shuffling paper* Do you want to look at them? This here shows were lazy susans, Stuart Barb,
he’d turn that on his lathe. But, we’d have to glue it and everything and saw it out on the board.
He had a lathe that had a plate on the end of the shaft, it was electric though, I meant it run by
electric motor, he would do it out with a chisel.
VP: I’ll tell you girls, that was a nosy place. When it all was going, running you’d go insane with
all that noise. I don’t know how they did it.
LP: Oh, that theres what we got over there, that’s the magazine cradle. We would drill holes, the
side is a half inch thick. We had to run them through the boards after we glued them up, we’d run
them through this big planer and cut it down to about where you want the thickness. Course, you
just have to run it through there, take just a little off at a time, because if you took too much off it
would tear holes in it and it wouldn’t be no good. *shuffling paper* There’s another page here,
*shuffling paper* if I can find it. *laughs* Oh, that’s just reading there, that’s just reading there.
We made a lot more things than this, it doesn’t have the carpet bench on it. It didn’t have the
wall racks on it that we made. The spoons, we made wooden spoons and forks, Stuart Barb, we
sawed that out of a thick, Harold and me, we’d saw them out of thick boards, about that big.
Course there was a pattern and everything they did with a pattern to cut it out. Then put a thing
on there to shape it and saw it out. Then Stuart, he put it on that lathe and he had that chisel that
he’d run back and forth like that till he cut them out, shape them out. Then after that he’d saw
them out on the band saw and sand them on that big drum sander, shape them up. I don’t have
any of them, I made two of them, a knife and a fork, I had sort of like that there, different colored
wood, I don’t know what happened to them.
KK: What is all that, what is in that paper?
LP: Do you want to read it?
VP: No, you tell them what they are.
LP: This tells about what this is *shuffling paper*
VP: Tell her what the pictures are. Tell her what the pictures are, that’s what she wants you to
tell her.
KK: You can just tell me about the whole paper.
LP: Well, this here paper, somebody made it, the Chamber of Commerce.
VP: The Chamber of Commerce in Mount Jackson
LP: They did this, the Chamber of Commerce, it says in here that they talked to different ones
who worked at Bird Haven. But, some of them that they talked to I knew, but some of them I
didn’t know. Well, I knowed them but not when they worked there - two men that’s in here they
never worked there when I worked there, if they worked there they worked there before I ever
went there. I worked from ’47 till when they closed.
They had in here about the glue wheel, about having there dip down there and pouring that glue
down there and running the boards through it, that’s not so. That there was because the wheel
was so big around that it had to have room for it to come up to where it could come right straight
out from you where you could put the boards straight in. I’ll give you this paper to let you read,
if you want to.
KK: Is there anything else in the paper that they got wrong about Bird Haven?
LP: No, not that I read. *shuffling paper* Then they got here a doll cradle, well that there was a
cradle just like the magazine cradle, more than that. We made it without the dowels inside, the
dividers. That there’s got them dowels in it, it was divided for magazines cradle, this would lift
them out. Harold and I, we glued the boards, we planed them, we sanded them, then put them
together. We drilled holes on the sides, on the ends, we drilled holes in to put screws in. It was
put together with screws in the end pieces. We sanded them, after it was all together we sanded
them on a big drum sander. I’d hold it here on my chest, felt like rubbed the hide off, I’d put
them on there and rounded them. Well, there’s one, we rounded them there and counter sunk
where we’d put the screws in, we’d put them together. When I first went there I think we used
just a screw driver like that but then later on they got some that were ratchet screw driver. We
put a screw down in there like that, it went pretty good, but sometimes it was pretty hard. But, I
enjoyed it, I liked working with wood, make pretty things. I did some of that since I’ve retired,
up until a couple years ago, I had to quit. I had a little building out here and I had a couple things
in and I made things.
VP: He made bird houses and he made churches, like the churches around here.
LP: Since I retired I made replicas of seven churches, I have one of where we go to church, St.
John’s in Edinburg. I made seven I know. I often wished that I had taken pictures of the things
that I made since I retired, but, I never thought about it. I made church bird houses, shaped like a
church. I made a lot of things shaped like a church, I made some little banks shaped like a
church. Oh, I made, what’s that called, with them covers a crossed, you got them upstairs. You
lay them covers across
VP: I can’t think of what you made that you got a cover across it.
LP: No, it’s about this tall.
VP: Honey, I don’t know what you’re thinking about.
LP: We just talked about it the other day, you forgetful as I am.
VP: No, but I can’t think of it.
LP: It’s about this wide and it had them strips of wood that goes through there and its up here.
VP: Oh, the magazine racks.
LP: No.
VP: Not magazine rack but quilt racks.
LP: Yeah, I made some of them.
KK: Did you use all the things that you have learned at Bird Haven to build stuff once you
retired?
LP: Did I do what?
KK: Use the skills that you learned at Bird Haven, or did you kind of figure it out?
LP: Yeah, I used them. But, then somethings I just figured out by myself. Just like I got a thing
out there that we saw somewhere that you can put VP: I’ll show it to you
LP: Yeah, she’ll show it you, but we saw it somewhere and my wife said she’d like to have one
and I said well you draw it and I’ll make it. So, she did and I made it and we hung it up there on
the wall out there. It holds cook books and stuff, there’s a little drawer.
VP: It holds books for. We were out one day and I said I want one like that to hold books and he
said well if you draw me a picture. I’ll show it to you, that’s where my cooks books are.
KK: Were there anything’s like the fire that made people leave Bird Haven, or changed?
LP: Yeah, when they had the fire we couldn’t work. So we worked, some of us, we worked in
the orchard picking apples until they got things built back up. I had a little ladder when I went to
the orchard, well they have ladders. There was one there that was narrow at the bottom as it was
at the top. I was up in there and I had a bag of apples hanging here and I was putting apples in
and that ladder turned like that and I come down through and I fell over a limb. The bag went on
one side and me on the other and I *laughs* I think I busted some ribs. That laid me out for a
long while from picking apples.
KK: How long was Bird Haven shut down for the fire?
LP: Oh, I don’t have no idea. Couple months anyway, I don’t know, I never did keep a count of
it really. We was out work until they got it back on with the blocks and stuff. They had to move
the machinery. They tore down that old barn then, that three story building as far as I know is
probably still there, them old block buildings too I guess, I don’t know. But, I’m sure they still
are, but I don’t know what shape they’re in.
VP: But we’re going back one day, girls, were going to see it.
LP: But then, where the dry kiln was and the boiler room, that didn’t burn, so that might still be
there because it had a metal roof on it. ‘Cept they built these block building in one place and they
built onto that part. Then they built another over on the same lot but not right against one
another.
VP: They had hole, somebody working for them back there LP: If she wants to talk she should talk up loud, shouldn’t she? *laughs*
VP: No, I should not, I don’t want that going on there.
KK: Do you know why the guy wanted to shut it down? Or wanted to stop you all making stuff?
LP: No, he didn’t work there, he just *laughs* he didn’t do anything really, but just -
VP: He was a step son LP: I don’t know. Later on they told me that he’d become a judge in Harrisonburg, but he’s not
living anymore. I seen him on 81 one time and he had a Studebaker Car. I was coming from
Woodstock where I went to go to work after I was working for the school, working on the
maintenance. I was coming south on 81 and this car passed me and he motioned for me to pull
over. I seen who it was and I pulled over and he said if you ever need a good lawyer or judge
well let me know *laughs*. I didn’t really want to, but I didn’t have to have him anyway. I’d
been afraid to have him anyway when he messed up that Bird Haven job.
KK: Did you ever have to fix any of the equipment in the shop? Did it ever break?
LP: Oh, yeah. The band saw blade tore sometimes, one time it tore and I cut my finger here on
the knuckle. See that one I can pull that up there, but that one I can’t pull it up any further. Cut
the ligaments there, had to have some clamps put on it. One time I ran my thumb in the rip saw,
that kind of hurt too *laughs*. I was pushing a board through and it flew someway, it was so
quick that I didn’t have time to think about it really.
KK: Were there ever any other accidents in Bird Haven?
LP: Never anything more than that, couple little things.
KK: Was the work physically hard?
LP: Hard? Well carrying that lumber was very hard, because you went down to the dry kiln and
we carried it up to that barn. You’d have to carry it on your shoulder and then if it had two-inch
stuff then we’d carry that he’d get one end, maybe it was twelve or fourteen-foot long. He’d
carry one end and I’d get on the other end and we’d carry them boards up. We’d use that for
carpet benches, we did the same to glue them together, the same way that we did the other stuff.
We ripped it and everything. That was the hardest really, we’d carry it up to that old barn. After
they built them block buildings onto that part that was left, the dry kiln and the furnace room,
they built on to that right there and we could just go out and go around the corner and get the
boards out of the dry kiln. Then didn’t have to carry it so far.
KK: How far was the distance that you had to carry it?
LP: Before that? When the old barn was still there? Well, about from here over to that house
over there. We carried it over our shoulder. Course I wasn’t but twenty-three years old then when
I first started *laughs* and I was only so much older fourteen years later.
KK: How long had you worked, you worked at an orchard before you started before at Bird
Haven?
LP: Couple years I worked on a farm, I grew up on a farm, until I got married. Well, after we got
married, we got married the next day after I become nineteen. I married that lovely woman over
there for seventy-four years *laughs*
VP: *laughs*
LP: But I still worked on a farm until I was about twenty-one, then I worked in an orchard after
that for couple years then, about two or three years, then I started working at Bird Haven.
KK: Did you move to be closer or did you just stay where you were living?
LP: No, I stayed where I was at. We lived in Mt. Clifton before we bought here. I drove from Mt.
Clifton to Bird Haven for a while too and that there was a little further. It was further than Basye,
I mean further than “McHaney”. It was maybe twelve no, about ten miles I reckon from Mt.
Clifton to there. I don’t know how many years before it was closed, not too many years in Mt.
Clifton though. I’d pick up some guys and take them along, well one man that worked there for
two years at the end. The last two years he did the routing because the man that was routing out
the trays in the boiler room where Barb had a lathe. His name was Will Hepner and he was
working there routing out trays when I went to work there and then he worked until he retired
two years before it closed. George Miller, his wife had worked there when I went there but she
quit about two years before it closed. Her husband got on and he routed out the trays for the last
two years. Betty Donner was one of the girls that did the, helped to do the, she is still living, she
was one of them that helped to put the finishing on the, the stain and lacquer on the things that
we made. She would work in the packing place wrap them and ship them out, ship the things
away. But, she is still living, far as I know she is about the only one that worked there that is still
living. Her name is Betty Donner.
KK: Were you close with or friends with the other people who worked at Bird Haven?
LP: Was a close with what?
KK: Were you close with or friends with the other people who worked at Bird Haven?
LP: Friendly.
KK: Friendly?
LP: Yeah I was friendly with them yeah *laughs*. I knew about all of them, well I knew them
after I got there *laughs*. I didn’t know some of them before I ever went there though I knew
them after I got there *laughs*.
KK: Did you LP: Yeah?
KK: What were you going to say?
LP: I don’t know *laughs*
VP: *laughs*
LP: I’m waiting for you.
KK: *laughs* What was your favorite part about working there?
LP: My favorite part? Going home I guess *laughs*
VP: *laughs*
LP: I don’t know, I just like to work with wood, that’s all. Make things, nice. I liked being with
my co-workers and all.
VP: Girls I think you got his whole life’s history *laughs*
LP: What do you go to ask up there young lady?
All: *laughs*
Emily Schmitt (ES): This is all Kati’s interview
KK: Well are there more stories that you have about Bird Haven? Did anything funny ever
happen there?
LP: Oh, I don’t know, not that I know of really. I can’t think of.
VP: The Clarks, when they owned it, I think they had some wild parties out there. *laughs* But
none of those boys were ever invited.
LP: Yeah the Clarks that owned it, they, I guess they did, I don’t know I didn’t get to any of
them, the parties. They had parties but they didn’t bother us at all, so Bernie Clark owned it but
he stayed, there was a little creek that went through there and he stayed on his house. He would
take his wife and they would go over to Harrisonburg about once a week and get their things that
they needed and somethings they didn’t need *laughs*. But they had good times, I understand
they had good times. Like I say I wasn’t to any of them parties.
KK: Who decided what you guys made there? Who came up with the designs for the pieces that
you guys made?
LP: My boss, Stuart Barb and his son, still lives, his son he’s is younger, he still lives back
around Basye. He’s got a house back there, but he didn’t work there though. Course I knew him
from the time he was a little bitty baby. But he after he grew up he went when he got out of
school and everything he has a sister and another brother, as far as I know, but I don’t know
where they living. Him and his brothers is truck drivers, they hauled, I don’t know – sirens going
off over here.
KK: Did you, like the people who all worked there, did you guys ever get together?
LP: No, we was together enough through the day *laughs* we never got together after that.
KK: Have you, after Bird Haven closed, did you ever see them?
LP: Yeah, I see them every now and then, but not very often.
VP: Like I said they are dead.
LP: Yeah, I see Harold Barb, I’d see him every now and then, and the others. But, we just didn’t
get together after that too much. They would do their thing and I did mine *laughs*
*phone rings*
LP: There goes the telephone.
VP: Oh, gosh. Lynchburg, I’m not going to answer it
LP: Well cut it off.
KK: That’s okay.
VP: We keep getting prank calls.
LP: We get scam calls, calls from scammers.
VP: Wait, because it will go on the answering machine and if they don’t leave anything.
KK: Anything else you want to say about Bird Haven?
LP: No, not that I know of, except that I got to go, I want to go back to Bird Haven before long
and meet the man that owns it now. See what else he got back there yet. I’d like to go. It would
have been a good time in February if I just did it because the weather was real nice all through
February. Not too bad put there now though. But somethings just happened that I didn’t get to
go, that’s all.
KK: What do you hope to see when you go back there?
LP: See what, how things look *laughs* but I understand that the trees, a lot of the trees is cut
down. Not much trees there anymore, it was woods and it was an old dirt road that went down
around turns to go in and out. I don’t know what the road is now. Like I said I don’t know what
kind of buildings is there anymore. He invited me back but I just haven’t got there, course I don’t
think he’s there all the time.
VP: He travels.
LP: He’s got a job that he travels he says. I got his telephone number though and he’s got mine.
VP: I think he must be some kind of salesman, figuring something like that.
LP: I don’t know what he looks like, he don’t know what I look like *laughs*.
KK: Do you know what happened to all of the equipment and stuff after you guys left?
LP: No, I don’t know, I think somebody else owned it before this man did. I heard that the,
bought it after it closed, that he had another shop somewhere else in the county, he was going to
take the things, the planers and saws and equipment somewhere else, but I don’t know what he
left there. I don’t know what he did or what he didn’t. But, I know they left that there glue wheel
there because it would have been hard to handle, to take. Unless they tore it all apart, they could
have tore it apart, they’d be unable to handle it I think.
Sorry I can’t help you any better.
KK: No, you helped us so much. I didn’t know a lot about that stuff, so, that was great.
LP: Well, I hope it goes alright with you.
KK: Oh, that will be great, it’s going to be a really good, really good source of information for
our class.
LP: Well it was really nice to see you girls too, talking with you, and you can come back to see
us anytime.
KK: Oh, yeah, I would love to hear about how your trip to Bird Haven goes, you will have to let
me know when you guys go.
VP: We’ll tell you what we see down there.