[AT] sickle grinder

[Indiana Robinson]

On 14 Mar 2005 at 11:03, charlie hill wrote:

> Hi Larry,
> 
> Here in my office I have the cobbler kit my granddaddy used to make shoes 
> for my mom, her brothers and sisters and some of her cousins.  It is a 
> Purfoco Economical Cobbler kit #2011  according to the letters stamped into 
> the wooden box it came in.
> 
> I'm pretty proud of it as well as all of the tools I have that came from my 
> dad and granddad.  I know you feel the same way.
> 
> Charlie



	I tend to place a lot of importance on such things, more as I get older. I have most of 
my cobblers tools yet even though I sold most of the big machinery. I have the large 
"last jack" that my father started on back in the 1920's sitting in my living room. He 
worked on it as a teenager and he was in the trade for 18 years before he started 
farming. We acquired it from the owner of that shop (second owner) when that owner 
retired. I used it in my shops for over twenty years. I later bought several others but 
it was always the main workstation. It is chest high, rather complex in the center tilt 
section and weighs a "lot"... I hope it can now stay in the family and be passed on. I 
doubt though that many of my descendants will become cordwainers.  :-)    I also have a 
good number of his small hand tools as well as the many I collected myself over the more 
than 20 years I was a shoemaker (and farmer and...).
	Son Scott now has received the collection of wooden molding planes that his ggg-
grandfather used to make part of his living (a lot of tradesmen also farmed in the old 
days) and he had used them to make all of the trim in a house he built for himself and 
lived in for many years near here.
	I have a Kentucky percussion long rifle I prize that was made by one of my gg-
grandfathers who was a gun maker by trade. He also did some locksmithing and farmed 400 
acres. His father was also a gunmaker and one of his sons was a gunmaker. I have a 
percussion pistol that another gg-grandfather had carried in the early 1800's.
	I have quite a few of my maternal grandfather's machinist tools and I have the vise and 
grinder he had in his home shop. He was a toolmaker in the machine shops at the IHC 
factory in Indy for many years during the 1940's and 1950's. I also have saved some of 
the hand tools he made for his own use (some were stolen in his later years). Yesterday 
and today I was setting some treated post for the doors in a horse stall and digging the 
holes with a two handle post hole digger he bought new about 1950. I treat them carefully 
and enjoy knowing that we have shared using this quality tool. Oh, and the front door in 
my house was the front door to the home they lived in for their last 40 years.   :-)   In 
my safe is a double barrel Ithaca 12 gauge that he bought new in the 1930's and prized 
very highly. I probably prize it even more... I have many fond memories of our walking 
these fields together when he came here to hunt with me when I was a teenager. I also 
have his .410 that I usually carried to hunt then.
	Some of this stuff I have carefully marked as to past ownership. A few of the markings 
may have reduced the dollar value a bit but the dollar value is meaningless to me and 
hopefully my descendants.   :-)
	I have tons of other stuff both large and small that I have obtained to see that it 
stayed in the family and that I can pass on. Stuff from my grandmother's piano to my 
grandfathers pipe. A tiny working cap pistol about an inch long that my maternal 
grandfather received as a boy. I have copies of receipts where he had a 1936 Chrysler 
repaired ( a fender cost him $3). I have the large cast iron cistern ring and lid that 
came from the house Diana grew up in. I bought the high chair that her g-grandfather 
made. I saved the sign from her parents mailbox from the farm. Son Scott has one of the 
front porch post. I have several trunks of small stuff from now gone family members.
	Gee, I wonder why I don't have any empty space...   ;-)


-- 
"farmer", Esquire
At Hewick Midwest
      Wealth beyond belief, just no money...

Paternal Robinson's here by way of Norway (Clan Gunn), Scottish Highlands,
Cleasby Yorkshire England, Virginia, Kentucky then Indiana. Here 100 years 
before the revolution.


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net